Divas and Schollars. Performing Italian Opera - Philip Gossett

Bound / 675 pag.

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Divas and Schollars. Performing Italian Opera
Divas and Schollars. Performing Italian Opera

Composer(s):

Publisher(s):

Publishernumber:

0226304825

Instrument(s):

Overige informatie:

675 pag.

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Product description

Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett's personal experiences of triumphant-and even failed-performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas.

Gossett begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations opera scholars and opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design.

Throughout this extensive and passionate work, Gossett enlivens his history with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro. The result is a book that will enthrall both aficionados of Italian opera and newcomers seeking a reliable introduction to it-in all its incomparable grandeur and timeless allure.

Content

  • Preface
  • PROLOGUE
  • 1. Mare o monti: Two Summer Festivals
  • PART I - KNOWING THE SCORE
  • 2. Setting the Stage
  • 3. Transmission versus Tradition
  • 4. Scandal and Scholarship
  • 5. The Romance of the Critical Edition
  • INTERMEZZO
  • 6. Scholars and Performers: The Case of Semiramide
  • PART II - PERFORMING THE OPERA
  • 7. Choosing a Version
  • 8. Serafin's Scissors
  • 9. Ornamenting Rossini
  • 10. Higher and Lower: Transposing Bellini and
  • Donizetti
  • 11. Words and Music: Texts and Translations
  • 12. Instruments Old and New
  • 13. From the Score to the Stage
  • CODA
  • 14. Two Kings Head North: Italian Opera in
  • Scandinavia
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index to Operas and Performances
  • General Index

Productdetail

Composer(s):

Publisher(s):

Publishernumber:

0226304825

Instrument(s):

ISBN:

9780226304823

Number:

182330

Overige informatie:

675 pag.

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