Review of Andrew Davis, "Il Trittico," "Turandot," and Puccini's Late Style (Indiana University Press, 2010)

[1] I imagine that most people who enjoy Puccini's operas are familiar with their moments of heightened emotional expression, in which a character sends forth an impassioned release while dramatic time is suspended. Andrew Davis examines how these moments are constructed and how they function within the context of the opera in his book "Il Trittico," "Turandot," and Puccini's Late Style. Davis posits that understanding the dialogue between passages of Romantic lyricism and more dissonant, episodic stretches in these works provides a fruitful path to interpreting drama through the music. He synthesizes a good deal of historical, musical, and dramatic information, showing that what he terms "lyric, Romantic" sections often have specific musical and formal markers, some of which refer to nineteenth-century Italian opera. These sections are especially significant because they shift away from the unmarked, modern style that characterizes much of the rest of each work. It is the withholding of lyric moments that lends them so much interpretive importance and dramatic power. Building upon much analytical and theoretical precedent, Davis makes a compelling case for basing dramatic interpretations on the strategic use of styles in these operas.[2] The introduction and first two chapters of the book establish the theoretical concepts and stylistic attributes that inform Davis's analyses. Chapter one is dedicated to surveying theoretical precedents. Carolyn Abbate's (1989) notion of the "voice-object" is central to Davis's hearings because he posits that the most lyrical, Romantic moments are the ones in which the voice-object is foregrounded and time within the world of the opera is momentarily suspended. Davis is quick to assert that the relationship among Romantic style, foregrounded voice-object, and dramatic expression is complex-there are moments in which the voice-object becomes more important, but the style may not be fully "Romantic." His analyses, though, generally promote the association by identifying passages in which these elements coincide. Further, Davis sees important connections between Abbate's understanding of the availability of "multiple voices" in music and Robert Hatten's (1994) notion of shifting levels of discourse. A principal assertion of Davis's is that an awaited, marked shift to the Romantic style in Puccini's last operas often initiates a shift in the level of discourse, and this shift has interpretive implications for the drama. Also, Hatten's application of markedness theory to musical oppositions is an important foundation for Davis's interpretations.(1) In his analyses, the non-Romantic style is unmarked because it is pervasive while the Romantic style is marked because it is strategically withheld. References to Pucinni's audiences hearing two oppositional styles in Turandot provide historical support for this understanding. Finally, Davis relates the importance of schema theory to his work. The notion that not every attribute associated with a style must be present when a style is evoked is especially important to his assertion that analogues to solita forma models are sometimes in evidence. Although Davis devotes a few pages to describing these typical formal structures from nineteenth-century Italian opera, I imagine that readers unfamiliar with them might need to supplement the information in the book with outside sources.(2) A judicious chart would have gone far in fulfilling that need.[3] The second chapter is devoted solely to defining "Romantic" aspects of musical construction. The term "Romantic" in this context does not necessarily mean "typical nineteenth-century Italian opera style"; musical characteristics perhaps not associated with that genre are included as style elements because they tend to shift the listener's focus to the singing voice.(3) Besides formal and dramatic references to the solita forma,(4) specific techniques in melody, orchestration, harmony and voice leading, and metrical attributes are all considered. …