Title: Opera in theory and practice, image and myth /
Authors: Bianconi, Lorenzo; Pestelli, Giorgio.
Date: 2003
Publisher: University of Chicago Press,
Physical description: 456 p., [44 p.] of plates : ill., facsims., music ; 24 cm.
Language: English
LC classification: M
Abstract: "This sixth volume in the series centers on the sociological and critical aspects of opera in Italy, considering the art in the context of an Italian literary and cultural canon rarely revealed in English and American studies. In its six chapters, contributors survey critics' changing attitudes toward opera over several centuries, trace the evolution of formal conventions among librettists, explore the historical relationships between opera and Italian literature, and examine opera's place in Italian popular and national culture. In perhaps the volume's most striking contribution, German scholar Carl Dahlhaus offers his most important statement on the dramaturgy of opera."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Poetics and Polemics / Renato di Benedetto -- The Dramaturgy of Italian Opera / Carl Dahlhaus -- The Libretto and Its Functions -- The Theatrical Dynamic -- Metrical and Formal Organization / Paolo Fabbri -- Opera and Italian Literature / Marzio Pieri -- The Reasons -- The Effects -- The Dissemination and Popularization of Opera / Roberto Leydi -- The Myth of Popularity -- Opera and Folk Culture -- Opera outside the Opera House -- Opera in Italian National Culture / Giovanni Morelli.
Subject headings (LCSH): Opera--Italy--Dramaturgy.; Opera--Italy.; Opera--Social aspects--Italy.