The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera
By: edited by David Charlton.
Contributors: Charlton, David, 1946-
Series: Cambridge companions to music
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 496
Subjects: Opera.
Description: In this companion, a team of scholars and writers on opera examine those important Romantic operas that embraced the Shakespearean sweep of tragedy, history, love in time of conflict, and the struggle for national self-determination. Rival nations, rival religions, and violent resolutions are common elements, with various social or political groups represented in the form of operatic choruses. The book traces the origins and development of a style created during an increasingly technical age, which exploited the world-renowned skills of Parisian stage-designers, artists, and dancers as well as singers. It analyses in detail the grand operas by Rossini, Auber, Meyerbeer and Halevy, and discusses grand opera in Russia ,Germany, the Czech lands, Italy, Britain, and the Americas.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 470-475) and index.
Table of contents: title: pt. 1. The resourcing of grand operas. The 'machine' and the state / Hervé Lacombe; title: Fictions and librettos / Nicholas White; title: The spectacle of the past in grand opera / Simon Williams; title: The chorus / James Parakilas; title: Dance and dancers / Marian Smith; title: Roles, reputations, shadows : singers at the Opéra, 1828-1849 / Mary Ann Smart.; title: pt. 2. Revaluation and the twenty-first century. Directing grand opera : Rienzi and Guillaume Tell at the Vienna State Opera / David Pountney.; title: pt. 3. Grand operas for Paris. La Muette and her context / Sarah Hibberd; title: Scribe and Auber : constructing grand opera / Herbert Schneider; title: Meyerbeer : Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots / Matthias Brzoska; title: Meyerbeer : Le Prophète and L'Africaine / John H. Roberts; title: The grand operas of Fromental Halévy / Diana R. Hallman; title: From Rossini to Verdi / M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet; title: After 1850 at the Paris Opéra : institution and repertory / Steven Huebner.; title: pt. 4. Transformations of grand opera. Richard Wagner and the legacy of French grand opera / Thomas Grey; title: Grand opera in Russia : fragments of an unwritten history / Marina Frolova-Walker; title: Grand opera among the Czechs / Jan Smaczny; title: Italian opera / Fiamma Nicolodi; title: Grand opera in Britain and the Americas / Sarah Hibberd.