Evenings at the Opera - An Exploration of the Basic Repertoire

by Jeffrey Langford

Overview

B&W photos throughout

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574671872
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/01/2011
Series:	Amadeus
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey Langford (New York, NY) is Assistant Dean for Doctoral Studies and Chair of the Music History Department at Manhattan School of Music, where he has taught courses in the history of opera for nearly 30 years. He also frequently presents pre-concert lectures at the Metropolitan Opera. Professor Langford has written articles on the operas of Verdi and Berlioz, and he is the author of the annotated bibliography Hector Berlioz: A Guide to Research (Garland Press).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part I The Evolution of Comic Opera

1 Mozart, the Serious Comic Don Giovanni 3

2 The Renewal of Comic Opera Rossini's La Cenerentola 17

3 The Final Frontier Verdi's Falstaff 31

Part II Bel Canto and Beyond

4 The Rebirth of Italian Opera Seria Rossini's Semiramide 47

5 Hybrid Opera Bellini's I Puritani 65

6 The Beginning of the End Verdi's Nabucco 81

Part III Italian Opera in Revolution

7 New Directions in Italian Opera Verdi's Rigoletto 97

Part IV Opera as Autobiography

8 A Case of Self-Salvation Beethoven's Fidelio 119

9 When Is Opera Not Opera? Berlioz's La damnation de Faust 135

Part V Shakespearean Opera

10 Rewriting Shakespeare Gounod's Roméo et Juliette 155

11 Adaptation and Form in Late-Nineteenth-Century Opera Verdi's Otello 173

Part VI From Literature to Opera

12 A Hero's Transformation Gounod's Faust 193

13 Two (of the Three) Manons Massenet vs. Puccini 211

Part VII Symphonic Opera

14 Wagner, Strauss, and the Question of Operatic Form 229

Part VIII French Grand Opera

15 A Foreigner's View Verdi's Don Carlos 245

16 A Misjudged Masterpiece Berlioz's Les Troyens 259

Part IX Verismo Opera

17 A Sociological Interpretation Bizet's Carmen 275

18 The Not-So-"Shabby Little Shocker" Puccini's Tosca 289

Part X Fairy-Tale Opera

19 The (Un)solved Riddle Puccini's Turanadot 303

Part XI The Influence of Wagner

20 The Exorcism of Wagner Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande 321

Part XII Approaches to Twentieth-Century Opera

21 Looking Ahead While Looking Back: Bartók, Berg, and Britten 339

Glossary 365

Bibliography 369

Index 371