| Abstract |
In May of 1997 the author delivered the Empson Lectures at Cambridge University under the title "Authority and Transgression in Opera." He planned to publish the lectures with Cambridge but never finished the manuscript. Some portions of the lectures were published in journals, about 20 years ago.The lecture typescripts are preserved in the Edward W. Said Papers at Columbia. The Edward W. Said Estate and the editor have collaborated on the proposal for this book. The typescripts require minor editing, and an introduction, which the editor plans to write. The introduction will explain the background of the lectures and position the book within Said's work on music and postcolonial theory. In four case studies on Cosi fan tutte, Fidelio, Les Troyens, and Die Meistersinger, he deftly renders these operas more problematic and interesting than they have come to seem, thanks to his attention to both the works' historical context and the political possibilities open to contemporary interpreters. He questions the extent to which these operas are predetermined by the "authority" of their historical context, or whether they instead "transgress" their initial context and maintain their agency within contemporary society. These questions are central to the author's work at large, including in The World, The Text, and the Critic (1983), Culture and Imperialism (1993), and Humanism and Democratic Criticism (CUP 2004), which analyzes the political context of the arts while also arguing that artworks can occupy a relatively autonomous and potentially subversive position within society. "Authority and Transgression in Opera" foregrounds these questions about art and society, perhaps more than any of his other books. The author analyzes how these operas negotiate the power structures in which they operate by mirroring their historical social position to the portrayal of authority and transgression in the works themselves. He argues that the historical themes in these operas remain relevant today, and he appreciates stagings that highlight the contemporary resonances in these works. |
