Music and the theater : an introduction to opera / [by] Reinhard G. Pauly.

Author/creator Pauly, Reinhard G.
Format Book
Publication InfoEnglewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice-Hall, Inc., ©1970.
Descriptionxiv, 462 pages : illustrations, music, portraits ; 26 cm
Subjects

Contents Part one: Opera as a special kind of drama. The impact of music drama. Musical drama and "realism" ; Music as a regulating force ; The prompter ; The libretto ; Musical requirements: composing an opera -- Opera production. Choosing a cast ; Operatic singing ; Operatic acting ; Chorus, orchestra, ballet ; Operatic conducting ; The stage director ; Stage design ; Rehearsing an opera ; Opera performance conventions ; The strengths of opera -- Part two: The changing styles in musical drama. Music and drama before 1750. Ancient Greece ; Middle ages and Renaissance ; Early Baroque opera ; Monteverdi's Orfeo ; Later Baroque opera ; Dramatic and musical style ; Opera seria and opera buffa ; Vigorous operatic life in Italy ; Performance practices ; Opera in France ; Opera in England ; Purcell's Dido and Aeneas ; Handel's operas ; Julius Caesar -- Classic opera. Gluck and operatic reform ; Orfeo ed Euridice ; Mozart's operas ; Don Giovanni ; The Magic Flute ; Haydn's operas -- Early nineteenth-century opera. Political, social, and musical changes ; Beethoven's Fidelio ; Rossini's The barber of Seville ; Early Romanticism and opera ; Weber's Der Freischütz -- Mid-nineteenth-century opera. Romantic opera in Italy ; Bellini and Donizetti ; France ; Meyerbeer and grand opera ; Nationalism and realism ; Wagner's The Flying Dutchman ; Verdi's La Traviata -- Wagnerian music drama. Wagner's theories and practices ; The "total work of art" ; Bayreuth ; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg -- The later nineteenth century. Realism and naturalism ; Bizet's Carmen ; Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov ; Verdi's Falstaff ; Opera in nineteenth-century America -- Naturalism in musical drama: verismo. Characteristics of verismo ; Veristic operas ; Puccini's Tosca -- Impressionism and musical drama. Impressionism in painting ; Symbolism in literature: Mallarmé ; Impressionism in music ; Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande -- Two operas by Richard Strauss. The tone poems as preparation for the operas ; Salome ; Der Rosenkavalier -- Expressionism and the literary climate of the twenties. Germany after the First World War ; Expressionism in painting ; Berg's Wozzeck -- New concepts of staging. Away from realism ; Electricity and imaginative lighting ; Symbolism and surrealism ; Felsenstein and Musiktheater -- Neoclassic opera. Neoclassic or Neo-Baroque? ; Opera's affinity for classical subjects ; Stravinsky and Neoclassicism ; The Rake's Progress -- Two American operas. The appreciation of Americana ; American opera composers ; Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe ; Menotti's operas ; The Consul -- Motion pictures and television. Music in the age of the silent film ; Is film music background music? ; Scriptwriter, director, and composer ; The opera film ; Opera and television -- The place of opera in modern society. Europe ; Effects of World War II ; The star system in the jet age ; America ; Private vs. public support ; Changing audiences ; Opera in English ; Opera workshops ; Civic opera groups ; Summer opera ; Opera on records ; A look to the future -- Glossary.
Abstract This work is intended for the newcomer to opera. There are analyses of specific works such as: Orfeo, The Magic Flute, Barber of Seville, Flying Dutchman, La Traviata, Die Meisterdsinger von Nurnberg, Boris Godunov, Tosca, Pelleas et Melisande, Salome, Rosenkavlier, Wozzeck, Rake's Progress, and Ballad of Baby Doe.
Local noteLittle-76725--305131022037R
LCCN 77098457
ISBN0136070027
ISBN9780136070023

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