The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-century Opera

by Edited by Anthony R. DelDonna , Pierpaolo Polzonetti

• ISBN13: 9780521695381
• ISBN10: 0521695384
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-31
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Reflecting a wide variety of approaches to eighteenth-century opera, this Companion brings together leading international experts in the field to provide a valuable reference source. Viewing opera as a complex and fascinating form of art and social ritual, rather than reducing it simply to music and text analysis, individual essays investigate aspects such as audiences, architecture of the theaters, marketing, acting style, and the politics and strategy of representing class and gender. Overall, the volume provides a synthesis of well established knowledge, reflects recent research on eighteenth-century opera, and stimulates further research. The reader is encouraged to view opera as a cultural phenomenon that can reveal aspects of our culture, both past and present. Eighteenth-century opera is experiencing continuing critical and popular success through innovative and provoking productions world-wide, and this Companion will appeal to opera goers as well as to students and teachers of this key topic.

Table of Contents

Chronology of relevant events in eighteenth-century opera

The Making of Opera

Opera as process

Aria as drama

Ensembles and finales

Metastasio: the dramaturgy of eighteenth-century heroic opera

Roles and acting

Ballet

Orchestra and voice in eighteenth-century Italian opera

To look again (at Don Giovanni) Alessandra Campana

National Styles and Genres

Genre and form in French opera

Genre and form in German opera

Opera in eighteenth-century England: English opera, masques, ballad operas

Opera in Naples

Portugal and Brazil Manuel

Opera, genre, and context in Spain and its American colonies

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