The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-century Opera

by Edited by Mervyn Cooke

• ISBN13: 9780521783934
• ISBN10: 0521783933
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This Companion celebrates the extraordinary riches of the twentieth-century operatic repertoire in a collection of specially commissioned essays written by a distinguished team of academics, critics and practitioners. Beginning with a discussion of the century's vital inheritance from late-romantic operatic traditions in Germany and Italy, the text embraces fresh investigations into various aspects of the genre in the modern age, with a comprehensive coverage of the work of individual composers from Debussy and Schoenberg to John Adams and Harrison Birtwistle. Traditional stylistic categorizations (including symbolism, expressionism, neo-classicism and minimalism) are reassessed from new critical perspectives, and the distinctive operatic traditions of Continental and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and United States are subjected to fresh scrutiny. The volume includes essays devoted to avant-garde music theatre, operettas and musicals, filmed opera, and ends with a discussion of the position of the genre in today's cultural marketplace.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Notes on the contributors	x
Acknowledgements	xvi
A chronology of twentieth-century operatic premieres
Nigel Simeone	xviii
Part one Legacies	1	(44)
1 Opera in transition
Arnold Whittall	3	(11)
2 Wagner and beyond
John Deathridge	14	(12)
3 Puccini and the dissolution of the Italian tradition
Virgilio Bernardoni	26	(19)
Part two Trends	45	(78)
4 Words and actions
Caroline Harvey	47	(13)
5 Symbolist opera: trials, triumphs, tributaries
Philip Weller	60	(25)
6 Expression and construction: the stage works of Schoenberg and Berg
Alan Street	85	(20)
7 Neo-classical opera
Chris Walton	105	(18)
Part three Topographies	123	(100)
8 France and the Mediterranean
Nigel Simeone	125	(21)
9 Austria and Germany, 1918-1960
Guido Heldt	146	(19)
10 Eastern Europe
Rachel Beckles Willson	165	(16)
11 Russian opera: between modernism and romanticism
Marina Frolova-Walker	181	(16)
12 American opera: innovation and tradition
Elise K. Kirk	197	(12)
13 Opera in England: taking the plunge
Christopher Mark	209	(14)
Part four Directions	223	(118)
14 Music theatre since the 1960's
Robert Adlington	225	(19)
15 Minimalist opera
Arved Ashby	244	(23)
16 Opera and film
Mervyn Cooke	267	(24)
17 Popular musical theatre (and film)
Stephen Bonfield	291	(15)
18 Opera in the marketplace
Nicholas Payne	306	(15)
19 Technology and interpretation: aspects of 'modernism'
Tom Sutcliffe	321	(20)
Works cited	341	(17)
General index	358	(10)
Index of operas	368