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This article amplifies current understanding of the Afro-diasporic composer-violinist Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-George, by exploring his 1770s musical career in relation to Mozart. Director of the progressive Concert des amateurs during Mozart’s visit to Paris in 1778, Bologne was one of the leading exponents of a virtuosic style of symphonie concertante writing that became a touchstone for Mozart following his return to provincial Salzburg. A comparison of the musical spheres inhabited by Bologne and Mozart nuances our understanding of developments in ‘concertante’ composition and the performative dimensions of the medium, enabling a broader, more inclusive history to emerge.

As the first Italian opera to grace the stage of the new opera house at Eszterháza, Lo speziale (1768) afforded Kapellmeister Haydn, and the singers and orchestral musicians under his direction, the opportunity to revel in comedic performance. The revised libretto translated well to the rural court of Prince Nicolaus, whose tastes and cultural patronage extended to opera buffa. As Matthew Head has argued (Cambridge Companion, 2005), Sempronio, the apothecary of the title whose fascination with the exotic makes him an easy target for duping, is also a harbinger of difference. And this \"difference,\" I contend, is the sign of Sempronio's main character flaw — his Jewishness. Like other theatrical stereotypes on the mid-eighteenth-century stage, Jews came with a recognizable set of characteristic traits, all of which could readily be exploited in comedic contexts. How the apothecary's profession and characterization, including aspects of voice, body and gesture, are linked to Jewish representation, is explored in this article through the analysis of a couple of representative scenes from the opera, among them the final Turkish scene, in which a confrontation between Orientalist Others creates semiotic overload. By characterizing the apothecary as Jewish, Haydn was able to demonstrate his complicity in the ideological agenda operative under the terms of his employment — i.e. that of re-inscribing the needs, desires and dominating authority of Prince Nicolaus. In Lo speziale, the prince's penchant for theatrical works featuring Jewish characters and caricatures was transferred from Wanderntruppe to Operntruppe.

This co-authored paper examines how theories about the effects of technology on society, developed by communications theorist Marshall McLuhan in the mid-twentieth century, are represented in Gian Carlo Menotti’s double bill, The Telephone and The Medium (1946-47). Many of the themes raised by the composer-librettist resonate with McLuhan’s research on the technological extension of human faculties in the post-Guttenberg era. Compounded in updated university productions informed by postmodern readings, stagings of Menotti’s operas by savvy directors tap into contemporary concerns about the role and repercussions of technology in society today. This collaborative project involves a professor, a graduate teaching assistant, and seven undergraduate students (Kyra Assaad, Anna-Julia David, Adam Kasztenny, Patrick Kelly, Duncan Martin, Elliott McMurchy, and Kevin Matthew Wong) in a course entitled The World of Opera. Students were required to attend a university opera production of The Telephone and The Medium and then write a review of the production engaging selected writings by Marshall McLuhan and two later theorists of contemporary technology—Giles Slade and Sherry Turkle. The resulting paper represents a compilation and distillation of the student reviews, edited and expanded collaboratively by the course instructors. While past theoretical and critical engagement with Menotti’s operas has been slim, together we argue that updated productions of Menotti’s double bill resonate profoundly with McLuhan’s positive analyses of new modalities of communication. Riding a wave of renewed interest in the social and psychological impact of communication technologies in our contemporary world, innovative stage productions of Menotti’s double bill resonate with new audiences in stimulating and thought-provoking ways. Exemplified with audio-visual clips from the University of Toronto Opera.

[Handel]'s [Alcina] (London, 1735) is based on an anonymous libretto that recounts the story of a sorceress and her bewitched lover as depicted in cantos vi and vii in Ludovico Ariosto's sixteenth-century epic poem [Orlando Furioso]. As Domenico Pietropaolo outlines in his article 'Alcina in Arcadia,' the opera retells the story of the young knight Ruggiero, who, in falling under the spell of the bewitching Alcina on her enchanted island, temporarily forsakes his military calling and his beloved Bradamante, only to learn of his betrayal of society and of his lover when the true vagaries of Alcina's desert realm are revealed to him through the magic ring of his tutor. But the story is also that of the downfall of a headstrong sorceress who loses all, including her kingdom and her beloved Ruggiero, after having fallen victim to the powers of true love. Like Oedipus, hers is a fate of ostracization. Indeed, as the Faculty of Music's production of Alcina emphasized, the sorceress's exotic isle is a barren and forlorn place, its famed fantasy being just that - a magical illusion. Confronted with a stark and empty stage, we witness from the outset the depravity of Alcina's world and her vainglorious ambitions, acknowledging what a love-blind Ruggiero can only admit after having the scales removed from his eyes. In the exquisitely simple 'Verdi prati' (Verdant fields; see Harris, example 1), Ruggiero's touching aria of reformation tinged with nostalgia and regret, the knight, having been released from Alcina's ensnarement, sees the desolate landscape in all its decrepitude and ugliness, finally coming to terms with his errant ways. As in Oedipus Rex, extravagant Dionysian impulses submit to Apollonian rationalism and control as the distraught hero chooses a new life's direction. Through knowledge and insight, Ruggiero and Oedipus are forced to confront their innermost fears and embark on a different course, even to the point of electing the fate of permanent blindness in the case of Oedipus.

Clark briefly traces the origins and development of the European Union, outlines the path towards official ratification of Beethoven's \"Ode to Joy\" as \"The European Anthem\" and examines the EU'c choice of anthem from musicological and political perspectives.

Long associated with Haydn's Armida is a set of seven watercolours currently housed in the Esterhazy collection of the Sze'che'nyi National Library in Budapest. Attributed to Pietro Travaglia, whose sketchbook of scenery and sets for unidentified operatic productions was discovered in the same library after World War II, these undated and unsigned watercolours fit uncomfortably with Haydn's setting. This article refutes any attribution of the watercolours to Haydn's opera, and instead traces the seven costume designs to the Armida setting by Antonio Salieri (illus.i) of a libretto by Marco Coltellini, which premiered in Vienna on 2 June 1771.