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The Phantom of the Opera
Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great unfinished work, Don Juan Triumphant, is described as breathtakingly beautiful by the one person he allows to hear it; he is an object of pity, whose face has been disfigured from birth, causing him to hide behind a silk mask; and he is hopelessly in love with a young woman whom he can never seriously hope will love him back. At the same time, he a dangerous, menacing figure, lurking in the hidden catacombs beneath the opera house and blackmailing those who will not bow to his whims. He can hear things said in privacy and can create catastrophes that might or might not be the accidents that they seem to be.
Book
Ballet and Opera in the Age of Giselle
Marian Smith recaptures a rich period in French musical theater when ballet and opera were intimately connected. Focusing on the age of Giselle at the Paris Opéra (from the 1830s through the 1840s), Smith offers an unprecedented look at the structural and thematic relationship between the two genres. She argues that a deeper understanding of both ballet and opera--and of nineteenth-century theater-going culture in general--may be gained by examining them within the same framework instead of following the usual practice of telling their histories separately. This handsomely illustrated book ultimately provides a new portrait of the Opéra during a period long celebrated for its box-office successes in both genres. Smith begins by showing how gestures were encoded in the musical language that composers used in ballet and in opera. She moves on to a wide range of topics, including the relationship between the gestures of the singers and the movements of the dancers, and the distinction between dance that represents dancing (entertainment staged within the story of the opera) and dance that represents action. Smith maintains that ballet-pantomime and opera continued to rely on each other well into the nineteenth century, even as they thrived independently. The \"divorce\" between the two arts occurred little by little, and may be traced through unlikely sources: controversies in the press about the changing nature of ballet-pantomime music, shifting ideas about originality, complaints about the ridiculousness of pantomime, and a little-known rehearsal score for Giselle. ?
eBook
Degas at the opâera
Throughout his entire career, from his debut in the 1860s up to his final works post 1900, the Opera formed the focal point of Degas's output. It was his own 'front room'. He explored the theatre's various spaces - auditorium and stage, boxes, foyers and dance studios - and followed those who frequented them: dancers, singers, orchestral musicians, audience members and black-attired patrons lurking in the wings. This closed world presented a microcosm of infinite possibilities, allowing all manner of experimentations: multiple points of view, contrasts of lighting, the study of motion and the precision of movement. This book considers the Opera as a whole, examining not only Degas' passionate relationship with the House and his musical tastes, but also the limitless resources of this marvellous 'toolbox'. The work of a truly great artist offers us a unique portrait of the Paris Opera in the 19th century.
BOOK
The Musical as Drama
Derived from the colorful traditions of vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and operetta, the musical has blossomed into America's most popular form of theater. Scott McMillin has developed a fresh aesthetic theory of this underrated art form, exploring the musical as a type of drama deserving the kind of critical and theoretical regard given to Chekhov or opera. Until recently, the musical has been considered either an \"integrated\" form of theater or an inferior sibling of opera. McMillin demonstrates that neither of these views is accurate, and that the musical holds true to the disjunctive and irreverent forms of popular entertainment from which it arose a century ago. Critics and composers have long held the musical to the standards applied to opera, asserting that each piece should work together to create a seamless drama. But McMillin argues that the musical is a different form of theater, requiring the suspension of the plot for song. The musical's success lies not in the smoothness of unity, but in the crackle of difference. While disparate, the dancing, music, dialogue, and songs combine to explore different aspects of the action and the characters. Discussing composers and writers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Kern, The Musical as Drama describes the continuity of this distinctively American dramatic genre, from the shows of the 1920s and 1930s to the musicals of today.
eBook
Music in the Theater
Well-known for leading audiences to a new appreciation of Verdi as a subtle and elaborate musical thinker, Pierluigi Petrobelli here turns his attention to the intriguing question of how musical theater works. In this collection of lively, penetrating essays, Petrobelli analyzes specific operas, mainly by Verdi, in terms of historical context, musical organization, and dramaturgical conventions.
Originally published in 1995.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
eBook
Waiting for Verdi : Italian opera and political opinion, 1815-1848
\"The name Giuseppe Verdi conjures images of Italians singing opera in the streets and bursting into song at political protests, or even while facing the firing squad. Whereas many of those stories were exaggerated or even invented by later generations, opera--by Verdi, but also by Rossini, Donizetti, and Mercadante--did play a key role in priming Italians to imagine Italy as an independent and unified nation. Capturing what it was like to attend the opera or to join in the music at an aristocratic salon, Waiting for Verdi shows that the moral dilemmas, emotional reactions, and journalistic polemics sparked by these performances set new horizons for what Italians could think, feel, say, and write. Among the lessons taught by this music were that rules enforced by artistic tradition could be broken, that opera or ballet could jolt the spectator into intense feeling as well as edify, and that Italy could be in the vanguard of stylistic and technical innovation, rather than clinging to the glories of centuries past. More practically, theatrical performances showed spectators that political change really was possible, making the newly engaged spectator in the opera house into an actor on the political stage\"--Provided by publisher.
BOOK
The Sounds of Paris in Verdi's La traviata
How did Paris and its musical landscape influence Verdi's La traviata? In this book, Emilio Sala re-examines La traviata in the cultural context of the French capital in the mid-nineteenth century. Verdi arrived in Paris in 1847 and stayed for almost two years: there, he began his relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi and assiduously attended performances at the popular theatres, whose plays made frequent use of incidental music to intensify emotion and render certain dramatic moments memorable to the audience. It is in one of these popular theatres that Verdi probably witnessed one of the first performances of Dumas fils' La Dame aux camélias, which became hugely successful in 1852. Making use of primary source material, including unpublished musical works, journal articles and rare documents and images, Sala's close examination of the incidental music of La Dame aux camélias - and its musical context - offers an invaluable interpretation of La traviata's modernity.
eBook
Des petits rats et des hommes La mise à l’épreuve de l’identité sexuée des apprentis danseurs
À partir d’une enquête menée auprès des élèves de l’école de danse de l’Opéra de Paris et de leurs familles, l’article interroge les trajectoires des jeunes garçons dans un devenir de danseur professionnel. Parce que la pratique de la danse classique est considérée comme une pratique « féminine », les garçons qui s’y engagent se trouvent bien souvent dans une situation qui conduit à des mises en cause de leur identité sexuée. L’article montre ce que l’entrée dans la carrière de danseur doit à un travail sur les identités sexuées et sexuelles qui relève des conditions sociales et familiales mais aussi de l’action des différentes sphères de socialisation. Of Petits rats and Men. The Trouble with Boys’ Ballet Students Based on a study about Paris Opera Ballet students and their families, this article questions the role of gender to understand how boys become ballet dancers. Because classical ballet is considered a girl’s activity, young boys engaged in professionnel ballet school are in a complex situation : on the one hand they are facing social stigma related to the transgression of the gender order, on the other, they take advantage of their atypical calling. The research shows that responding to a dancer calling requires to negociate the gender identity for which social and familial conditions play a decisive role.
Journal Article
Offenbach, Wagner, Nietzsche: the Polemics of Opera
By the early 1870s, the term ‘filth’ had become Wagner’s shorthand for Offenbach. He attacked his fellow composer both publicly and privately and sought to establish a polarity between the two, confining Offenbach to the realm of frivolous and materialistic popular folk culture while casting his own work as exemplary of the new German spirit. Laurence Senelick’s close analysis of Wagner’s writings, including his notorious 1869 essay ‘Jewishness in Music’, shows this critique to be fuelled by jealousy, cultural imperialism, and his growing anti-Semitism. Nietzsche is included here as a counterpoint, challenging his former mentor and celebrating Offenbach as the exemplar of Jewish genius. Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory at Tufts University and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most recent books include Soviet Theater: A Documentary History (2014, with Sergei Ostrovsky) and the second, enlarged edition of A Historical Dictionary of Russian Theatre (2015). This article is taken from his forthcoming The Offenbach Century: His Influence on Modern Culture (Cambridge University Press).
Journal Article