Author: Susan McClary
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521398978
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Bizet's Carmen is probably the best known opera of the standard repertoire, yet its very familiarity often prevents us from approaching it with the seriousness it deserves. This handbook explores the opera in a number of contexts, bringing to the surface the controversies over gender, race, class and musical propriety that greeted its premiere and that have been rekindled by the recent spate of film versions. Beginning with a study of the Mérimée story by Peter Robinson and an examination of the social tensions in nineteenth-century France that inform both that story and the opera, the book traces the latter through its genesis and reception. The central core of the book presents a close reading of the opera that offers new interpretive possibilities. The handbook concludes with discussions of four films based on the opera: Carmen Jones and the versions of Carmen by Carlos Saura, Peter Brook, and Francesco Rosi. The volume contains a bibliography, music examples, and a synopsis.
Carmen
Author: Susan McClary
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521398978
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Bizet's Carmen is probably the best known opera of the standard repertoire, yet its very familiarity often prevents us from approaching it with the seriousness it deserves. This handbook explores the opera in a number of contexts, bringing to the surface the controversies over gender, race, class and musical propriety that greeted its premiere and that have been rekindled by the recent spate of film versions. Beginning with a study of the Mérimée story by Peter Robinson and an examination of the social tensions in nineteenth-century France that inform both that story and the opera, the book traces the latter through its genesis and reception. The central core of the book presents a close reading of the opera that offers new interpretive possibilities. The handbook concludes with discussions of four films based on the opera: Carmen Jones and the versions of Carmen by Carlos Saura, Peter Brook, and Francesco Rosi. The volume contains a bibliography, music examples, and a synopsis.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521398978
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Bizet's Carmen is probably the best known opera of the standard repertoire, yet its very familiarity often prevents us from approaching it with the seriousness it deserves. This handbook explores the opera in a number of contexts, bringing to the surface the controversies over gender, race, class and musical propriety that greeted its premiere and that have been rekindled by the recent spate of film versions. Beginning with a study of the Mérimée story by Peter Robinson and an examination of the social tensions in nineteenth-century France that inform both that story and the opera, the book traces the latter through its genesis and reception. The central core of the book presents a close reading of the opera that offers new interpretive possibilities. The handbook concludes with discussions of four films based on the opera: Carmen Jones and the versions of Carmen by Carlos Saura, Peter Brook, and Francesco Rosi. The volume contains a bibliography, music examples, and a synopsis.
Bizet and His World
Author: Mina Kirstein Curtiss
Publisher: Vienna House Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
This magnificent full-length life of Georges Bizet (the first ever written with all the documents at hand) presents a very rich picture of cultural and daily life in the Paris that witnessed the arrival and departure of the Second Empire, the Commune, the Franco-Prussian War, and the siege by the Prussians, as well as the dawn of the Third Republic. Its scope and cast of characters are both large - the latter encompassing not only all the foremost European musicians of the era, including Berlioz, Rossini, and Wagner, but also Delacroix, Napoleon II and Eugenie, Thiers, Gautier, Dumas fils, and a host of colorful secondary actors. Life at the Paris Conservatoire and at the French Academy in Rome; life in the managers' offices and on the stages of the Paris theaters and opera houses; the fantastic career of Celeste Mogador, courtesan, actress, and impresario, who married a count and wrote her memoirs in phonetic French; the extraordinary lives of the Halevy family, into which Bizet married; his warm friendship with Alphonse Daudet; Paris under siege after Sedan; the writing not only of Carmen, but also of Les Pecheurs de Perles, La Jolie Fille de Perth and L'Arlesienne; the demanding, steadfast character of the first Carmen, Celestine Galli-Marie - these and hundreds of other pages of fascinating re-creation make this book unique. It was while working on her translation of Marcel Proust's letters that the author became keenly interested in Bizet - whose remarried widow, Mme Emile Strauss, was Proust's friend and in part his model for the Duchesse de Guermantes. She has had access to all the relevant documents, many of which she has purchased or catalogued. She has been able to quote certain of Gounod's letters for the first time and she has the consent of the descendants of Bizet's illegitimate son to publish hitherto unknown information about his family. Not primarily a book about music, this is the life-like portrait of a musician whose creations are familiar around the world, but who has himself been incompletely or vaguely known. As much the evocation of an era as the biography of a fascinating man, this book offers rewards alike for music-lovers and for those who enjoy being plunged deeply into a man's life in a glamorous world that as fully alive, but is now gone beyond recall.
Publisher: Vienna House Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
This magnificent full-length life of Georges Bizet (the first ever written with all the documents at hand) presents a very rich picture of cultural and daily life in the Paris that witnessed the arrival and departure of the Second Empire, the Commune, the Franco-Prussian War, and the siege by the Prussians, as well as the dawn of the Third Republic. Its scope and cast of characters are both large - the latter encompassing not only all the foremost European musicians of the era, including Berlioz, Rossini, and Wagner, but also Delacroix, Napoleon II and Eugenie, Thiers, Gautier, Dumas fils, and a host of colorful secondary actors. Life at the Paris Conservatoire and at the French Academy in Rome; life in the managers' offices and on the stages of the Paris theaters and opera houses; the fantastic career of Celeste Mogador, courtesan, actress, and impresario, who married a count and wrote her memoirs in phonetic French; the extraordinary lives of the Halevy family, into which Bizet married; his warm friendship with Alphonse Daudet; Paris under siege after Sedan; the writing not only of Carmen, but also of Les Pecheurs de Perles, La Jolie Fille de Perth and L'Arlesienne; the demanding, steadfast character of the first Carmen, Celestine Galli-Marie - these and hundreds of other pages of fascinating re-creation make this book unique. It was while working on her translation of Marcel Proust's letters that the author became keenly interested in Bizet - whose remarried widow, Mme Emile Strauss, was Proust's friend and in part his model for the Duchesse de Guermantes. She has had access to all the relevant documents, many of which she has purchased or catalogued. She has been able to quote certain of Gounod's letters for the first time and she has the consent of the descendants of Bizet's illegitimate son to publish hitherto unknown information about his family. Not primarily a book about music, this is the life-like portrait of a musician whose creations are familiar around the world, but who has himself been incompletely or vaguely known. As much the evocation of an era as the biography of a fascinating man, this book offers rewards alike for music-lovers and for those who enjoy being plunged deeply into a man's life in a glamorous world that as fully alive, but is now gone beyond recall.
Alto
Author: Dan H. Marek
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442235896
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 259
Book Description
Everyone is familiar with the words diva or prima donna, which have come to mean a (usually) outrageous operatic soprano, but there was a time when the star of the show was more often a contralto, or a soprano singing in today's mezzo-soprano range. This performer was referred to as an alto. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the male and female leading roles were likely to be sung by emasculated males, the alto castrati, although there were many great female altos during this period as well. The music for these fantastic artists, written by such composers as Porpora, Vinci, Hasse, and even Handel, has been largely forgotten. At the beginning of the 19th century, as the castrati died out, their roles were often assumed by female altos referred to as musici. New repertoire continued to be written for them by Rossini and others, but gradually, this musical tradition and technique was lost. Now, however, because of the talent and industry of such gifted artists as Marilyn Horne, Cecilia Bartoli, and Joyce DiDonato, and the sudden ease with which the performance of these forgotten works can be obtained, there is a resurgence of interest in the performance and preservation of this lost art. Alto: The Voice of Bel Canto examines the careers of nearly 320 great alto singers, including the great castrati, from the dawn of opera in 1597 to the present. The music of the composers who wrote for the alto voice is discussed along with musical examples and suggestions for listening. The exploration of the greatest altos’ careers and techniques offers inspiration for aspiring young singers as well as absorbing reading for the music lover who wants to know more about the fascinating world of opera.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442235896
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 259
Book Description
Everyone is familiar with the words diva or prima donna, which have come to mean a (usually) outrageous operatic soprano, but there was a time when the star of the show was more often a contralto, or a soprano singing in today's mezzo-soprano range. This performer was referred to as an alto. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the male and female leading roles were likely to be sung by emasculated males, the alto castrati, although there were many great female altos during this period as well. The music for these fantastic artists, written by such composers as Porpora, Vinci, Hasse, and even Handel, has been largely forgotten. At the beginning of the 19th century, as the castrati died out, their roles were often assumed by female altos referred to as musici. New repertoire continued to be written for them by Rossini and others, but gradually, this musical tradition and technique was lost. Now, however, because of the talent and industry of such gifted artists as Marilyn Horne, Cecilia Bartoli, and Joyce DiDonato, and the sudden ease with which the performance of these forgotten works can be obtained, there is a resurgence of interest in the performance and preservation of this lost art. Alto: The Voice of Bel Canto examines the careers of nearly 320 great alto singers, including the great castrati, from the dawn of opera in 1597 to the present. The music of the composers who wrote for the alto voice is discussed along with musical examples and suggestions for listening. The exploration of the greatest altos’ careers and techniques offers inspiration for aspiring young singers as well as absorbing reading for the music lover who wants to know more about the fascinating world of opera.
Georges Bizet
Author: Christoph Schwandt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780810886186
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Since the vibrant production of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2010, interest has grown in the work's French composer, Georges Bizet. First published in 1991, Christoph Schwandt's biography of Georges Bizet is now widely recognized as the definitive work on the great composer. Drawing on recent research and revised and augmented for the 2011 edition, translated here into English by Cynthia Klohr, Schwandt cleans away the romantic misconceptions that have cluttered earlier assessments of Bizet's life and works.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780810886186
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Since the vibrant production of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2010, interest has grown in the work's French composer, Georges Bizet. First published in 1991, Christoph Schwandt's biography of Georges Bizet is now widely recognized as the definitive work on the great composer. Drawing on recent research and revised and augmented for the 2011 edition, translated here into English by Cynthia Klohr, Schwandt cleans away the romantic misconceptions that have cluttered earlier assessments of Bizet's life and works.
Carmen and the Staging of Spain
Author: Michael Christoforidis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190694831
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Carmen and the Staging of Spain explores the Belle Époque fascination with Spanish entertainment that refashioned Bizet's opera and gave rise to an international "Carmen industry." Authors Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz challenge the notion of Carmen as an unchanging exotic construct, tracing the ways in which performers and productions responded to evolving fashions for Spanish style from its 1875 premiere to 1915. Focusing on selected realizations of the opera in Paris, London and New York, Christoforidis and Kertesz explore the cycles of influence between the opera and its parodies; adaptations in spoken drama, ballet and film; and the panorama of flamenco, Spanish dance, and musical entertainments. Their findings also uncover Carmen's dynamic interaction with issues of Hispanic identity against the backdrop of Spain's changing international fortunes. The Spanish response to this now most-Spanish of operas is illuminated by its early reception in Madrid and Barcelona, adaptations to local theatrical genres, and impact on Spanish composers of the time. A series of Spanish Carmens, from opera singers Elena Sanz and Maria Gay to the infamous music-hall star La Belle Otero, had a crucial influence on the interpretation of the title role. Their stories provide a fresh context for the book's reappraisal of leading Carmens of the era, including Emma Calvé and Geraldine Farrar.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190694831
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Carmen and the Staging of Spain explores the Belle Époque fascination with Spanish entertainment that refashioned Bizet's opera and gave rise to an international "Carmen industry." Authors Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz challenge the notion of Carmen as an unchanging exotic construct, tracing the ways in which performers and productions responded to evolving fashions for Spanish style from its 1875 premiere to 1915. Focusing on selected realizations of the opera in Paris, London and New York, Christoforidis and Kertesz explore the cycles of influence between the opera and its parodies; adaptations in spoken drama, ballet and film; and the panorama of flamenco, Spanish dance, and musical entertainments. Their findings also uncover Carmen's dynamic interaction with issues of Hispanic identity against the backdrop of Spain's changing international fortunes. The Spanish response to this now most-Spanish of operas is illuminated by its early reception in Madrid and Barcelona, adaptations to local theatrical genres, and impact on Spanish composers of the time. A series of Spanish Carmens, from opera singers Elena Sanz and Maria Gay to the infamous music-hall star La Belle Otero, had a crucial influence on the interpretation of the title role. Their stories provide a fresh context for the book's reappraisal of leading Carmens of the era, including Emma Calvé and Geraldine Farrar.
Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Russian Culture
Author: Marina Ritzarev
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317046668
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Tchaikovskyʼs Sixth Symphony (1893), widely recognized as one of the worldʼs most deeply tragic compositions, is also known for the mystery surrounding its hidden programme and for Tchaikovskyʼs unexpected death nine days after its premiere. While the sensational speculations about the composerʼs possible planned suicide and the suggestion that the symphony was intended as his own requiem have long been discarded, the question of its programme remains.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317046668
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Tchaikovskyʼs Sixth Symphony (1893), widely recognized as one of the worldʼs most deeply tragic compositions, is also known for the mystery surrounding its hidden programme and for Tchaikovskyʼs unexpected death nine days after its premiere. While the sensational speculations about the composerʼs possible planned suicide and the suggestion that the symphony was intended as his own requiem have long been discarded, the question of its programme remains.
What Killed the Great and Not So Great Composers?
Author: Joseph W. Lewis, Jr., M.D.
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1452034389
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 654
Book Description
From a personally assembled database of 13,859 classical musicians, What Killed the Great and not so Great Composers delves into the medical histories of a wide variety of composers from both a musical and medical standpoint. Biographies of musicians from Johann Sebastian Bach of the Baroque period to Benjamin Britten of the Modern era explore in depth their illnesses and the impact their diseases had on musical productivity. Other chapters referenced to specific composers are devoted to such diverse ailments as deafness, mental disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, surgery and war injuries, to name a few. A unique section of statistics and demographics analyzes various aspects of composers’ lives such as their longevity related to contemporaneous nonmusical populations, the incidence of various illnesses they experienced over the centuries and the type of medical problems suffered by the so-called top 100 classical musicians. Although a precise and complete accounting of the great composers’ ailments may never be possible, a general understanding of the medical problems experienced by these unique individuals, nevertheless, can heighten one’s appreciation of their creative processes despite the hardships imposed by their physical and mental illnesses. Although some individuals surrendered to their disabilities for a variety of reasons, others were able to rise above their infirmities and produce the wonderful music mankind has enjoyed through the centuries.
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1452034389
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 654
Book Description
From a personally assembled database of 13,859 classical musicians, What Killed the Great and not so Great Composers delves into the medical histories of a wide variety of composers from both a musical and medical standpoint. Biographies of musicians from Johann Sebastian Bach of the Baroque period to Benjamin Britten of the Modern era explore in depth their illnesses and the impact their diseases had on musical productivity. Other chapters referenced to specific composers are devoted to such diverse ailments as deafness, mental disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, surgery and war injuries, to name a few. A unique section of statistics and demographics analyzes various aspects of composers’ lives such as their longevity related to contemporaneous nonmusical populations, the incidence of various illnesses they experienced over the centuries and the type of medical problems suffered by the so-called top 100 classical musicians. Although a precise and complete accounting of the great composers’ ailments may never be possible, a general understanding of the medical problems experienced by these unique individuals, nevertheless, can heighten one’s appreciation of their creative processes despite the hardships imposed by their physical and mental illnesses. Although some individuals surrendered to their disabilities for a variety of reasons, others were able to rise above their infirmities and produce the wonderful music mankind has enjoyed through the centuries.
Carmen Abroad
Author: Richard Langham Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108481612
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
A transnational history of the performance, reception, translation, adaptation and appropriation of Bizet's Carmen from 1875 to 1945. This volume explores how Bizet's opera swiftly travelled the globe, and how the story, the music, the staging and the singers appealed to audiences in diverse contexts.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108481612
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
A transnational history of the performance, reception, translation, adaptation and appropriation of Bizet's Carmen from 1875 to 1945. This volume explores how Bizet's opera swiftly travelled the globe, and how the story, the music, the staging and the singers appealed to audiences in diverse contexts.
Carmen, a Gypsy Geography
Author: Ninotchka Bennahum
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 081957354X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
The figure of Carmen has emerged as a cipher for the unfettered female artist. Dance historian and performance theorist Ninotchka Bennahum shows us Carmen as embodied historical archive, a figure through which we come to understand the promises and dangers of nomadic, transnational identity, and the immanence of performance as an expanded historical methodology. Bennahum traces the genealogy of the female Gypsy presence in her iconic operatic role from her genesis in the ancient Mediterranean world, her emergence as flamenco artist in the architectural spaces of Islamic Spain, her persistent manifestation in Picasso, and her contemporary relevance on stage. This many-layered geography of the Gypsy dancer provides the book with its unique nonlinear form that opens new pathways to reading performance and writing history. Includes rare archival photographs of Gypsy artists.
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 081957354X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
The figure of Carmen has emerged as a cipher for the unfettered female artist. Dance historian and performance theorist Ninotchka Bennahum shows us Carmen as embodied historical archive, a figure through which we come to understand the promises and dangers of nomadic, transnational identity, and the immanence of performance as an expanded historical methodology. Bennahum traces the genealogy of the female Gypsy presence in her iconic operatic role from her genesis in the ancient Mediterranean world, her emergence as flamenco artist in the architectural spaces of Islamic Spain, her persistent manifestation in Picasso, and her contemporary relevance on stage. This many-layered geography of the Gypsy dancer provides the book with its unique nonlinear form that opens new pathways to reading performance and writing history. Includes rare archival photographs of Gypsy artists.
Proust's Duchess
Author: Caroline Weber
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345803124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 754
Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A brilliant look at turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. “Weber has done a remarkable job of bringing to life…a world of culture, glamour and privilege.” —The Wall Street Journal Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style." All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists. Against a rich historical backdrop, Weber takes the reader into these women's daily lives of masked balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, nights at the opera or theater. But we see as well the loneliness, rigid social rules, and loveless, arranged marriages that constricted these women's lives. Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345803124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 754
Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A brilliant look at turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. “Weber has done a remarkable job of bringing to life…a world of culture, glamour and privilege.” —The Wall Street Journal Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style." All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists. Against a rich historical backdrop, Weber takes the reader into these women's daily lives of masked balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, nights at the opera or theater. But we see as well the loneliness, rigid social rules, and loveless, arranged marriages that constricted these women's lives. Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past.