Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London

Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London PDF Author: Ian Woodfield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139432222
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
This book explores the cultural life of Italian opera in late eighteenth-century London. Through primary sources, many analysed for the first time, Ian Woodfield examines such issues as finances, recruitment policy, handling of singers and composers, links with Paris and Italy, and the role of women in opera management.

Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London

Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century London PDF Author: Ian Woodfield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139432222
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
This book explores the cultural life of Italian opera in late eighteenth-century London. Through primary sources, many analysed for the first time, Ian Woodfield examines such issues as finances, recruitment policy, handling of singers and composers, links with Paris and Italy, and the role of women in opera management.

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London: The King's Theatre, Haymarket, 1778-1791

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London: The King's Theatre, Haymarket, 1778-1791 PDF Author: Curtis Alexander Price
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 742

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Book Description
This interdisciplinary study attempts to make sense of what has long been regarded as a chaotic period in the history of opera in London. In 1778, R.B. Sheridan acquired the King's Theatre and its resident opera company in what we would now call a leveraged buy-out, plunging the opera into escalating debts that were to haunt it into the 1840s. The 1780s and early 1790s were a stormy but exciting era: the company hired some of the foremost singers and dancers in Europe; ballet d'action came to London, with Noverre himself as ballet master; the company employed such composers as Sacchini, Anfossi, Cherubini and ultimately Haydn; it went bankrupt and carried on through years of wrangling in chancery; the King's Theatre burned down in 1789 and was rebuilt and re-opened in defiance of the Lord Chamberlain's refusal to license the new building. Drawing on libretti and scores, ballet scenarios, pamphlets, scattered manuscripts, legal records, architectural drawings, newspapers, and other sources, the authors reconstruct the history of the company and its shifting artistic policies, analyzing opera and ballet repertory, performers, production circumstances, finances, and managerial infighting.

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London: The Pantheon Opera and its aftermath, 1789-1795

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London: The Pantheon Opera and its aftermath, 1789-1795 PDF Author: Curtis Alexander Price
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780198161660
Category : Ballet
Languages : en
Pages : 698

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Book Description


Dramma Per Musica

Dramma Per Musica PDF Author: Reinhard Strohm
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300064544
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
'Dramma per musica', the most usual term for Italian serious opera from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, was a modern, enlightened form of theater that presented a unified, artistically designed, dramatic enactment of human stories, expressed by the voice and underscored by the orchestra. This book illustrates the diversity of this baroque art form and explains how it has given us opera as we know it.

London Opera Observed 1711-1844, Volume I

London Opera Observed 1711-1844, Volume I PDF Author: Michael Burden
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040245080
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.

London Opera Observed 1711-1844

London Opera Observed 1711-1844 PDF Author: Michael Burden
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040156118
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 1819

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Book Description
The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.

The Eighteenth-century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians

The Eighteenth-century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians PDF Author: Reinhard Strohm
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
On an eighteenth-century map of European culture, Italian musicians would be found almost everywhere. Unlike in earlier ages, they now provided an intrinsic part of the international exchange: no longer exotic birds, but not yet the representatives of a single nation, they helped other Europeans to forget traditional frontiers in music. In this fascinating book, eight specialised music historians investigate several important aspects of the Italian contribution, highlighting local musical practices, the aesthetic of genres, and the larger patterns of musical cultivation and patronage.

Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe

Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe PDF Author: Berthold Over
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839448859
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 799

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Book Description
In Early Modern times, techniques of assembling, compiling and arranging pre-existing material were part of the established working methods in many arts. In the world of 18th-century opera, such practices ensured that operas could become a commercial success because the substitution or compilation of arias fitting the singer's abilities proved the best recipe for fulfilling the expectations of audiences. Known as »pasticcios« since the 18th-century, these operas have long been considered inferior patchwork. The volume collects essays that reconsider the pasticcio, contextualize it, define its preconditions, look at its material aspects and uncover its aesthetical principles.

Verdi in Victorian London

Verdi in Victorian London PDF Author: Massimo Zicari
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 178374216X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Now a byword for beauty, Verdi’s operas were far from universally acclaimed when they reached London in the second half of the nineteenth century. Why did some critics react so harshly? Who were they and what biases and prejudices animated them? When did their antagonistic attitude change? And why did opera managers continue to produce Verdi’s operas, in spite of their alleged worthlessness? Massimo Zicari’s Verdi in Victorian London reconstructs the reception of Verdi’s operas in London from 1844, when a first critical account was published in the pages of The Athenaeum, to 1901, when Verdi’s death received extensive tribute in The Musical Times. In the 1840s, certain London journalists were positively hostile towards the most talked-about representative of Italian opera, only to change their tune in the years to come. The supercilious critic of The Athenaeum, Henry Fothergill Chorley, declared that Verdi’s melodies were worn, hackneyed and meaningless, his harmonies and progressions crude, his orchestration noisy. The scribes of The Times, The Musical World, The Illustrated London News, and The Musical Times all contributed to the critical hubbub. Yet by the 1850s, Victorian critics, however grudging, could neither deny nor ignore the popularity of Verdi’s operas. Over the final three decades of the nineteenth century, moreover, London’s musical milieu underwent changes of great magnitude, shifting the manner in which Verdi was conceptualized and making room for the powerful influence of Wagner. Nostalgic commentators began to lament the sad state of the Land of Song, referring to the now departed "palmy days of Italian opera." Zicari charts this entire cultural constellation. Verdi in Victorian London is required reading for both academics and opera aficionados. Music specialists will value a historical reconstruction that stems from a large body of first-hand source material, while Verdi lovers and Italian opera addicts will enjoy vivid analysis free from technical jargon. For students, scholars and plain readers alike, this book is an illuminating addition to the study of music reception.

English Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London

English Opera in Late Eighteenth-century London PDF Author: Jane Girdham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Stephen Storace (1762-96) was a prominent opera composer in London. His works exemplify the best in English opera, with music closely integrated with the drama, and including attractive tunes the audience could sing and play at home. This book provides unique insights into the musical world of the period, examining theatrical life and music publishing from the perspective of Storace's works.