Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater

Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater PDF Author: Nina Penner
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253049989
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater is the first systematic exploration of how sung forms of drama tell stories. Through examples from opera's origins to contemporary musicals, Nina Penner examines the roles of character-narrators and how they differ from those in literary and cinematic works, how music can orient spectators to characters' points of view, how being privy to characters' inner thoughts and feelings may evoke feelings of sympathy or empathy, and how performers' choices affect not only who is telling the story but what story is being told. Unique about Penner's approach is her engagement with current work in analytic philosophy. Her study reveals not only the resources this philosophical tradition can bring to musicology but those which musicology can bring to philosophy, challenging and refining accounts of narrative, point of view, and the work-performance relationship within both disciplines. She also considers practical problems singers and directors confront on a daily basis, such as what to do about Wagner's Jewish caricatures and the racism of Orientalist operas. More generally, Penner reflects on how centuries-old works remain meaningful to contemporary audiences and have the power to attract new, more diverse audiences to opera and musical theater. By exploring how practitioners past and present have addressed these issues, Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater offers suggestions for how opera and musical theater can continue to entertain and enrich the lives of 21st-century audiences.

Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater

Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater PDF Author: Nina Penner
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253049989
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater is the first systematic exploration of how sung forms of drama tell stories. Through examples from opera's origins to contemporary musicals, Nina Penner examines the roles of character-narrators and how they differ from those in literary and cinematic works, how music can orient spectators to characters' points of view, how being privy to characters' inner thoughts and feelings may evoke feelings of sympathy or empathy, and how performers' choices affect not only who is telling the story but what story is being told. Unique about Penner's approach is her engagement with current work in analytic philosophy. Her study reveals not only the resources this philosophical tradition can bring to musicology but those which musicology can bring to philosophy, challenging and refining accounts of narrative, point of view, and the work-performance relationship within both disciplines. She also considers practical problems singers and directors confront on a daily basis, such as what to do about Wagner's Jewish caricatures and the racism of Orientalist operas. More generally, Penner reflects on how centuries-old works remain meaningful to contemporary audiences and have the power to attract new, more diverse audiences to opera and musical theater. By exploring how practitioners past and present have addressed these issues, Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theater offers suggestions for how opera and musical theater can continue to entertain and enrich the lives of 21st-century audiences.

The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical

The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical PDF Author: Raymond Knapp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199874727
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical offers new and cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling issues and topics in the growing, interdisciplinary field of musical-theater and film-musical studies. Taking the form of a "keywords" book, it introduces readers to the concepts and terms that define the history of the musical as a genre and that offer ways to reflect on the specific creative choices that shape musicals and their performance on stage and screen. The handbook offers a cross-section of essays written by leading experts in the field, organized within broad conceptual groups, which together capture the breadth, direction, and tone of musicals studies today. Each essay traces the genealogy of the term or issue it addresses, including related issues and controversies, positions and problematizes those issues within larger bodies of scholarship, and provides specific examples drawn from shows and films. Essays both re-examine traditional topics and introduce underexplored areas. Reflecting the concerns of scholars and students alike, the authors emphasize critical and accessible perspectives, and supplement theory with concrete examples that may be accessed through links to the handbook's website. Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and reception, the book's contributors bring a wide range of practical and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of one of America's most lively, enduring artistic traditions. The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical will engage all readers interested in the form, from students to scholars to fans and aficionados, as it analyses the complex relationships among the creators, performers, and audiences who sustain the genre.

Miss You Like Hell

Miss You Like Hell PDF Author: Quiara Alegría Hudes
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
ISBN: 1559369035
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
“This is a fresh take on the American road story, filled with people and ideas we rarely get to see onstage…It offers two seriously rich roles for women, each with important things worth singing about…Miss You Like Hell is a powerful example of what musicals do best: explore the unprotected border where individual needs and social issues intermix.” —Jesse Green, New York Times A troubled teenager and her estranged mother—an undocumented Mexican immigrant on the verge of deportation—embark on a road trip and strive to mend their frayed relationship along the way. Combined with the musical talent of Erin McKeown, Hudes artfully crafts a story of the barriers and the bonds of family, while also addressing the complexities of immigration in today’s America.

A Trip to Chinatown

A Trip to Chinatown PDF Author: Charles Hale Hoyt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780937657331
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Secret Life of the American Musical

The Secret Life of the American Musical PDF Author: Jack Viertel
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374711259
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller: “Both revelatory and entertaining . . . Along the way, Viertel provides some fascinating Broadway history.” —The New York Times Book Review Americans invented musicals—and have a longstanding love affair with them. But what, exactly, is a musical? In this book, longtime theatrical producer and writer Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he shows us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next—by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion—from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and onward. Beginning with an overture and concluding with a curtain call, with stops in between for “I Want” songs, “conditional” love songs, production numbers, star turns, and finales, Viertel shows us patterns in the architecture of classic shows and charts the inevitable evolution that has taken place in musical theater as America itself has evolved socially and politically. The Secret Life of the American Musical makes you feel like you’re there in the rehearsal room, the front row, and the offices of theater owners and producers as they pursue their own love affair with that rare and elusive beast—the Broadway hit. “A valuable addition to the theater lover’s bookshelf. . . . fans will appreciate the dips into memoir and Viertel’s takes on original cast albums.” —Publishers Weekly “Even seasoned hands will come away with a clearer understanding of why some shows work while others flop.” —Commentary “A showstopper . . . infectiously entertaining.” —John Lahr, author of Notes on a Cowardly Lion “Thoroughly interesting.” —The A.V. Club “The best general-audience analysis of musical theater I have read in many years.” —The Charlotte Observer “Delightful . . . a little bit history, a little bit memoir, a little bit criticism and, for any theater fan, a whole lot of fun.” —The Dallas Morning News

A Poetics of Handel's Operas

A Poetics of Handel's Operas PDF Author: Nathan Link
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197651348
Category : Opera
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
"A Poetics of Handel's Operas investigates the rich representational fabric of Handel's stories, drawing upon musicology, narratology, drama, and film in offering a study with appeal to scholars, producers and performers, opera afficionados, and anyone fascinated by storytelling. In most storytelling genres, we often distinguish between the story, on the one hand, and the way that story is represented, on the other, without a second thought. We know that a character in a film hears neither her own voice-over nor the ambient music that accompanies it, and that she does not really build a house from the ground up in the three minutes spanned by the cinematic montage that depict its construction. In opera, however, many commentators to this day characterize the medium as "unrealistic," since we know, for example, that people in the real world do not sing to each other, nor does orchestral music accompany their utterances. This said, the vocal and orchestral music, while not literally present in the world of the story surely have a great deal to tell us about the opera's story and its characters, and if we distinguish the performance we see and hear on the stage and in the orchestra pit from the story represented, we enable ourselves to construct stories that are no less coherent than those conveyed by other media. By avoiding conflation of the story and its representation, we enable ourselves to engage more meaningfully with the significance of these and many other unique aspects of operatic storytelling"--

The New Music Theater

The New Music Theater PDF Author: Eric Salzman
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195099362
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
"The New Music Theater is the first comprehensive attempt in English to cover a still-emerging art form in its widest range. This book, written for the reader who comes from the contemporary worlds of music, theater, film, literature, and visual arts, provides a wealth of examples and descriptions, not only of the works themselves but of the concepts, ideas and trends that have gone into the evolution of what may be the most central performance art form of the post-modern world."--BOOK JACKET.

The New Music Theater

The New Music Theater PDF Author: Eric Salzman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199723214
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Alternatives to grand opera and the popular musical can be traced at least as far back as the 1912 premiere of Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire." Yet this ongoing history has never been properly sorted out, its complex ideas and philosophy as well as musical and theatrical achievements never brought fully to light. The New Music Theater is the first comprehensive attempt in English to cover this still-emerging art form in its widest range. This book provides a wealth of examples and descriptions not only of the works themselves, but of the concepts, ideas, and trends that have gone into the evolution of what may be the most central performance art form of the post-modern world. Authors Salzman and Desi consider the subject of music theatre from a social as well as artistic point of view, exploring how theatre works in culture, and how music works in the theatre. Illuminating their discussion with illustrations from current artists and their works, The New Music Theater both describes where we have been and points the way to the future of this all-encompassing art form.

Passing Strange

Passing Strange PDF Author: Stew
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822224006
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
"Stew brings us the story of a young bohemian who charts a course for 'the real' through sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."--Page 4 of cover.

Le Nozze Di Figaro: The Marriage Of Figaro

Le Nozze Di Figaro: The Marriage Of Figaro PDF Author: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781017235395
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.