Full Description
Opera is traditionally regarded as an elitist art form far removed from reality by its fantastical plots and melodramatic divas. This book shows that beneath the opulent sets and sumptuous costumes, opera is very much a product of its time. Like all the great narrative arts, it draws on essential human experiences to create a form that can be endlessly reinvented to reflect a changing society.Focusing on seven opera premieres in seven distinct cultural landscapes, with additional essays by contemporary practitioners including Placido Domingo, Antonio Pappano and Simone Young, the book culminates in the international explosion of opera in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The seven operas and premieres are: Venice (Monteverdi's L'Incoranazione di Poppea, 1642);London (Handel's Rinaldo, 1711); Vienna (Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, 1786); Milan (Verdi's Nabucco, 1842); Paris (Wagner's Tannhauser, 1861); Dresden (Strauss' Salome, 1905) and St Petersburg (Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 1934)
Contents
Introduction, Kasper Holton; 1. Venice - introduced by Danielle de Niese, The Triumph of Poppea; Virtue, Vice, and Song in the Venetian Republic, Wendy Heller; 2. London - introduced by Robert Carsen, London: World City - Handel and Rinaldo, Daniel Snowman; 3. Vienna - introduced by Sir Antonio Pappano, Vienna and the Enlightenment, Nicholas Till; 4. Milan - introduced by Placido Domingo, Verdi and Milan: From Nabucco to Nabucco, Roger Parker; 5. Paris - introduced by Michael Levine, Wagner among the boulevards, Tannhauser in Paris, Flora Wilson; 6. Dresden, introduced by Simone Young, Visions of Women, Kate Bailey; 7. Leningrad - introduced by Graham Vick, Heroine, Victim or Criminal? Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Elizabeth Wilson
