The Cambridge Companion To Eighteenth-Century Opera

Edited by Anthony R. DelDonna, Pierpaolo Polzonetti

Reflecting a wide variety of approaches to eighteenth-century opera, this Companion brings together leading international experts in the field to provide a valuable reference source. Viewing opera as a complex and fascinating form of art and social ritual, rather than reducing it simply to music and text analysis, individual essays investigate aspects such as audiences, architecture of the theaters, marketing, acting style, and the politics and strategy of representing class and gender. Overall, the volume provides a synthesis of well established knowledge, reflects recent research on eighteenth-century opera, and stimulates further research. The reader is encouraged to view opera as a cultural phenomenon that can reveal aspects of our culture, both past and present. Eighteenth-century opera is experiencing continuing critical and popular success through innovative and provoking productions world-wide, and this Companion will appeal to opera goers as well as to students and teachers of this key topic.

Bibliographic Details

2 b/w illus. 15 tables 41 music examples

Contents

• Chronology of relevant events in eighteenth-century opera
• Part I. The Making of Opera: 1. Opera as process Pierpaolo Polzonetti
• 2. Aria as drama James Webster
• 3. Ensembles and finales Caryl Clark
• 4. Metastasio: the dramaturgy of eighteenth-century heroic opera Francesco Cotticelli and Paologiovanni Maione
• 5. Roles and acting Gianni Cicali
• 6. Ballet Rebecca Harris-Warrick
• 7. Orchestra and voice in eighteenth-century Italian opera John Spitzer
• 8. To look again (at Don Giovanni) Alessandra Campana
• Part II. National Styles and Genres: 9. Genre and form in French opera David Charlton
• 10. Genre and form in German opera Estelle Joubert
• 11. Opera in eighteenth-century England: English opera, masques, ballad operas Michael Burden
• 12. Opera in Naples Anthony R. DelDonna
• 13. Portugal and Brazil Manuel Carlos de Brito
• 14. Opera, genre, and context in Spain and its American colonies Louise Stein and José Máximo Leza.