Cabals And Satires

When Joseph II placed his opera buffa troupe in competition with the re-formed Singspiel, he provoked an intense struggle between supporters of the rival national genres, who organized claques to cheer or hiss at performances, and encouraged press correspondents to write slanted notices. It was in this fraught atmosphere that Mozart collaborated with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte on his three mature Italian comedies--Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. In Cabals and Satires: Mozart's Comic Operas in Vienna, Ian Woodfield brings the fascinating dynamics of this inter-troupe contest into focus. He reveals how Mozart, while not immune from the infighting, was able to weather satirical attacks, successfully negotiate the unpredictable twists and turns of theatre politics during the lean years of the Austro-Turkish War, and seal his reputation with a revival of Figaro in 1789 as a Habsburg festive work. Mozart's deft navigation of the turbulent political waters of this period left him well placed to benefit from the revival of the commercial stage in Vienna--the most enduring musical consequence of the war years.

Comprehensive and engaging exploration of Mozart's greatest works, focussing on his dual roles as performer and composer in Vienna.

Packed full of new archival evidence that reveals the interconnected world of music theatre during the 'Classical era', this interdisciplinary study investigates key locations, genres, music, and musicians. Austin Glatthorn explores the extent to which the Holy Roman Empire delineated and networked a cultural entity that found expression through music for the German stage. He maps an extensive network of Central European theatres; reconstructs the repertoire they shared; and explores how print media, personal correspondence, and their dissemination shaped and regulated this music. He then investigates the development of German melodrama and examines how articulations of the Holy Roman Empire on the musical stage expressed imperial belonging. Glatthorn engages with the most recent historical interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire and offers quantitative, empirical analysis of repertoire supported by conventional close readings to illustrate a shared culture of music theatre that transcended traditional boundaries in music scholarship.

An understanding of the linguistic, political, and moral ramifications of Private Spirit (the parochialism and partiality typical of clubs, parties, and cabals) provides insights into the logic behind Swiftian polemic and satire. Swiftian satire, an essentially private joke offering exclusive satisfaction to an elite fraternity of insiders, is shown to be a creative rhetorical adaption of private spirit.

Originally published in 1967. In this study of the English Augustan satirists, and the Roman and subsequent authors who were their models, Professor Paulson shows how rhetoric relates to imitation, persuasion to presentation, and the imitation of the satirist to the imitation of the satiric object. He illustrates the tendency of the satirist to invade his own fiction and imitate not the prime object of his satire but the satiric persona, which consequently takes on a life of its own. By analyzing the satiric fictions of the precursors of the Augustans, the author reveals the elements they bequeathed to those who rode the high crest of the satiric wave in England, before the art of satire became submerged in the deepening trough of sentimental romanticism. Paulson shows the Tories Dryden, Pope, and Swift and the Whigs Addison and Steele to be the heirs of a long line of satirists ancient and modern, from Horace, Juvenal, Lucian, Apuleius, and Petronius to Rabelais, Cervantes and the English Elizabethan and Civil War poets. Taking Swift as his main example, Paulson examines the dualism of satire in its most interesting and ambiguous modes, and as the embodiment of rhetorical devices that are as complex mimetically as they are rhetorically.