Carmen And The Staging Of Spain

Carmen and the Staging of Spain explores the Belle �poque fascination with Spanish entertainment that refashioned Bizet's opera and gave rise to an international "Carmen industry." Authors Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz challenge the notion of Carmen as an unchanging exotic construct, tracing the ways in which performers and productions responded to evolving fashions for Spanish style from its 1875 premiere to 1915. Focusing on selected realizations of the opera in Paris, London and New York, Christoforidis and Kertesz explore the cycles of influence between the opera and its parodies; adaptations in spoken drama, ballet and film; and the panorama of flamenco, Spanish dance, and musical entertainments. Their findings also uncover Carmen's dynamic interaction with issues of Hispanic identity against the backdrop of Spain's changing international fortunes. The Spanish response to this now most-Spanish of operas is illuminated by its early reception in Madrid and Barcelona, adaptations to local theatrical genres, and impact on Spanish composers of the time. A series of Spanish Carmens, from opera singers Elena Sanz and Maria Gay to the infamous music-hall star La Belle Otero, had a crucial influence on the interpretation of the title role. Their stories provide a fresh context for the book's reappraisal of leading Carmens of the era, including Emma Calv� and Geraldine Farrar.

Carmen and the Staging of Spain explores the Belle Époque fascination with Spanish entertainment that refashioned Bizet's opera and gave rise to an international "Carmen industry." Authors Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz challenge the notion of Carmen as an unchanging exotic construct, tracing the ways in which performers and productions responded to evolving fashions for Spanish style from its 1875 premiere to 1915. Focusing on selected realizations of the opera in Paris, London and New York, Christoforidis and Kertesz explore the cycles of influence between the opera and its parodies; adaptations in spoken drama, ballet and film; and the panorama of flamenco, Spanish dance, and musical entertainments. Their findings also uncover Carmen's dynamic interaction with issues of Hispanic identity against the backdrop of Spain's changing international fortunes. The Spanish response to this now most-Spanish of operas is illuminated by its early reception in Madrid and Barcelona, adaptations to local theatrical genres, and impact on Spanish composers of the time. A series of Spanish Carmens, from opera singers Elena Sanz and Maria Gay to the infamous music-hall star La Belle Otero, had a crucial influence on the interpretation of the title role. Their stories provide a fresh context for the book's reappraisal of leading Carmens of the era, including Emma Calvé and Geraldine Farrar.

Bizet's Carmen Uncovered exposes the myths and stereotypes that so often surround this much loved opera by exploring its first staging, and the particularly Spanish contexts in which the opera was conceived, written, and staged.

A transnational history of the performance, reception, translation, adaptation and appropriation of Bizet's Carmen from 1875 to 1945. This volume explores how Bizet's opera swiftly travelled the globe, and how the story, the music, the staging and the singers appealed to audiences in diverse contexts.

Rarely studied in their own right, writings about music are often viewed as merely supplemental to understanding music itself. Yet in the nineteenth century, scholarly interest in music flourished in fields as disparate as philosophy and natural science, dramatically shifting the relationship between music and the academy. An exciting and much-needed new volume, The Oxford Handbook of Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century draws deserved attention to the people and institutions of this period who worked to produce these writings. Editors Paul Watt, Sarah Collins, and Michael Allis, along with an international slate of contributors, discuss music's fascinating and unexpected interactions with debates about evolution, the scientific method, psychology, exoticism, gender, and the divide between high and low culture. Part I of the handbook establishes the historical context for the intellectual world of the period, including the significant genres and disciplines of its music literature, while Part II focuses on the century's institutions and networks - from journalists to monasteries - that circulated ideas about music throughout the world. Finally, Part III assesses how the music research of the period reverberates in the present, connecting studies in aestheticism, cosmopolitanism, and intertextuality to their nineteenth-century origins. The Handbook challenges Western music history's traditionally sole focus on musical work by treating writings about music as valuable cultural artifacts in themselves. Engaging and comprehensive, The Oxford Handbook of Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century brings together a wealth of new interdisciplinary research into this critical area of study.

In this volume, Nicholas R. Jones analyzes white appropriations of black African voices in Spanish theater from the 1500s through the 1700s, when the performance of Africanized Castilian, commonly referred to as habla de negros (black speech), was in vogue. Focusing on Spanish Golden Age theater and performative poetry from authors such as Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Rueda, and Rodrigo de Reinosa, Jones makes a strong case for revising the belief, long held by literary critics and linguists, that white appropriations and representations of habla de negros language are “racist buffoonery” or stereotype. Instead, Jones shows black characters who laugh, sing, and shout, ultimately combating the violent desire of white supremacy. By placing early modern Iberia in conversation with discourses on African diaspora studies, Jones showcases how black Africans and their descendants who built communities in early modern Spain were rendered legible in performative literary texts. Accessibly written and theoretically sophisticated, Jones’s groundbreaking study elucidates the ways that habla de negros animated black Africans’ agency, empowered their resistance, and highlighted their African cultural retentions. This must-read book on identity building, performance, and race will captivate audiences across disciplines.

Michael Christoforidis is widely recognized as a leading expert on one of Spain's most important composers, Manuel de Falla. This volume brings together both new chapters and revised versions of previously published work, some of which is made available here in English for the first time. The introductory chapter provides a biographical outline of the composer and characterisations of both Falla and his music during his lifetime. The sections that follow explore different facets of Falla’s mature works and musical identity. Part II traces the evolution of his flamenco-inspired Spanish style through contacts with Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, while Part III explores the impact of post-World War I modernities on Falla’s musical nationalism. The final part reflects on aspects of Falla’s music and the politics of Spain in the 1930s and 1940s. Situating his discussion of these aspects of Falla's music within a broader context, including currents in literature and the visual arts, Christoforidis provides a distinctive and original contribution to the study of Falla as well as to the wider fields of musical modernism, exoticism, and music and politics.

A word-by-word translation in English and IPA, and annotated guides to the dialogue and recitative versions of the opera, this book is a complete reference for anyone studying or producing Bizet's Carmen. It provides all the material necessary for practical use by singers, conductors, coaches, stage directors, opera producers, students and teachers. - from the publisher's notes.