The Crisis Of The Opera A Study Of Musical Hermeneutics

This study in artistic hermeneutics contains objections and critiques that have been generated by the contemporary cultural scenery of musical interpretation, especially related to the opera performances. Nevertheless, as the reader will surely notice, such critique can be very well applied to the entire spectre of contemporary culture, as the phenomena described here are ubiquitous. Ion Piso's 'alarm signal'-study is essential reading, particularly as it comes from somebody who has over half a century's experience of being an artist-interpreter in world opera. As such, Piso is well-placed to offer such a critique, and thus fulfil Goethe's challenging desideratum: You can only judge fairly what you, yourself, are able to accomplish; as the following quotations fully illustrate: "J. Piso was the new duke [...] He incarnates all the virtues that an interpreter must have for this role, and which are seldom met with in one person. These are the reasons why the duke of Mantova has become a role for which they are looking for specialized tenors. Piso is both young and lean, elegant and full of temperament, a very credible and conquering play boy [...] La donna e mobile has the qualities of Gigly, and his legato sounds always seductive. Furthermore, who else brings together these days, the finesse of the belcanto with such a prodigality of brilliants high-notes?" -- K. Honolka, Stuttgart, April 1964 "[Piso in Werther, was the highlight of the season as] he represents the true Romantic style - which is the mode in which this role should be interpreted, what more can be said... -- A. J. Potter, Opera, London, February 1968 "The Aria of the duke in Tableau IV was interpreted by the Romanian tenor J. Piso three times; this was the wish of the audience..." -- Tbilisi, April 18, 1960 "The virtuosity of Piso's technique produces a special pleasure to the listener, especially by the manner in which the most powerful forte comes to fade away in the most delicate piano. Through a rich variety of expressive tools, he was able to reveal the contents of the Lieds by interpreting them with an excellent diction technique." -- Potsdamer Blick, March 17, 1966 "Piso is the embodiment of the multilateral tenor, who has become today almost obsolete, due to the melodious charm of his voice, to his sensitivity, and to the homogeneity of his voice in all registers, even in the most 'exposed' passages. -- Die Union, Dresden, March 4, 1966

This study in artistic hermeneutics contains objections and critiques that have been generated by the contemporary cultural scenery of musical interpretation, especially related to the opera performances. Nevertheless, as the reader will surely notice, such critique can be very well applied to the entire spectrum of contemporary culture, as the phenomena described here are ubiquitous. Ion Piso’s ‘alarm signal’-study is essential reading, particularly as it comes from somebody who has over half a century’s experience of being an artist-interpreter in world opera. As such, Piso is well-placed to offer such a critique, and thus fulfil Goethe’s challenging desideratum: “You can only judge fairly what you, yourself, are able to accomplish”; as the following quotations fully illustrate: “J. Piso was the new duke [...] He incarnates all the virtues that an interpreter must have for this role, and which are seldom met with in one person. These are the reasons why the duke of Mantova has become a role for which they are looking for specialized tenors. Piso is both young and lean, elegant and full of temperament, a very credible and conquering playboy [...] La donna e mobile has the qualities of Gigli, and his legato sounds always seductive. Furthermore, who else brings together these days, the finesse of the belcanto with such a prodigality of brilliant high-notes?” – K. Honolka, Stuttgart, April 1964 “[Piso in Werther, was the highlight of the season as] he represents the true Romantic style – which is the mode in which this role should be interpreted, what more can be said...” – A. J. Potter, Opera, London, February 1968 “The virtuosity of Piso’s technique produces a special pleasure to the listener, especially by the manner in which the most powerful forte comes to fade away in the most delicate piano. Through a rich variety of expressive tools, he was able to reveal the contents of the Lieds by interpreting them with an excellent diction technique.” – Potsdamer Blick, March 17, 1966 “Piso is the embodiment of the multilateral tenor, who has become today almost obsolete, due to the melodious charm of his voice, to his sensitivity, and to the homogeneity of his voice in all registers, even in the most ‘exposed’ passages.” – Die Union, Dresden, March 4, 1966

Performance by its very nature embraces many constituents, the theories of which have developed into discreet disciplines as on-going research deepens our understanding and knowledge of each one of them. Concomitantly, there continues to grow a greater interlinking, fusion and blurring of discreet boundaries between traditional genres – features highlighted in the seventeen papers presented here. Topics explored in this volume include: the intermedial performance of the Irrepressibles and electronically controlled sounds on the concert platform; the ways in which the physical body dictates movement and character and how the embodiment of the voice goes beyond character stereotypes; how Romeo Catellucci legitimized the audience’s gaze whilst staging brain-damaged patients; interculturalism in a new operatic work focusing on the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis; interrogating transgenerational depictions of Otherness in the Rocky Horror Show; musical speech in Iannis Xenakis’ reworking of ancient Greek in his Oresteia; genre conflation in terms of unaccompanied monodrama; trans-genre adaptation in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Philip Glass’s “Cocteau trilogy”; and textual and musical comedy in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, among others.

This book presents a detailed investigation of the singing technique that is generally known as the “inhaling the voice” technique. In addition, it explores the usage of vowels in spoken and sung variants, offering advice to singers regarding how they can improve their pronunciation of vowels and consonants, so as to enhance their professional performance.

This book addresses the ways in which masculinity is negotiated, constructed, represented, and problematized within operatic music and practice. Although the consideration of masculine ontology and epistemology has pervaded cultural and sociological studies since the late 1980s, and masculinity has been the focus of recent if sporadic musicological discussion, the relationship between masculinity and opera has so far escaped detailed critical scrutiny. Operating from a position of sympathy with feminist and queer approaches and the phallocentric tendencies they identify, this study offers a unique perspective on the cultural relativism of opera by focusing on the male operatic subject. Anchored by musical analysis or close readings of musical discourse, the contributions take an interdisciplinary approach by also engaging with theatre, popular music, and cultural musicology scholarship. The various musical, theoretical, and socio-political trajectories of the essays are historically dispersed from seventeenth to twentieth- first-century operatic works and practices, visiting masculinity and the operatic voice, the complication or refusal of essentialist notions of masculinity, and the operatic representation of the ‘crisis’ of masculinity. This volume will not only enliven the study of masculinity in opera, but be an appealing contribution to music scholars interested in gender, history, and new musicology.

The studies collected in this volume deal with the interpretation of opera. In most cases the results are based on structural analysis, a concept which may require some clarification in this context. During the past de cade 'structure' and 'structural' have become particularly fashionable terms lacking exact denotation and used for the most divergent purposes. As employed here, structural analysis is concerned with such concepts as 'relationship', 'coherence' and 'continuity', more or less in contrast to formal analysis which deals with measurable material. In other words, I have analysed the structure of an opera by seeking and examining factors in the musico-dramatic process, whereas analysts of form are generally preoccupied with the study of elements contained in the musical object. Though admittedly artificial, the dichotomy of form and structure may elucidate the present situation with regard to the study of opera. Today, nearly one hundred years after the death of Wagner, the proclaimed anti thesis of Oper und Drama is generally taken for what it really was: a means to propagate the philosophy of its inventor. The conception of opera (whether 'continuous' or composed of 'numbers') as a special form of drama is no longer contested. Nevertheless musical scholarship has failed to draw the consequences from this view and few scholars realize the need to study general theory of drama and more specifically the dramatic experience.

Yayoi Uno Everett focuses on four operas that helped shape the careers of the composers Osvaldo Golijov, Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, and Tan Dun, which represent a unique encounter of music and production through what Everett calls "multimodal narrative." Aspects of production design, the mechanics of stagecraft, and their interaction with music and sung texts contribute significantly to the semiotics of operatic storytelling. Everett's study draws on Northrop Frye's theories of myth, Lacanian psychoanalysis via Slavoj i ek, Linda and Michael Hutcheon's notion of production, and musical semiotics found in Robert Hatten's concept of troping in order to provide original interpretive models for conceptualizing new operatic narratives.

The Original Portrayal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni offers an original reading of Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s opera Don Giovanni, using as a lens the portrayal of the title role by its creator, the baritone Luigi Bassi (1766–1825). Although Bassi was coached in the role by the composer himself, his portrayal has never been studied in depth before, and this book presents a large number of new sources (first- and second-hand accounts), which allows us to reconstruct his performance scene by scene. The book confronts Bassi’s portrayal with a study of the opera’s early German reception and performance history, demonstrating how Don Giovanni as we know it today was not only created by Mozart, Da Ponte and Luigi Bassi but also by the early German adapters, translators, critics and performers who turned the title character into the arrogant and violent villain we still encounter in most of today’s stage productions. Incorporating discussion of dramaturgical thinking of the late Enlightenment and the difficult moral problems that the opera raises, this is an important study for scholars and researchers from opera studies, theatre and performance studies, music history as well as conductors, directors and singers.