Famous Opera Research Articles

Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers by Means of Bibliographical Research

This paper concerns the identification of the hitherto unknown printers of the works of Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-77). For centuries the identity of these printers has remained a mystery. The publisher Jan Rieuwertsz, or the printer Christoffel Cunradus, were often mistakenly mentioned as printer of the works of the seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher. These assumptions are incorrect. Despite several studies published in the last decades, the true identity of the printer was still unknown.In this paper we will describe how we were able to identify Spinoza’s anonymous printers by means of analytical bibliography. The identity of printers can be established by their usage of unique printing types, initials and ornaments. By comparing printing materials of known printers to unidentified samples, anonymous works can be ascribed to a certain printer. In seventeenth-century books a decorated initial is often used to start the text. This initial belongs to a certain printer and by comparing different prints of similar initials in detail, small differences may be found. These differences can be caused by damages of the initial concerned, such as small cracks. If these differences are consistent over different prints, one can ascribe certain works to the same printer.By such research the Amsterdam-based printers Daniel Bakkamude and Herman Aeltsz can be identified as the printers of the two earliest published works of Spinoza. His most famous works, Tractatus Theologico-politicus and Opera Posthuma (including the Ethica), were printed by another Amsterdam-based printer: Israel de Paull (1632-80).

The strange career of Porgy and Bess: America's most famous opera

The strange career of Porgy and Bess: America's most famous opera

Kitsch, Camp, and Opera: Der Rosenkavalier

In her celebrated essay, "Notes on Camp," Susan Sontag identifies Richard Strauss’s most famous opera, Der Rosenkavalier as forming part of the canon of "camp." What is it about this work and its relationship to fin-de-siècle Vienna which gives it over to the "camp" aesthetic? In this article, the author examines the essence of the style known as camp, as derived from kitsch, another mode of "failed seriousness." Central to this investigation is the manner in which certain aesthetic objects can inhabit the realms of "high" or "serious" art and also that of popular culture. Hermann Broch, Theodor Adorno, and others suggest that kitsch is a parasitic ingredient in bourgeois culture and that this element can invade and "negate" an aesthetic object or experience. The historical imperatives found in romantic opera, bourgeois culture, and marginalized groups form an important element in defining the creations of modernist culture. Part of our understanding of what constitutes "serious" art has at its centre ways of maintaining autonomy and refusing the prospect of "negating" itself. One way of experiencing and examining those works which "refuse the burden of autonomy" is through the categories of questionable or marginal sensibilities, in this case: kitsch and camp. Der Rosenkavalier, with its fawning tribute to eighteenth-century Vienna, overt homage to Mozart, and its heralding of the composer's withdrawal from the avant-garde, proves to be a superb example of alternative sensibilities.

Estimating demand for opera using sales system data: the case of Finnish National Opera

Using detailed data for 2001–2009 from the sales system of the Finnish National Opera, we estimate the determinants of demand for opera tickets. We find that operas in their premiere season are more popular than reprises. Demand is lower for classical operas and higher for domestic operas and for performances with a famous opera singer. Press reviews and the overall popularity of the opera piece have the expected effects. There is also evidence of seasonal effects. By excluding temporarily discounted tickets, controlling for performance characteristics and quality and using a method that takes into account capacity constraints, we are able to credibly estimate the price elasticity of demand. The overall elasticity is close to unity: on average, a 1 % increase in prices would result in 1.16 % decrease in demand.

The Catalogue of the Library of Duke Alexander Louis Radziwiłł in Nesvizh (1651)

The studies on book culture and the functioning of various libraries have been present in academic circle for many decades. For obvious reasons the interest in books among the illustrious members of Radziwiłł magnate family as well as their scope of activity as the patrons of culture have been analyzed by historians. In the context, the history of the famous Radziwiłł library in Nesvizh can be considered as a separate research topic. This magnificent collection was confiscated after the first partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772) by order of Empress Catherine the Great. Some 15.000 volumes were transported to Saint Petersburg and offered to the Russian Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts (later Russian Academy of Sciences).Nicolas Radziwiłł the Black (1515–1565) is considered to be the founder of the Nesvizh library; however, its full development can be dated back to the time of Nicholas Christopher Radziwiłł “the Orphan” (1549–1616), who rebuilt the ducal palace and organized a library in one of the specially adopted rooms. The Nesvizh collection has been enriched by numerous donations, including that of cardinal and bishop of Vilnius George Radziwiłł (1556–1600), Sigismund Charles Radziwiłł (1591–1642), and many other members ofthe family.The presented catalogue was compiled under the request of Duke Alexander Louis Radziwiłł. This magnate, born in 1594 as a son of Nicolas Christopher Radziwiłł and Elisabeth Eufemia née Wiśniowiecka, received a most privileged education. In 1610 he began his studies in Germany then traveled throughout Germany, France and Italy. He returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the end of 1620, but in 1624 he left for Italy again, this time in the company of Prince Vladislas Vasa. In summer 1625 he again returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but soon was totally immersed in political life. Thanks to family connections he advanced his career very fast, becoming in the court marshal of Lithuania in 1635, and grand marshal of Lithuania only two years later. In December 1652 he went to Italy again and died in Bologna March 30, 1654. The manuscript catalogue of the library of Alexander Louis Radziwiłł is currently preserved in the Kórnicka Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Ms BK 1320). It contains of two parts. The first of them (f. 1–25r), compiled according to subjects, was written down in April 1651, then second one (f. 26r–46v), compiled alphabetically – in May and June this year. The catalogues are not identical. The first part, divided into classes, is more comprehensive than the second one (alphabetical). The catalogue was composed by John Hanowicz, mayor of Nesvezh. The manuscript has been marked with the ex-libris of the Radziwiłł library (Ex Bibliotheca Radivilliana Ducali Nesvisiensi) and pressmark (Loc. X, No 17). Hanowicz did not state usually the information about the place and year of publication, which makes the precise identification of the books very difficult. Therefore, one can only predict the exact number of the books (and volumes) preserved in the Nesvezh library at that time. It also happened that Hanowicz stated a title of this same book in both versions: once in the original Latin version and then in (abbreviated) Polish form. Among items included the catalogue one can also find manuscripts, maps, drawings and landed estate documents. Most the books were bound with white or red leather, less frequently with green, cherish, orange or red colored leather, and seldom with morocco leather or paper. The bibliographical descriptions provided in the footnotes should be considered only as suggestions, for only direct analysis of a given book (in visu) allows one to identify and link a book with the Radziwiłł Library. Some of the most precious books were kept in the castle treasury. The Nesvizh collections included also musical pieces, e.g. the libretto (?) of the first opera – Il ratto di Helena – performed on September 4th, 1636, in the theater of the lower ducal castle in Vilnius. The music of the famous opera was composed by an anonymous author, but the libretto was produced by Virgilio Puccitelli.The significance of the magnate families (e.g. that of the Radziwiłłs or the Sapiehas) as promoters and patrons of fine arts and literature was enormous and hard to over-estimate in the history of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A further and detailed study on the content of the Nesvizh library of Duke Alexander Louis Radziwiłł in 1651 gives one the opportunity to present in full and broad contexts a truly European library collection of Baroque culture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

THE MYSTERY OF ERNELINDE

ABSTRACTFrançois-André Danican Philidor's Ernelinde was one of the most famous French operas of the late eighteenth century. A subject of great controversy when it was first performed in 1767, the history of its reception has been obscured by judgments rooted more in the politics of the French literary world than in the work itself. The opera is shown in a new light by reconsidering Philidor's librettist, Antoine-Henri Poinsinet.

The history of little things that changed our lives

Being the president of an organization such as International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery (ISPN) was truly an honor and a thoroughly thrilling experience. This is the point where I had dreamt of reaching in my professional career and this is the position of my teachers who deserved wearing this poncho. I would also like to thank everyone who supported me during this presidency. One of the last assignments of an ISPN president is the presidential address. During the first session of this congress, we have watched the history of pediatric neurosurgery with a keen interest. Now, I would like to tell you about a different history, regarding the little things that changed our lives and our points of views. Actually, I will tell you what you already know in a chronological order. In 1923, Edwin Hubble discovered the Andromeda Galaxy and the presence of other galaxies beyond it. Until that time, it was thought that the whole universe comprised of our Milky Way Galaxy. He discovered one more thing: that the universe is expanding because of the drifting of the spectrum in the color red. According to Hubble's finding, Russian cosmologist and mathematician Alexander Friedmann and the Belgian physicist priest Georges Lemaitre founded a theory concerning the formation of the universe. In the beginning, there was nothing. Some 3.8 billion years ago, one day! Big Bang! There are many arguments and many things to tell on Big Bang. If we fast forward, one of the galaxies that was formed in spacetime is our Milky Way. The sun, which is one of the thousands of stars in this galaxy, is 26,000 light years away from the center. Some 4.5 billion years ago, our planet, which was a fireball back then, slowly cooled down, and the supercontinent that is called Pangea, broke up into smaller continents that exist today 65,000 years ago. Two million years ago, the first mammals appeared. Two hundred thousand years ago, the hominids, that are genetically 99% similar to us, learned to use tools. Let us all watch a small fragment from Stanley Kubrick's “A Space Odyssey 2001”, which is one of the most important movie in the world's history of films, listening along to the famous opus from Strauss. In this poetically shot scene, the ape man learns how to use the animal bone as a tool, for the first time. While he is breaking the other bones in front of him with this bone, the bone he throws spinning to the air metamorphs into a spaceship. Today, the Hubble telescope symbolizes this spaceship, and it helps us see the boundaries of our universe. The primitive man's learning of how to use his hands and tools marks the milestone in increasing of our knowledge. Of course, we did not reach the invention of the Hubble telescope with hominids' first use of the tools. The spread of information took a long while.

Kastraten – alles für den Ruhm

The phenomenon of castration is wedded to the baroque era. This epoch stands for pure sensual pleasure. Those who could afford it tried to arrange their earthly days to be as enjoyable as possible. A perverse bloom of this ambition was the angel-like voices of the castrati. The supernatural sound of the voice was meant to let the opera visitors escape into another world. High society was almost addicted to those voices. On the other hand nobody showed any interest in the spiritual life of the castrati. Farinelli, Nicolini, and Senesino, three of the most famous castrati, were the first musical superstars of the eighteenth century. Their voices moved the decadent baroque audience to tears and enraptured them to the point of standing ovations. But the price for this fame was high. Only through castration in their early boyhood could this bell-like voice be kept. Because of the sensational success of the castrati, a huge wave of castration swept over Italy. Ambitious parents had their boys castrated, hoping that they would also become famous opera stars. It is estimated that in Italy alone over half a million boys were victims of this mutilating procedure during the eighteenth century. Because castration was officially forbidden it was done"behind closed doors" by untrained barbers and of course was associated with a high morbidity and mortality rate. The height of the castrati ended with the fading eighteenth century. The last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, was engaged as a chorister and soloist at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He was pensioned off by Pope Pius X in the year 1912 after an official ban on castrated singers was imposed. With that a very impressive part of music history had ended.

Can Stage Directors Make Opera and Popular Culture ‘Equal’?

Can Stage Directors Make Opera and Popular Culture ‘Equal’?

Finding the Lost Children of Craig-y-nos

Craig-y-nos Castle (meaning ‘Rock of the Night’) lays claim to be the most haunted castle in Wales. Perched on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, it was the estate of Adelina Patti, the world famous opera singer, from 1878 until her death in 1919. Within the castle grounds, Patti built an ornate theatre where she sang for audiences of up to 150 guests including British and European Royalty. The Patti Theatre is now a Grade 1 listed opera house and headquarters of the Opera School Wales. On Patti’s death, her third husband, Baron Rolf Cederstrom, sold the estate to the King Edward VII Welsh National Memorial Association, established in 1910, to combat tuberculosis in Wales. As the Adelina Patti Hospital, it served for 40 years as a sanatorium for children and young women, at a time when the incidence and death rate of TB in the industrial areas of south Wales were higher than anywhere else in Britain. TB claimed the lives of 12 young men and 17 young women a year in every Welsh community of 6000 people.

Leoncavallo: Life and Works (review)

Leoncavallo: Life and Works. By Konrad Dryden. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. [xvi, 351 p. ISBN-10 0810858800; ISBN-13 9780810858800. $75.] Illustrations, references, bibliography, appendix, index. No scholar deserves more credit for furthering cause of neglected turn-of-thetwentieth- century Italian composers than Konrad Dryden. Following publication of his biography of Riccardo Zandonai (New York: Lang, 1999), Dryden has now provided a study of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's life and works. With relatively little information about Leoncavallo readily accessible, Dryden had to start almost from scratch, wondering some justification why a composer of one of world's most famous operas has received such little research over past one hundred (p. xiii). Dryden set himself lofty goal of writing the ultimate reference on this important figure in music and opera history (http://www.konrad-dryden.de [accessed 21 November 2007]); while this goal has turned out to be too ambitious, he has realized his goal of providing a foundation for future research (p. xv). Dryden's study consists of two parts, a biography (to p. 186) and a description of major works (to p. 320). An appendix of major compositions (including references to operas' literary sources, original casts, and places and dates of first performances), a bibliography, and an index of names conclude book. Dryden paints a paradoxical but convincing picture of Leoncavallo. On one hand, he sees a generous man of high culture who lived in four countries (Italy, Egypt, France, and Switzerland), had an extensive knowledge of literature (due in part to studies Giosue Carducci), made generous charitable contributions, and composed effective works in addition to Pagliacci (especially La nuit de mai, La boheme, Zaza, and Maia). On other hand, he sees a man who repeatedly sacrificed artistic integrity, accepted every libretto apparently without ever requesting revisions, played one publisher against another, and blamed others for his lack of success: his publisher Sonzogno for insufficient promotion, Ricordi for waging a war against him, and famous performers such as Enrico Caruso, Tita Ruffo, and Arturo Toscanini for not performing his works more often. According to Dryden, Leoncavallo's decline began Der Roland von Berlin (commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II and premiered in 1904) and accelerated Sonzogno's increasing financial problems and onset of World War I, during which Leoncavallo's opportunistic but inconsistent stance vis-a-vis Germans and French proved counterproductive for performance of his operas in those countries. Dryden assembles a large number of unpublished documents and succeeds in shedding light on periods of Leoncavallo's life that have been hardly known at all, such as his relationship German publisher Furstner and his years in Paris, when he worked as a pianist in cafe concerts and barely managed to make ends meet. The introduction to book raises expectation that Dryden might also be able to solve some of mysteries of Leoncavallo's life, most of which composer himself promoted (beginning with uncertain year of his birth, time spent in Egypt and Paris, his health, his finances, Pagliacci's origins, and his relationship Puccini and other colleagues [p. xiii]). Dryden does establish date of Leoncavallo's birth (reproducing birth certificate) and covers Leoncavallo's Egyptian period. But composer's health, origins of and his relationship Puccini remain either mysterious or less thoroughly covered than elsewhere. For example, Dryden's discussion of Leoncavallo's health is limited to providing Latin names for illnesses, and his treatment of Pagliacci's origins is less thorough than has been provided by Matteo Sansone (The Verismo of Ruggero Leoncavallo: A Source Study of Pagliacci, Music & Letters 70, no. …

Master and Margarita: a Literary Autobiography?

The dialectics of a triad—the author, his creation, and the surrounding reality—is the focus of this essay, which aims to discover how much of his soul Mikhail Bulgakov put into his famous opus, Master and Margarita. The author's mind becomes a bifurcation point between his work and reality, a kind of Borgesian Aleph, where causality might change direction and where the border between the Kantian 'thing in itself' and phenomena disappears. Though Stalin was keenly interested in Bulgakov's work, the latter's attempt to play Seneca's role near Emperor Nero was mercilessly crushed. Still, one of the writer's prophecies regarding the Jewish fate, symbolised in the novel by a Yom Kippur rooster, very nearly came true 13 years after his death. TO THE FRIENDS OF MY YOUTH IN DONETSK The Middle Ages are dear to us because they possessed in a high degree the feeling of edges and separation. They neuer mixed different plans and looked at the supernatural with great moderation. A noble mixture of thoughfulness and mysticism brings us close to that epoch and calls us to gain strength from the works written c. 1200} O. Mandelstam (1891-1938) Sleeplessness. At daum I start looking at the ceiling and straining my eyes until the time when, behind the mndows, life starts its routine: cap, kerchief, kerchief, cap. How boring! M. A. Bulgakov (1891-1940) Every European is a miter, potentially or in fact.3 J. L. Borges (1899-1986) At The end of 1938, in Buenos Aires, the 39-year-old avant garde poet, Jorge Luis Borges, was ill with a dangerous infection. While recovering from a difficult operation that saved his life, Borges decided to check his sanity by Literature & Theology © The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press 2006; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: joumals.permissions@oxfordjoumals.org > The Author 2006. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.231 on Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:37:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The relationship between measured vibrato characteristics and perception in Western operatic singing

Summary This study examined the association between acoustic and perceptual data related to vibrato in Western operatic singing using recordings of performances by internationally famous opera singers. Three related studies were conducted. Study 1 used commercial recordings of the same five singers and the same cadenza examined by Siegwart and Scherer 1, measured vibrato rate and extent in each singer's performance of the cadenza and tested possible associations between these vibrato attributes and judges' preference for singers. Studies 2 and 3, using recordings of different internationally famous singers and a different cadenza, measured vibrato onset, rate, and extent in each singer's performance of the cadenza, required judges to rank the singers in order of personal preference, to identify the emotion expressed, and to assess the degree of success in communicating emotion achieved by the singer. The findings showed that the perception of the singers' vibrato did not always agree with acoustic measurements. However, a comparison of the acoustic measurements with the preference and emotion judgments suggest that some elements of vibrato may affect listeners' perception of the voice, their preference for a particular singer, and assist the communication of emotion between singer and audience.

Le personnel musical de l'Opéra de Paris sous le règne de Louis XVI

Abstract In 1776, through the impetus given by Louis XVI's Intendant des Menus Plaisirs Papillon de La Ferté, the French monarchy took direct control of the Académie Royale de Musique (as the Paris opera company was officially called) by enacting a new regulation, valid up to the end of the Ancien Régime. This reorganization leads us to study the relatively small group constituted by the instrumentalists and the singers of the most famous opera company in France. This paper deals with their education, their career, their incomes and highlights of their daily life.

Visualizing the Music

One of Canada’s most famous opera productions recently returned to the stage of the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto after an eight-year odyssey of touring that has brought the Canadian Opera Company acclaim from critics around the world. First mounted in Toronto in 1993, Robert Lepage’s staging of Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung has travelled to New York, Edinburgh (where it won the prestigious £50 000 Scotsman Hamada prize for drama and music), Melbourne, Geneva, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Cincinnati. As is by now well-known, Lepage bases his theatrical creation on the use of “resources,” ranging from pieces of text to familiar objects to artistic images in other media. What is striking in his stage direction of these two short operas, restaged for this production by François Racine, is the way Lepage treats the music itself as a resource. In this staging it would seem that the musical patterns of the score guide the creation of a series of visual images much more than do the verbal signs of the libretto. The result is a complex presentation of visual and aural images that strikes the audience as fantastically original without ultimately challenging the rather traditional messages of these psychoanalytically inspired operas.

Racial essences and historical invisibility: Chinese opera in New York, 1930

Describing the performances of two Chinese opera groups – the visiting famous opera singer Mai Lan-fang and his troupe on Broadway and the local San Sai Gai troupe in Chinatown – and their reception by non-Chinese Americans, this essay tracks various formations and effects of Chinese images in 1930s New York that were deeply imprinted in popular imagination. The regrettable invisibility of Chinese opera in American music history is a result of such a pre-constructed concept of Chineseness.

In Praise of Convention: Formula and Experiment in Bellini's Self-Borrowings

In the 1880s, the realization that Bellini had extensively reused melodies from early or unfinished works in his most famous operas provoked a small aesthetic crisis in Italy. Although today such reuse of material is no longer looked upon as a scandalous breach of compositional integrity, scholars have been slow to examine Bellini's self-borrowings for clues to the evolution of his style or to his attitudes toward the relations between melody and drama. Most of Bellini's self-borrowings show the composer simplifying his melodies, reducing harmonic and melodic variety as if to distance himself from bel canto convention. At the same time, melodic convention is essential to understanding the borrowings, a fact that becomes particularly obvious in those cases where dramatic parallels between the two contexts of a melody are obscure or nonexistent. For example, the recasting of a cheerful cabaletta in Zaira as a lament in I Capuleti e i Montecchi relies on a resemblance between melodic figures conventionally used to imitate tears or laughter-but also critiques those conventions. An allusive relationship between refrains in Il pirata and I puritani similarly derives its logic more from a shared musical evocation of solitude and empty space than from any overt dramatic resemblance between the two scenes. The article argues that for Bellini self-borrowing was entangled with the looser techniques of allusion and reliance on melodic convention. For this reason, study of the self-borrowings provides a model for engaging with the musical language of early nineteenth-century Italian opera, redressing the tendency to dismiss its musical detail as "merely" conventional and thus unworthy of analysis.

Summary Endoscopic laryngeal surgery as day-care surgery

Endoscopic laryngeal surgery is usually performed under general anesthesia using microlaryngoscope. Hence, the patient must be hospitalized for several days. Generally speaking, in order to let the patient be out of the hospital immediately after the operation, topical anesthesia should be carried out instead of general anesthesia. However, in this case, painful and uncomfortable sennsation can not be avoided to the patient because of using a direct laryngoscope. Avoiding painful and uncomfortable sennsation, a lot of ideas have been developed and reported by many authors. In our clinic, a therapeutic and flexible f iberscope has been developed and applied to remove laryngeal lesions like the vocal fold polyp. From our experience, we indicate that f iberscopic surgery must be performed for small polyps and nodules which are easilly def erenciated from the vocal fold itself. If the surgery is not indicated to restore the normal voice, f iberoptic surgery can be performed, for example, to biopsy for further histopathological study. Even today, fiberoptic surgery should not be applied for polypoid vocal folds, large polyps and so on. And the indication of the f iberopyic surgery is influenced by the patient's occupational reasons. If the patient is a famous opera singer, micro scar formation after the operation must be avoided, which will disturb the musical activity of the vocal foils. In this case, more presice operation must be done under the microlaryngoscope. However, the indication of the f iberoptic surgery will be expanded in future, thanks to newly designed surgical tools like f orseps and laser technique.

The Compleat Mozart: a guide to the musical works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death in 1791, this book is designed to be a guide to the composer's works and is aimed at the music-lover who wishes to read something informative about any particular piece. Although there are many books which deal with the handful of famous operas, symphonies, concertos, or string quartets upon which Mozart's reputation rests, this collection contains in a single volume details about any work composed by Mozart and where, when and why he wrote it, what it is like, and what special significance it may have.

A Metamorphic Tragedy

The outlines of the history of Madama Butterfly are well known. The first performance took place at La Scala on 17 February 1904, and was one of the most spectacular flops ever seen at that famous opera house, or indeed at any other. Puccini immediately withdrew the opera and made a number of revisions. A few months later, on 28 May, the work was performed at Brescia, and was received enthusiastically by public and critics alike. Further alterations were made to the score during the next two and a half years or so, and by early 1907, following a series of performances in Paris, the version we know today had been arrived at.