Late Opera Research Articles

Towards a tradition: the evolution of Ph. Glass’s music theater

Statement of the problem. The music theater of Ph. Glass is an important part of both the work of the composer himself and the musical culture of the 20th – 21st centuries, which is confirmed by the constant interest of researchers. However, it has been discovered unevenly, and the late operas of Ph. Glass remain almost unlit, which does not provide an opportunity to follow evolution of this genre. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to reveal the specifics of the genre metamorphosis of the opera in Ph. Glass’s music theater based on the analysis of three operas – “Einstein on the Beach” (1976), “Akhnaten” (1984), “The Perfect American” (2013) – and to determine the trajectory of the evolution of the composer’s musical theater. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time it is proposed to consider the evolution of Ph. Glass’s musical theater as a movement towards tradition; parallels with the musical genre in the opera “The Perfect American” are revealed for the first time, and the features of the baroque opera in “Akhnaten” are clarified. The structural-functional method, genre-stylistic analysis, comparative analysis are used in the study. Research results and conclusion. The analysis of three operas by Ph. Glass illustrates the movement towards tradition. In “Einstein on the Beach” (1976), which was not originally conceived as an opera, the features of this genre appeared on a significant scale, preserving the verbal component (parts of readers), vocal (chorus) and stage (pantomime, choreography, scenery), while there is no traditional linear plot, fixed text libretto and characters – bearers of solo vocal parts. “Akhnaten” includes a number of operatic components absent in “Einstein”, in particular, a linear plot, written text libretto, characters with solo vocal parts, a chorus part with a verbal text, an expanded orchestral composition, traditional operatic forms (arias, duets, trios, choirs, ballet scene). Other features, such as the choice of the plot, the use of the countertenor, the role of wind instruments (trumpet), and the use of chaconne, show the reference to baroque model of opera. In “The Perfect American” the connection with tradition brings closer the work to the American “mainstream” due to the reliance on the genre of the musical. This is reflected in the two-act structure with the disproportion like in a musical, in the pairing of events and scenes, the role of duets, the system of reprises, as well as the approach of choral melodies to popular songwriting. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that, having started his journey in the field of music theater with the radically innovative “Einstein”, Ph. Glass made a crooked evolutionary loop, first delving into the past (baroque opera), then returning to the present and approaching the border of academic and popular music (musical).

‘Facts in search of a theory’. Gianni Toniolo’s economic history (1942–2022)

ABSTRACT On Sunday, November 13, 2022, the cultural section of the ‘Il Corriere della Sera’ devoted its main article to the first volume of Gianni Toniolo’s latest opus, Storia della Banca d’Italia. Formazione ed evoluzione di una banca centrale, 1893–1943. The article characterized the book as an ‘extraordinary economic autobiography of the country’, and Toniolo as ‘undoubtedly the greatest of Italian economic historians’. That very day Gianni Toniolo died in Rome at the age of eighty. To review Toniolo’s work and life, even in the limited space these pages allow, is to go back over a period of Italian and international economic historiography, from the 1970s to the present day, to which Toniolo made vital and original contributions in a number of different ways.

Bookshelf

Bookshelf Debra Greschner (bio) Parr, Sean M. Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth Century Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. E-book, xvii, 301 pp., $48.99. ISBN 978-0197542644; Paper, $65.00. ISBN 978-0-1975-4264-4 www.global.oup.com For centuries, audiences have thrilled to the sounds of coloratura. From the earliest appearance of florid passages in medieval liturgy to the roulades of Rossini, melismatic singing has captivated listeners. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, the use of coloratura changed. The vocal virtuosity that characterized the operas of Bellini and Donizetti is absent from the late operas of Verdi, and composers such as Puccini and Bizet eschewed it completely. Musicologist Sean Parr explores the origins and history of the modern coloratura soprano, including when the Fach was established and how its development was influenced by exponents of French opera. He avers that coloratura was not anachronistic in nineteenth century opera; instead, it was an indicator of new expressive and dramatic directions. Parr also explores the social and cultural significance of coloratura and demonstrates that fioritura had implications well beyond the footlights. The chronicle begins with an overview of changes that occurred at the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1798, Pope Pius VI revoked the ban against women appearing on stage; eight years later, the French emperor forbade castrati. Parr explains that the resulting increase in opportunities for women necessitated changes in voice pedagogy models because the master teacher paradigm that required students to live with their instructors was deemed inappropriate for female singers. This shift solidified the importance of formal music schools, such as the Paris Conservatory. Founded in 1795, the institution was influential in standardizing music education, even publishing a treatise that codified the curriculum of voice pedagogy. The structured approach to technique (which included an emphasis on the whistle register) and the influence of pedagogues Laure Cinti-Damoreau (1801–1863), Gilbert-Louis Duprez (1806–1896), and Manuel Garcia II (1805–1906) enabled sopranos to develop the skills required for melismatic singing. Parr cites pedagogic treatises of the era to demonstrate the widening rift that developed between melismatic and sustained singing styles as evidenced in the writing of Francesco Lamperti (1813–1892) and Julius Stockhausen (1826–1906). There was also a shift along national lines. Parr details how Italian opera began to move away from coloratura, as exemplified in the middle period operas of Giuseppe Verdi. The author postulates that the fioritura serves as an omen of impending doom for the character who sings it; for instance, Gilda's elation in "Caro nome" is artificial and the melismas serve as an ominous warning. The author draws the same parallel for the arias "Sempre libera" (La traviata) and "Merci, jeunes amies" (Les Vêpres siciliennes). The dark subtext of these arias contrasts with the joyful or exuberant mood usually associated with coloratura, and Parr contends the mood reflects Verdi's opinion of melismatic singing. Despite its disappearance from Italian operas, coloratura remained a mainstay in the stage works of French composers. There were several important exponents of the Fach, but the most significant of the era was soprano Caroline Carvalho (1827–1895). Born Marie Félix-Miolan, she created sixteen roles in the span of seventeen years. Five were leading roles in operas by Charles Gounod, including Marguerite in Faust and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette. (She also premiered Gounod's setting of "Ave Maria" based on the first keyboard prelude by J. S. Bach.) Parr proffers a detailed portrait of the noteworthy performer and créatrice. In regard to the latter, Carvalho possessed formidable skills in performing variations as exemplified by her performance of the aria "Carnaval de Venise" (La Reine Topaze) by Massé. Her marriage to Léon Carvalho in 1853 increased her sphere of influence. As an opera director who worked at several theaters, including the Théâtre-Lyrique and Opéra-Comique, Léon exhibited an astute ability to recognize operas with potential. In addition to presenting the premieres of many of Gounod's operas, he oversaw the first performances of Les Pêcheurs de perles by Bizet (1863), Les Troyens by Berlioz...

Reflection of Christian ideological orientation through liturgical symbolism in P. Tchaikovsky's opera music

This article examines the opera music by P.I. Tchaikovsky from the point of view of its Christian orientation as a leading trend in the development of the national opera style of the 19th century and the manifestation of liturgical symbolism in it at different levels of the musical and dramatic whole. Most of the opera compositions of the composer are investigated in the context of the manifestation of iconic elements of Christian culture in them, which is common to Western and Eastern European, with a later branching into two main branches: Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The main liturgical symbols in the drama and musical fabric of opera compositions are highlighted, their gradual increase in each subsequent opera composition by P. Tchaikovsky is noted, in connection with the composer's search for spiritual truths and his appeal to certain subjects, which became the basis for the libretto of opera compositions. The greatest attention is paid to the composer's late operas: “The Maid of Orleans” and “Iolanta”, as compositions with the most pronounced symbolism of the Christian cultural tradition. The question of the manifestation of liturgical symbolism at different levels is revealed: from the general dominant idea of the composition, which can be defined as the main line of drama, its deep focus, to more particular ones, through certain dramatic, stylistic, musical techniques and verbal texts, to musical and intonational formulas, intonation stable complexes, which over time received the status of a symbol, a certain sign of a complex expression of the liturgical musical and intonational, verbal and semantic field, became rhetorical figurations, such as “Rest with the Saints” in the Orthodox tradition and “Dies irea” in the Catholic

Democratic Procedures Are Not Inherently Democratic

In his latest opus, The New Despotism, John Keane continues to challenge existing wisdom in the field of democratic theory and comparative political studies. One of the key insights of the book is that there is nothing inherently democratic about democratic innovations and procedures, and thus they can be used to prop up despotisms, rather than usher in democracy. While this insight comports with existing misgivings about elections, the book stands out in the way it explains the sustainability of using the democratic procedures in the new despotisms. For democratic procedures to further the aims of the new despotisms, the condition of “voluntary servitude” needs to be met. “Voluntary servitude” means that people willingly give in to political slavery, and become accomplices in maintaining the illusion that democratic procedures are implemented (215–222). Keane’s achievement is that he creates an analytical ecosystem of interlinked assumptions, observations, conditions, and other logical connectors, which make his model of the new despotism so robust.

Prokofiev's Soviet Operas by Nathan Seinen

Reviewed by: Prokofiev's Soviet Operas by Nathan Seinen Terry L. Dean Prokofiev's Soviet Operas. By Nathan Seinen. (Music since 1900.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. [xiv, 255 p. ISBN 9781107088788 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9781107460799 (paperback), $29; ISBN 9781316105214 (e-book), $140.] Music examples, tables, bibliography, index. Sergey Prokofiev dedicated considerable time and creative energy to the composition of opera. An avid reader and lover of literature, the composer revered opera above all other genres, contributing twelve works (eight mature) over the course of his career, [End Page 257] with opera projects extending from his childhood to the final years of his life. In part, it was his love for opera that motivated Prokofiev to return to the Soviet Union in 1936. The Stalinist state's sponsorship of opera and the prospect of a flourishing opera career appealed to him greatly. Unfortunately, the composer's plans did not work out as he had anticipated. Indeed, his status as a seasoned opera composer frequently served as an obstacle for him as he began work in a vastly different Russia from the one he had left nearly twenty years earlier. Nevertheless, Prokofiev completed four operas during his years as a repatriated Soviet composer—Semyon Kotko (Semën Kotko; 1939), Betrothal in a Monastery (Obruchenie v monastyre; 1940/43), War and Peace (Voĭna i mir; 1941–52), and The Story of a Real Man (Povest' o nastoi͡ashchem cheloveke; 1947–48). In Prokofiev's Soviet Operas, Nathan Seinen sets out to examine Prokofiev's four Soviet operas in a multitude of different contexts using a wide variety of resources, including score manuscripts, draft materials for each opera, and the composer's various notebooks as well as a number of Russian-language sources from disciplines such as film studies, history, literary criticism, and sociology. Seinen explores the works from their inception through their critical reception, with particular emphasis on understanding their individual ideological contexts and to "place them in within the wider frame of Soviet cultural history" (p. 4). What emerges is an assessment of Prokofiev's struggle for creative autonomy at a time when collaboration was promoted as an essential component of the creative process and frequently placed the composer in conflict with the demands of socialist realism as espoused by the State Committee on the Arts (forerunner of the Ministry of Culture). Ultimately, Seinen argues that "with all the pressures that were applied to opera composition under Stalin, it is remarkable how 'un-Soviet' all four of Prokofiev's late operas actually are" (p. 18). Undeniably, Prokofiev's efforts to compose operas that would appeal to international audiences served as a major obstacle to his success as a Soviet opera composer who was expected first and foremost to serve the state. Throughout the text, Seinen examines each work individually, emphasizing their role as independent cultural artifacts. As such, each chapter serves not only as a chronicle of its respective opera but also as a case study of Prokofiev's developing identity as a Soviet composer, the ever-evolving demands of socialist realism, and the complexities of high and late Stalinist aesthetics. Each work is revealed to be malapropos when considered against the expectations of Soviet aesthetics. In selecting the source for his first Soviet opera, for example, Prokofiev chose to set Valentin Kataev's I, Son of the Working People (͡IA, syn trudovogo naroda; 1937), which explored its Soviet subject matter through its setting in Bolshevik Ukraine during a period of German occupation. The novella had been reprinted multiple times and had been adapted twice for the stage as well as for film. Thus, Kataev's story seemed an ideal choice and to be an assured success. Nevertheless, Prokofiev's emphasis on action over affect, focus on the individual rather than the collective, and over-engagement with the humor of Kataev's story rendered the opera inappropriate in the eyes of critics and opened the opera to comparison by the Committee on Arts Affairs with Tikhon Khrennikov's Into the Storm (V buri͡u; 1939), which ultimately received the Party's (and Stalin's) official endorsement over Prokofiev's opera. Seinen's study also provides exciting new ways of understanding...

Review of Jonathan Cross. 2000. Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; and Robert Adlington. 2000. The Music of Harrison Birtwistle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

The more or less simultaneous appearance of these two substantial books on the music of Harrison Birtwistle by a pair of British academics is clinching evidence-if such a thing were required-of Birtwistle’s standing as a major world figure, at least in the eyes of his British admirers. All the same, something needs to be said about that qualification. Birtwistle also enjoys a certain reputation on the European mainland, but it is of much more recent date and by no means universal. His manuscripts are housed in the archive set up in Basle by the late Paul Sacher, who commissioned his trumpet concerto Endless Parade in 1986; but the distinguished Franco-Swiss-German musicologists who now run the Sacher Stiftung are by no means unanimous in their admiration. As for the United States, my impression from across the pond is that Birtwistle’s music, like his person, is a very intermittent presence. Presligious commissions like Exody (for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) can be traced to influential admirers-in this case, Daniel Barenboim, who was also midwife to the Berlin premiere of Birtwistle’s latest opera, The Last Supper. Otherwise, in the States most of Birtwistle’s stage works, and much else of note, remain little known.

Claudio Monteverdi and l’Orfeo, favola in musica: character construction and depiction of emotion

The construction of character on the early operatic stage by means of musical gestures is an arresting achievement of Italian master Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), a practice first evident in his signature opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica . In Monteverdi’s depiction of character, notably that of Orfeo and Apollo, his decisions to express emotion through voice type and musical/rhetorical devices appear at the surface to be connected primarily to contemporary aesthetic concepts and singing style conventions, representing the ideas of morality/character ( ethos ), reason ( logos ), and emotion ( pathos ) in much subtler ways than in his late opera L’incoronazione di Poppea . Monteverdi’s operatic style in Orfeo is indebted to several factors, namely cultural, personal, and social conditions ( e.g. , his exposure to musical activities in other Italian city-states, his involvement with cultural academies, and the constraints resulting from his Mantuan patronage). Lacking the freedom to write for the public theater as in his later operas, Orfeo can be seen as a result of three determining factors: cultural environment and the patronage system; aesthetics of singing/performance practice; and the influence of cultural academies, in particular the Accademia degli Invaghiti . By re-examining primary sources and re-evaluating several contemporary scholarly studies, this paper aims to further an understanding of Monteverdi’s aesthetic position as it affected his construction of operatic characters and their musical depiction, informed by the three factors above. Such an impact will be discerned using Orfeo’s Possente spirto and the duet between Apollo and Orfeo Saliam, cantando al Cielo (without excluding other excerpts of great importance in this opera) in which similar musical settings represent different dramatic situations.

Ideas’ stories and people’s stories in A. Zholdak’s directorial conception.

Ideas’ stories and people’s stories in A. Zholdak’s directorial conception.

The specificity of interpreting the image of Vassili from the opera “Siberia” by Umberto Giordano

The specificity of interpreting the image of Vassili from the opera “Siberia” by Umberto Giordano

Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 by Aitor Anduaga

Reviewed by: Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 by Aitor Anduaga Kerby C. Alvarez Aitor Anduaga Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017. 375 pages. Possessing a command of both social and physical science research, Aitor Anduaga writes about the history of meteorology and seismology, institutional scientific networks, and scientific ideologies and discourses in the second half of the nineteenth century, an important period in Spanish contemporary history. Evident in his works, namely, Geofísica, Economía y Sociedad en la España Contemporánea (CSIC Press, 2009), Meteorología, Ideología y Sociedad en la España Contemporánea (CSIC and AEMET, 2012), and Geophysics, Realism and Industry: How Commercial Interests Shaped Geophysical Conceptions, 1900–1960 (Oxford University Press, 2016), are the correlations between scientific development and the greater social and economic milieus. Anduaga demonstrates that science and society do not exist in a vacuum. His latest opus, Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898, is a historical assessment of the institutional and bureaucratic transformations in two of the remaining Spanish colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century and of how these scientific makeovers helped institutionalize meteorology and seismology as indispensable bodies of knowledge in advancing colonial [End Page 95] economy and education. In this historical context, Anduaga ventures into a multifaceted, albeit geographically specific, field of the history of science and technology—the development of institutional meteorology and seismology in the Philippines and Cuba. The author guides readers through the complicated nineteenth-century Spanish bureaucracy and details how scientific institutions flourished in the intricate ministerial structure that connected the Madrid government to its colonies. The book's arguments revolve around four aspects: (1) the institutionalization of science, mainly, meteorology and seismology, and the role of Jesuit scientists and Spanish state engineers in scientific advancement in the colonies; (2) knowledge production through experiments, observations, and scientific publications; (3) the engagement of the economic elite in scientific development; and (4) an evaluation of Spanish peninsular and overseas bureaucracy through the lenses of scientific governance and network building by state and nonstate actors. In the late–nineteenth-century Philippines and Cuba most of the scientific accounts and studies about typhoons and earthquakes were made by Jesuits and Spanish colonial state engineers, including military (inginieros militares), civil (inginieros coloniales), and mining (inginieros de minas) engineers. They played active roles in developing the colonial economy, even though Madrid was often hesitant to invest in new and risky scientific projects. The Jesuits and state engineers established their presence as "scientific architects" in the colonies. At the vanguard of the emergence and maturation of modern scientific ideas in the colonies were Philippine and Cuban observatories that generated innovative ideas and instrumentation. These observatories—the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila (OM), the Observatorio Fisico-Meteorológico de Havana (OFMH), and the Observatorio del Colegio de Belén (OCB) in Cuba—equipped the colonies with the basics of environmental science, particularly meteorology and seismology. These observatories' scientists and engineers mastered the craft of measuring patterns of weather influences and terrestrial movements. Jesuits were behind these institutions during their formative years: Federico Faura and José Algué (OM), Benito Viñes (OCB), and Andrés Poey (OFMH). In the case of state engineers, not only did they help develop seismology as a discipline but they also institutionalized it through the inclusion of scientific knowledge in policies pertaining to building regulations. In the [End Page 96] Philippines, state engineers like Rafael Cerrero Sáenz, José Centeno García, and Manuel Cortés led the production of scientific knowledge. In Cuba, colonial military engineers and officials such as José Gutiérrez de la Concha, Francisco Serrano, Domingo Dulce, and Francisco Lersundi played active roles in the promotion of institutional meteorology and seismology. Anduaga narrates the development of these sciences in the Spanish colonies from the point of view of the state and how state agencies and actors were the protagonists in this nineteenth-century imperial project. On the one hand, the book "highlights the ambiguous role of the state...

Tracing voice through the career of a musical pioneer: A conversation with Pauline Oliveros

Abstract In this conversation from 2014, composer Pauline Oliveros, one of the most important figures in American experimental music, provides insight into her relationship with the voice and when in her career it was most pivotal for her compositional development. Oliveros touches on her 1961 choral piece Sound Patterns, her Sonic Meditations, the works she performed for voice and accordion in the 1970s and 1980s, Deep Listening, and the late operas that she made with her partner, vocalist and poet Ione.

Ian Reader, Pilgrimage in the Marketplace

Ian Reader is a well-known specialist of religion in modern Japan, and of pilgrimage in particular. His latest opus is a significant contribution not only to the study of pilgrimage, but also to contemporary religion in general. The book opens with a description of the 1000th anniversary of the important Saikoku pilgrimage route that was celebrated and publicised by the means of a travelling exhibition in department stores in Western Japan in 1987. It allowed among other things that “pilgrims...

Music in Vienna, 1700, 1800, 1900 by David Wyn Jones

Reviewed by: Music in Vienna, 1700, 1800, 1900 by David Wyn Jones Peter Höyng David Wyn Jones, Music in Vienna, 1700, 1800, 1900. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell Press, 2016. 277 pp. David Wyn Jones’s stupendous study manages to have the reader learn anew many facets of the seemingly standard musical fare of classical music in Vienna, albeit now through the lens of history, politics, and sociology. After all, when interpreting compositions by Mozart and the likes, one detaches them from their cultural and political contexts, which, more often than not, determine a great part of a composition’s aesthetic conception and confinements. While being familiar with the biographies of these composers is undoubtedly an integral part of the study of music, Jones could not have presented the convincing historical arc that is the subject of this work without his emphasis on the imperial city’s significance as a space to the musical domain. Ever since Friedrich Kittler published his Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900 three decades ago, the vertical crystallization of time has proven to be a useful means for establishing a larger historical narrative that is not bound by the fallacies of an exhaustive, comprehensive approach but instead provides the advantage of showing significant shifts through limited time windows around the turn of a given century. Such is the case when Jones lays the groundwork in his brief but crucial introduction, explicating at its end the book’s structure in broad terms: “Baroque, Classical, Modern; Imperial, Aristocratic, Bourgeois, and Habsburg, Austria, Vienna” (6). The “1700” historical mark is the most liberally applied of the sections, as it covers the successive emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Karl VI, who “reigned as Holy Roman Emperor for a period of eighty-two years, from 1658 to 1740” (27). During this time period one can trace a continuous growth of the corps of musical personnel at court, and thereby document the main thesis of this first part that music “had a presence and a purpose that was inextricably linked with that of the dynasty itself” (27). As part of the aggressive Counter-Reformation, music at Leopold’s court had to serve the rituals of the Catholic Church. If there is one blind spot in Jones’s emphasis on religious politics under Leopold, it is that the anti-Judaism so intricately associated with his name is not touched on. In addition to religious music in this time period, Jones explores the importance of Italian opera, which arguably matched that of sacred music, and that of occasion-based ceremonial music, which helped to glorify the Habsburg dynasty on such events as the birthdays and name days of the emperors’ [End Page 159] family or the coronation of Karl VI in Prague in 1723. It was the composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux who provided the coronation opera Costanza e Fortezza (59); reading the “thick description” of it that Jones provides, one begins to grasp the extent of the political utilization of this opera and opera in general for the sake of Habsburg unity. The second part, “1800,” begins where the first ended, albeit almost seventy years later at another Habsburg coronation. Mozart, “who was overworked and under-appreciated” (72), wrote his late opera La clemenza di Tito (1791) for the coronation of Leopold II, again in Prague. Having earlier provided the imperial court as the primary catalyst for Viennese musical life, Jones uses this comparison to emphasize continuity on one hand and the differences to come on the other. His brother and onetime emperor Joseph II had made, for example, an impact on the musical domain by decreasing the interest in ceremonial music, which had the effect of making such music a more public affair, and by promoting German as the main language for opera (78). Likewise does Jones stress the shift from the imperial court to the aristocracy as the leaders of both private and public tastes in music, best exemplified by the obvious influences of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy, and Count Joseph Lobkowitz. Whereas these prominent families of the higher aristocracy are familiar names in music history, the uncovering of the “hidden history of women in music in this...

Karl Goldmark and Czech national opera: The final operas of Antonín Dvořák and Zdeněk Fibich

If Bedřich Smetana is thought to be the father of Czech national opera, Antonín Dvořák and Zdeněk Fibich would be his sons. Czech critics as well as the public expected that Smetana’s successors would bring Czech opera to international recognition. Dvořák and Fibich gave increased attention to opera composition during the 1890s and the beginning of the twentieth century. They both crowned their achievements with monumental operas on subjects with historical settings: Fibich’s The Fall of Arkona (1900) and Dvořák‘s Armida (1904). The reason for this apparent coincidence was, in part, that these works were written after Wagner’s operas and before the operatic successes of Richard Strauss, when it was possible to devise free combinations of symphonically composed scenes, arioso-like vocal lines influenced by verismo, and the dramaturgical effects of grand opera. As a praised model for successful historical opera might have served Karl Goldmark’s famous work Die Königin von Saba, especially in the case of Fibich’s last opera, which was explicitly compared with Goldmark’s opera. Operas on historical subjects form a little-known part of the works of Czech composers, but they extend from Smetana’s piece The Brandenburgers in Bohemia through the late operas of Dvořák and Fibich to Janáček’s two-part opera The Excursions of Mr Brouček. It is a line of operas that present an unforgettable counterpart to many successful Czech theatrical compositions – representative operas and intimate tragedies, comic operas and fairy tales, generally written on subjects from Czech villages and mythology, including Smetana’s Bartered Bride and Libuše, Fibich’s The Tempest and Šárka, Dvořák’s Jakobín, Kate and the Devil and Rusalka, Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s Eva, as well as Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa.

Verdi: the operas and choral works

Giuseppe Verdi's career forms one of the loveliest arcs in musical history. The passion of his works resonates universally, while the sophistication of his middle and late operas satisfies demanding ears and tastes. In Verdi: The Operas and Choral Works, Victor Lederer surveys every one of the master's 28 operas and his greatest choral pieces, showing Verdi's growth as a musical dramatist-he would revolutionise the hidebound conventions of 19th-century Italian opera-and his single-minded pursuit of dramatic truth. After describing the chaotic milieu in which Verdi learned his craft, the book provides act-by-act analyses of the early masterpieces Nabucco, Ernani, and Macbeth. The neglected operas from the composer's self-described years in the galleys are covered together. Lederer then takes readers through the magnificent sequence of Verdi operas from Luisa Miller onward, including the fine but underrated Stiffelio. Each of the late operas - Don Carlo, Aida, and Othello and Falstaff, the twin Shakespearean masterworks that crown Verdi's oeuvre - is discussed at length in its own chapter. Lederer also examines Verdi's monumental Requiem along with the choral Quattro pezzi sacri, Verdi's sublime final achievement. The book comes with a Naxos CD of musical selections representing highlights from throughout Verdi's long, remarkable career.

Mozart22: A DVD Review Portfolio

What's in a recitative? For two productions in Mozart22, the answer is a resounding “not much.” The directorial teams behind La finta semplice and Ascanio in Alba dispense with their operas' recitatives altogether, replacing them with newly written dialogue spoken by interpolated characters, metatheatrical narrator figures who mediate self-consciously between the work and “us.” It is difficult to imagine a similar level of musical intervention being tolerated with one of the late operas. Although Stefan Herheim's controversial Die Entführung aus dem Serail, with its overhaul of the dialogue, represents a comparable level of gutting of spoken text, and additional characters (speaking or mute) are a common feature in Mozart22, the largely conservative approach to the music of the late works suggests that there is still, after all these years, something sacrosanct about Mozart's late scores.1 As Ascanio in Alba's conductor, Adam Fischer, casually put it in an interview for the DVD's behind-the-scenes featurette, “One could do Don Giovanni with the same freedom, but no one dares. We're all cowards.”2

A Ukrainian Tune in Medieval France: Perceptions of Nationalism and Local Color in Russian Opera

Abstract This article is based on the key-note lecture given at the conference “Non-Nationalist” Russian Operas, Leeds, U.K., on 17 November 2010. It engages with the conference9s distinction between the “nationalist” and “non-nationalist” and proposes six potential situations for when an opera might be described as “Russian”: by composer9s intention, by reception, by interpretation, by association, by blood or culture, and by emanating from the nationalist school. Given that these six categories of Russianness (some of them mystificatory) form a network of conflicting claims upon any opera, there is no straightforward method for assigning operas to Russian or non-Russian categories. Therefore an alternative approach is proposed: to revive the older concept of “local color,” which figured prominently in nineteenth-century Russian discourse on opera, and to use this as a lens through which almost any nineteenth-century Russian opera can instructively be viewed. After examining how the concept was understood by leading Russian critics, Serov and Cui, the author offers a selection of her own examples to elucidate the use of “Russian” local color. It is emphasized that there are certain limits beyond which this color cannot be applied: characters of noble birth, even when Russian, are rarely portrayed in Russian colors; scenes that take place outside Russia usually have their own, appropriate color, e.g., “Polish” or “Oriental”; most importantly, themes that are considered universal, such as love or death, are usually exempt from Russian coloring. Examples from the late operas of Rimsky-Korsakov demonstrate his conscious and sometimes obsessive efforts in creating appropriate colors, Russian and otherwise. This approach allows us to set aside preconceived notions of which composers were truly national, especially when we generalize that local color denotes any distinguishing device designed to evoke a specific time and place, as well as the social identity of a character. Thus Tchaikovsky9s operas, often criticized for their lack of “Russianness,” display a subtle understanding of appropriate coloring: Eugene Onegin , for example, uses an idiom based on the parlor song of the Russian gentry, while The Queen of Spades takes up eighteenth-century idioms—in both cases lending the drama an appropriate color. The article concludes that local color, a much-used device in nineteenth-century opera across Europe, was an almost obligatory requirement for Russian opera composers who adopted an aesthetic of the characteristic, along the lines proposed by Victor Hugo in his Preface to Cromwell . The concept proves to be a valuable critical tool that allows us to deal with nineteenth-century Russian opera without becoming ensnared in essentializing distinctions between “nationalist” and “non-nationalist.” At the same time, it allows us to put Russian color in perspective, as one color among many cultivated by opera composers.

Zwischen nationalem Anspruch und lokalpolitischen Zwängen: Entstehungs- und Rezeptionsbedingungen der Kasseler Opern Louis Spohrs

In 1823 Louis Spohr published an article entitled “Aufruf an deutsche Komponisten” (Appeal to German Composers) in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ). He did so for the purpose of encouraging young German composers to contribute to the genre of German opera. But he probably had other intentions, too. He was determined to promote his latest opera Jessonda, which he mentioned as a model for his ideas of German opera. Thus one could say that the project of “German opera” was in some aspects merely a marketing strategy.A closer look at Jessonda reveals that Spohr did certainly not think along nationalist lines. In a way its dramaturgy depicts Kant’s definition of the Enlightenment and aims at a united and enlightened mankind. So did Spohr in his personal life. And by so doing he became very popular with the liberal citizens in Kassel, the city in which he worked as “Hofkapellmeister” from 1822 to 1857. This popularity in some cases misguided him. The liberal and enlightened ideas of Spohr are so prominent in his operas that they became increasingly neglected in the 1870s when chauvinistic tendencies became more prominent. This development culminated in the 1940s when the Nazis banned Jessonda from the German stage. They did however try to make it suitable for their ideas of German opera. As Spohr’s original did resist to this violation, the “Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen” commissioned an amended version. Luckily the end of World War II terminated these efforts.

Women Build the Welfare State: Performing Charity and Creating Rights in Argentina, 1880–1955

In her latest opus, Donna Guy traces the evolution of social welfare policy in Argentina from the 1880s through the first Peronist era ending in 1955. Focusing on child welfare and family law, Guy stresses broad continuities in the approach to social issues not only across the decades but between social groups commonly assumed to be on opposite sides of most questions in Argentine history. While insisting that women’s social work is crucial to the development of welfare states, Guy raises any number of interesting questions about the Argentine case.Of course there were differences in ideas about family and society, and Guy’s subtitle points to the two groups of women deemed most instrumental to the development of the welfare state. On the one hand, middle- and upper-class women performed charity to benefit children in need, and on the other, feminist women sought to create legal and economic rights. Philanthropic women gained status through the large institutions they administered and the number of children they aided. Guy starts from the interesting observation that in nineteenth-century Argentina, these married women had more rights over the orphans in their asylums than over their own biological children. Feminists sought to create rights for mothers and provide education for them and their children as a means to prevent abandonment, delinquency, and institutionalization.While carefully analyzing these differences over time, Guy’s emphasis remains on the role of women in elevating social policy to the national level, and she asserts that “analyzed as a group, their combined activities provided a blueprint of social policies for the subsequent formation of a Peronist welfare state based upon concerns for children and mothers” (p. 57). Her discussion of the performance of charity is important and leads to irresistible comparisons with Eva Perón as the performer of public love. Yet the primary element of continuity throughout the period is the support among all manner of social agencies, public health officials, sociologists, and others from all political parties for increasingly large state subsidies to private benevolent groups to manage the care and feeding of abandoned children, orphans, and delinquents and sometimes their defective relations with parents.Along with the growth of various philanthropic endeavors, Guy documents the shifting political and legislative changes that eventually brought about reform of patria potestad, legalization of adoption, regulation of child labor, criminalization of child abuse, and increasing rights first for single mothers and then married women. The turning point of the Great Depression enabled this transition even as state welfare remained reliant on subsidized philanthropy through the early 1940s. The beginning of the end to massive subsidies came in 1943 with the creation of the National Directorate of Public Health and Social Assistance. As new state agencies began to emerge from the welter of private benevolence, Guy explores the manner in which the work of both philanthropic and feminist women was absorbed and co-opted by Peronism, arguing that the new welfare state was labeled Peronist because that party was finally able to get the legislation passed. The “new Peronist family in fact owed its origins to a composite of conservative, feminist, socialist, and radical plans to reform the civil code” (p. 184). In the end, the Eva Perón Foundation was swept as inexorably as the institutions of the Society of Beneficence into a masculinized welfare bureaucracy.Given the number of complex strands that Guy weaves into her chapters, her book will be most enjoyable to students who bring a familiarity with Argentine history to their reading. One need not be entirely persuaded of all of Guy’s claims in order to derive important insights from her work. Her scholarship combines a sweeping command of the literature on gender and welfare with an intimate understanding of the Argentine particulars based in an incredible wealth of archival research. For these reasons the book may be profitably read by analysts of gender, of welfare states, and of Argentine social politics.