Late Opera Research Articles

Rob Kroes, Photographic Memories: Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History

In his latest opus, Rob Kroes gives us a very personal meditation on images, as well as a powerful and engaging semiotic voyage through America and Europe. Although the subtitle reads “Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History”, it is too modest to the point of being misleading. In this book Kroes writes with “elegance, wisdom, and originality” (to quote Richard Pells’s reaction to the book) as the true polyglot humanist he is, a man who has extensively traveled throughout the US ...

Thank you for the music?

Thank you for the music?

Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia by Oleg s> Tarasov Robin Milner-Gulland (review)

332 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 Mira Mendel'son-Prokofev, covers 1948 and 1949, years which witnessedthe composer'sseparationfrom Lina Codina (who was subsequentlyarrestedand incarcerated),a full-scaleattackby the Party, the failureof the opera Stogy of a RealMan and enforced revisionsto WarandPeace,as well as poverty and ill health. Yet even in those terribleyears, Prokof'evwas stillcapable of defending himselfagainstthe chargesof formalismthat were levelled againsthim, as his letters whethernaive or cunning,brusqueor penitent,confidentor even egotistical make clear. The transcriptsof debates about Prokof'ev's late operas are particularlyfascinatingfor the light they shed on a culturewhere works of art were 'worked over' (as in English, the Russian prorabotat' has multiple connotations) even before they were revealed to the public. That artistswere themselves responsiblefor interpretingand shaping the doctrine (notwithstandingperiodic and dramatic incursions on the part of the state) makes its implementationno less terrifying. Mira'smemoirs are followedby those of Nina Lamm, adopted daughterof the musicologist Pavel Lamm. These, like all memoirs, contain their share of partisangossip,but like those of Prokof'ev'swife, they also evoke an atmosphere of panic, terror, sadness and incomprehension, reminding modern readersjust how hard it is tojudge what was genuine help, cautiousequivocation , bitter jealousy or opportunisticparty-minded persecution on the part of Prokofev's contemporaries. Both accounts are replete with vignettes of composers,critics,performersand functionariesand illustratethe networksof patronage, support and hostility that functioned at the time. This is a stoiy worth telling and not just that of the solitaryhero-artistand his tormented relationswith the state. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies PHILIP Ross BULLOCK University College London Tarasov, Oleg. IconandDevotion: Sacred Spaces inImperial Russia.Translatedand edited by Robin Milner-Gulland.ReaktionBooks,London, 2002. 416 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliography.Index. L29.OO: $40.00. OLEG TmRAsov and his Englishlanguageeditor and translator,Robin MilnerGulland have offered an ambitious and ground-breakingwork in kon and Devotion: Sacred Spacesin Imperial Russia.It is a translation and reworking of a more specialized Russian study, Ikonai blagochestie: Ocherki ikonnogo delav imperatorskoi Rossii(Moscow, I995), to make it accessible to an educated lay audience. Its subjectmatteris the 'popular',mass-producedicon and a variety of related genres such as the picture-icon and the print-icon. The narrative is organized around well-chosen and beautifullyreproducedvisual material, some of which is from archivalsourcesand privatecollections.Tarasov'sstudy is the first extensive treatment of the non-elite Russian icon in the modern period from the point of view of artisticorigins,style, ideological content and popular craft culture. Tarasov is concerned with the varied and culturally determinedways the mass-producedicon articulatesa collectivemyth of Holy Russia while itself servingas a focal point and vehicle of holiness. (He argues REVIEWS 333 that in certain Old Believer contexts it even takes the place of the Church itself.)He presentshis study in two parts with three chapterseach. Part One, 'The Icon and the World', describes the saturationof Russian Muscovite and imperial cultural space with icons, codes of behaviour and belief related to icons and also the principalcentres of icon mass-production in Vladimir-Suzdal province. Tarasov's evidence, besides the icons themselves ,is eclectic:it includespassagesfromthe Churchfathers,from Byzantine emperors and from Muscovite books, Russian tracts on icon painting, icon pattern books, travellers'accounts, writingsof Russian observersand of Old Believers,decreesof MetropolitanFilaretDrozdov, nineteenth-centurysecular paintingsand newspaperarticles.The narrativemoves freelybetween the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to different periods of imperial Russia, since Tarasov considersthe Muscoviteperiod to be formativefor the language and function of the popular icon. Tarasov notes how the theocratic ideology of the 'Third Rome' trickled down to the popular milieu where the icon evinced utopian mythologies of Holy Russia beginning in the late sixteenthcentury.Afterthe Church Schism of i666-67, mass-produced icons reflected either archaizing Old Believer or Westernizing official Church tradition. Tarasov hypothesizes that the icons under Old Believerinfluencewere closestto the collectiveconsciousness because the people remained faithfulto the traditionsof the forefatherseven when they consideredthemselvesofficiallyOrthodox. Two of the three chaptersof PartOne, therefore,deal in detailwith Old Believertraditions,disputes and eschatologicalworldviews,especiallyof the more eschatologicalpriestless sects. Tarasov's methodology in Part One is also eclectic: it combines culturological, social historical and art-historicaldiscourse. His vocabulary draws from semiotics, symbolic anthropology, Bakhtinian poetics and the Annalesschool of history. Large synthetic but undefined categories...

Schräg zur Linie des Sozialistischen Realismus? Prokofjews spätere Sonaten sowie Orchester und Bühnenwerke: Ein internationales Symposium by Ernst s> Kuhn (review)

REVIEWS 33I Kuhn, Ernst (ed.). Schrdg zurLiniedesSozialistischen Realismus? Prokofiews spdtere Sonatensowie Orchester und Biihnenwerke: Ein intemationales Symposium. Prokofjew-Studien, 3. Studia Slavica Musicologica, 37. Ernst Kuhn, Berlin, 2005. x + 289 pp. Musical extracts. Notes. Index. E59g95 (paperback). UNLiKEDmitrii Shostakovich,whose reputationhas been bedevilledby persistent skirmishesand occasionaloutbreaksof war, Sergei Prokofev has perhaps been more fortunate in the responses his music engenders. For all that his return to the Soviet Union in the 1930S remains an enigma, and for all his readinessto put his art at the service of the state, Prokof'ev appears to be a figurewho can be viewed, as the editor of this volume, ErnstKuhn, suggests, 'vorurteilslosund ohne ideologische Polemik' (p. ix). Yet is this volume uneven in its contents and imperfect in its presentation as free of prejudice as the editor hopes? The title itself is revealing,positingProkof'ev'soblique (schrag) relationshipto SocialistRealism. This is an assumptionsharedby severalcontributors:for SigridNeef, Socialist Realism is a 'Herrschaftsinstrument'(p. 9), and the subtitle of Valentina Kholopova's essay on the sixth symphony is 'Ein Werk gegen den Sozialistischen Realismus' (or less categorically 'protiv linii sotsialisticheskogo realizma' in the original). Other aspects of the volume's title are equally ambiguous. Of the later sonatas, only the Piano Sonata No. 8 is considered, firstly in Tetiana Zolozova's account (in French) of sonata form, and then in Ruth Goedicke's attempt to develop a hermeneuticframeworkfor making sense of the work'sperplexing and insouciant middle movement. More substantial are pieces by Kholopova and Gabriele Beinhorn on the composition and receptionof the Sixth Symphonyand Sinfonia concertante respectively.Nelly Kravetz analyses the Russianoverture of I936, the fatefulyear when Prokofev finallysettledin the Soviet Union, Shostakovich'sLady Macbeth was denounced and the purges began in earnest. Kravetz suggests that the overture as an archetypalworkof SocialistRealism in its monumentalism,tonality,optimism and use of quasi-folkloricmaterial. Uniquely, Kravetz explores the ramifications of Socialist Realism in music (and particularly'pure' or 'abstract' instrumentalmusic)in some detail. Neef s disjointed'Intellektuelautonom emotional verfuhrbar'nevertheless contains occasional provocative insights, such as the idea thatJuliet is a self-portraitof the naive and childlikecomposer , or that Tybalt's death alludes to the brutality of Stalin's repressions. Dmitrii Smirnov's attempt (in English)to catalogue the composer's melodic patterns relates only to the pre-revolutionary Visions fugitives;a comparison of early and later Prokof'ev would surely have been more revealing in the context of the volume as a whole. A major problem in the volume is, then, the use of the term 'Socialist Realism'. If, in the fields of literature and the visual arts, monolithic conceptions of Soviet cultural policy have been challenged by more nuanced accountsof relationsbetween the Partyand the artisticintelligentsia,the same cannot be said of music, at least on the evidence presentedhere. All the more welcome, then, are the two pieces included in the substantialyet modestly titled 'Anhang' (althoughscholarswill naturallywish to consult these sources in the original).First,an extractfrom the memoirs of Prokof'ev'ssecond wife, 332 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 Mira Mendel'son-Prokofev, covers 1948 and 1949, years which witnessedthe composer'sseparationfrom Lina Codina (who was subsequentlyarrestedand incarcerated),a full-scaleattackby the Party, the failureof the opera Stogy of a RealMan and enforced revisionsto WarandPeace,as well as poverty and ill health. Yet even in those terribleyears, Prokof'evwas stillcapable of defending himselfagainstthe chargesof formalismthat were levelled againsthim, as his letters whethernaive or cunning,brusqueor penitent,confidentor even egotistical make clear. The transcriptsof debates about Prokof'ev's late operas are particularlyfascinatingfor the light they shed on a culturewhere works of art were 'worked over' (as in English, the Russian prorabotat' has multiple connotations) even before they were revealed to the public. That artistswere themselves responsiblefor interpretingand shaping the doctrine (notwithstandingperiodic and dramatic incursions on the part of the state) makes its implementationno less terrifying. Mira'smemoirs are followedby those of Nina Lamm, adopted daughterof the musicologist Pavel Lamm. These, like all memoirs, contain their share of partisangossip,but like those of Prokof'ev'swife, they also evoke an atmosphere of panic, terror, sadness and incomprehension, reminding modern readersjust how hard it is tojudge what was genuine help, cautiousequivocation , bitter jealousy or opportunisticparty-minded persecution on...

Singing Schumann: An Interpretive Guide for Performers (review)

Richard Miller is well known to the international voice community for his several books on singing, his numerous articles on vocal technique, his master classes in systematic vocal technique and artistic interpretation, and his performances as a professional tenor. In this, his latest opus, he has turned his attention to matters of style and performance in Robert Schumann's entire canon of accompanied solo songs and duets. Here the emphasis is not on vocal technique, but on analysis of Schumann's songs for their expressive content, structural components, and word-tone relationships. Miller offers advice to performers--both singers and accompanists--regarding matters of tempo, voice type, dynamics, accentuation, and other interpretive devices. He states that "the entire study is best read as a commentary on Schumann's compositional techniques as they dictate style and interpretation" (p. x). In fact, the study is a mix of style analysis and performance suggestions, with the performance aspect outweighed by discussion of Schumann's songs as songs--discussion whose strength comes from the insights Miller has gained from his long experience as teacher and singer.

Funny Business. Julian Rushton Reports from Cornell on the Latest Opera Buffa Research

Funny Business. Julian Rushton Reports from Cornell on the Latest Opera Buffa Research

Leos Janacek and "The Late Style" in Music

Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854-1928) represents one of the most remarkable cases of creative energy in advancing years. Indeed, he is remembered primarily for the works that he composed in the last decade of his life. In this paper, Janácek's concept of aging is outlined in three areas: the subject matter of his late operas, the composer's own comments during this period, and the shape of his musical structures. The concept of "the late style" is questioned, and the problems of applying models to artistic creativity and productivity are noted.

Iro and the Interpretation of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria

In comparison to Monteverdi's other late opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, the meaning of Il ritorno d'Ulisse seems comfortingly unproblematic. Unlike Poppea, which is a patchwork of (mostly) unacknowledged sources telescoped and rearranged, mixed with characters and situations invented by the librettist, Ritorno draws 141 virtually all of its incidents and characters directly from the Odyssey.' It follows Odysseus on the last leg of his epic journey, touching, in their Homeric order, many of its legendary highpoints: from the Phaecians setting down the hero, asleep, in Ithaca, through his encounter with Pallas Athena and transformation into an old man, his meeting with the swineheard Eumaius, reunion with his son Telemachus, the defeat of the suitors, and, finally, the hero's reunion with his beleaguered but ever faithful wife, Penelope. A straightforward narrative progression (with the events condensed, of course, to suit the new operatic medium), interrupted by a few lighter moments provided by the secondary (though no less Homeric) characters-Penelope's lady-in-waiting, Melanto, and her lover, Eurimaco, and the parasite Iro-Ritorno moves

The genesis and literary source of Giacomo Puccini's first opera

All Puccini's biographers tell the story of how the eighteen-year-old composer, in the company of two friends, walked the nineteen miles from Lucca to Pisa to hear Verdi's latest opera, Aida; and how the impact of that opera – the first that he had ever seen performed – was such that he determined from that moment on to make a career as a composer for the theatre.

What do the Students Want?

The American psychology professor Kenneth Keniston has turned out his latest opus. It is devoted to a current problem in the USA and in certain other Western countries: student unrest. What is the cause of this unrest? What are the students asking for? First, as behooves a venerable scholar, the professor mildly reproves his American colleagues. One of them tried unsuccessfully to prove that the student protests were supposedly caused by blind, hatred for their fathers and for the older generation. Another, writing in a blatantly journalistic style, declared that student protests manifest unconscious anxiety on the part of certain students that both they and their ideals lag behind the development of society. Keniston advances his own theory which, briefly, can be reduced to the following.

The Trial at Salzburg

The performance of a contemporary work at the Salzburg Festival has become usual and this year the work chosen was Gottfried von Einem's latest opera, The Trial. Franz Kafka's novel of the same name (which, in his will, he directed should be destroyed unpublished) had already been dramatised by Gide and Barrault, and this opera libretto was prepared by the composer's teacher, Boris Blacher, and Heinz Cramer. The authors count it an especial virtue to have used only Kafka's own words, and at the most to have substituted direct for indirect speech. The individual scenes of the opera, furthermore, bear the same titles as the chapters of the novel. The single figure created by the librettists, who appears in both parts of the opera, is the “passer by,” but he, too, accords fully with the spirit of Kafka.

OTHMAR SCHOECK'S ‘MASSIMILLA DONI’

THE Swiss lyrical and dramatic composer Othmar Schoeck is as yet little known in England. Nevertheless, songs of his and the first violin Sonata have been broadcast; and above all his greatest lyrical work, the song-cycle ' Elegie ', was performed under his own direction at a concert of the London Contemporary Music Centre, with Keith Falkner as singer, on February 23rd I932. His work has made its way more quickly in Germany, which is at once explained by the fact that his music is inextricably bound up with words: its direct inspiration is to be found in the cadences of the German language. The State Opera at Dresden in particular has regarded it as one of its tasks to make the Swiss composer's stage works known by exemplary first performances : in 1927 it produced the musical tragedy of' Penthesilea ' (after Kleist's drama), in I930 the comic opera of 'Don Ranudo' and the fairy-tale 'Vom Fischer und seiner Frau', and early in March I937 it brought out his latest opera, Massimilla Doni based on Balzac's novel of the same name.