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Our modern narratives of science and technology can only go so far in teaching us about the death that we must all finally face. Can an act of the imagination, in the form of opera, take us the rest of the way? Might opera, an art form steeped in death, teach us how to die, as this provocative work suggests? In Opera: The Art of Dying a physician and a literary theorist bring together scientific and humanistic perspectives on the lessons on living and dying that this extravagant and seemingly artificial art imparts. Contrasting the experience of mortality in opera to that in tragedy, the Hutcheons find a more apt analogy in the medieval custom of contemplatio mortis--a dramatized exercise in imagining one's own death that prepared one for the inevitable end and helped one enjoy the life that remained. From the perspective of a contemporary audience, they explore concepts of mortality embodied in both the common and the more obscure operatic repertoire: the terror of death (in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites); the longing for death (in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde); preparation for the good death (in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung); and suicide (in Puccini's Madama Butterfly). In works by Janacek, Ullmann, Berg, and Britten, among others, the Hutcheons examine how death is made to feel logical and even right morally, psychologically, and artistically--how, in the art of opera, we rehearse death in order to give life meaning.
Death in opera. --- Opera --- MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Opera. --- MUSIC / General. --- Opera.
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"This fascinating book looks at well-known operas in which love, sexual desire, illness, and death are inextricably linked. The result is an unprecedented view of the operas themselves and the societies in which they were created." "The book focuses on operatic representations of disease and on the ways in which operas associate illness with sexuality, gender, and desire. The authors consider the frequent operatic alliance of tuberculosis with female sexuality (as in Verdi's La Traviata and Puccini's La Boheme); the relation between venereal disease and the moral transgression or failure of male heroes (as in Wagner's Parsifal and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress); and the association of cholera and homosexual desire in Berg's Lulu and Britten's Death in Venice. A virtuosic chapter considers how assorted operas have identified smoking with sexuality and rebellion. The conclusion considers parallels between earlier operatic representations of disease and recent cultural and scientific representations of AIDS."--Jacket.
Death in opera. --- Diseases in opera. --- Krankheit --- Maladies à l'opéra. --- Medicine in the Arts. --- Music. --- Oper. --- Opera --- Opera's. --- Opéra --- Seksualiteit. --- Sex in opera. --- Sexualité à l'opéra. --- Sociale aspecten. --- Tod --- Ziekte. --- Social aspects. --- Aspect social.
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Sex in opera --- Diseases in opera --- Death in opera --- Sexualité dans l'opéra --- Maladies à l'opéra --- Mort à l'opéra
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Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties as their audience's expectations are at a peak. In Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue via the late works of some of the world's greatest composers. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Richard Strauss (1864-1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908-92), and Benjamin Britten (1913-76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal unique responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi's Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated Richard Wagner's influence by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive Capriccio, a "life review" of opera and his own legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen at the age of seventy-five finished his only opera, Saint François d'Assise, which marked the pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffering from heart problems, refused surgery until he had completed his masterpiece, Death in Venice. For all four composers, age, far from sapping their creative power, provided impetus for some of their best accomplishments. With its deft treatment of these composers' final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges-and opportunities-that present themselves as artists grow older.
Composers --- Aging --- Creative ability in old age. --- Psychological aspects. --- Britten, Benjamin, --- Messiaen, Olivier, --- Strauss, Richard, --- Verdi, Giuseppe, --- Last years. --- european history, classical music, performing arts, criticism, creativity, aging, famous artists, giuseppe verdi, richard strauss, olivier messiaen, benjamin britten, operas, falstaff, comedic success, wagner, italian composers, political problems, nazi germany, capriccio, saint francois d assise, death in venice, psychological aspects, creatives, musicology. --- Creative ability in old age --- Psychological aspects --- Britten, Benjamin
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Death in opera --- Dood in de opera --- Mort dans l'opéra --- Death in opera.
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It has long been argued that opera is all about sex. Siren Songs is the first collection of articles devoted to exploring the impact of this sexual obsession, and of the power relations that come with it, on the music, words, and staging of opera. Here a distinguished and diverse group of musicologists, literary critics, and feminist scholars address a wide range of fascinating topics--from Salome's striptease to hysteria to jazz and gender--in Italian, English, German, and French operas from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The authors combine readings of specific scenes with efforts to situate these musical moments within richly and precisely observed historical contexts. Challenging both formalist categories of musical analysis and the rhetoric that traditionally pits a male composer against the female characters he creates, many of the articles work toward inventing a language for the study of gender and opera. The collection opens with Mary Ann Smart's introduction, which provides an engaging reflection on the state of gender topics in operatic criticism and musicology. It then moves on to a foundational essay on the complex relationships between opera and history by the renowned philosopher and novelist Catherine Clément, a pioneer of feminist opera criticism. Other articles examine the evolution of the "trouser role" as it evolved in the lesbian subculture of fin-de-siècle Paris, the phenomenon of opera seria's "absent mother" as a manifestation of attitudes to the family under absolutism, the invention of a "hystericized voice" in Verdi's Don Carlos, and a collaborative discussion of the staging problems posed by the gender politics of Mozart's operas. The contributors are Wye Jamison Allanboork, Joseph Auner, Katherine Bergeron, Philip Brett, Peter Brooks, Catherine Clement, Martha Feldman, Heather Hadlock, Mary Hunter, Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, M.D., Lawrence Kramer, Roger Parker, Mary Ann Smart, and Gretchen Wheelock.
Feminism and music --- Sex in opera --- Women in opera --- Opera --- Sexuality in opera --- Music and feminism --- Music --- Congresses --- Women in opera - Congresses. --- Sex in opera - Congresses. --- Feminism and music - Congresses. --- Opera's --- Seksualiteit --- Uitvoeringspraktijk
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