Opera & Operetta

The story of Alice May, a touring prima donna in the 19th century who travelled from England to Australia, New Zealand, India and the US, taking part in pioneering performances of the popular light operas of the day, including the first production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Sorcerer" and the fir..

Cathy Berberian (1925-1983) was a vocal performance artist, singer and composer who pioneered a way of composing with (and listening to) the voice in the musical worlds of Europe, North America and beyond. As a modernist muse for many avant-garde composers, she went on to embody the principles of po..

The study of opera in the second half of the eighteenth century has flourished during the last several decades, and our knowledge of the operas written during that period and of their aesthetic, social, and political context has vastly increased. This volume explores opera and operatic life of the y..

French Opera 1730–1830: Meaning and Media..

Nineteenth-century French grand opera was a musical and cultural phenomenon with a widespread transnational presence in Europe. Primary attention has been on the Parisian context for which most of the works were originally written. By contrast, this volume takes account of a larger geographical and ..

The core of André Ernest Modeste Grétry’s appeal was his mastery of song. His melodies were exported out of the opera house into every corner of French life, serving as folkloristic tokens of celebration and solidarity. His death in 1813 was one of the sensations of the age, setting off months of co..

As the first book in English solely dedicated to discussion of György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (1974-77, revised 1996), this study offers new perspectives on the opera’s ambiguous music-dramatic identity in the context of musical postmodernism. Peter Edwards draws on a range of modernist and postmo..

Hailed at its premiere at the London Coliseum in 1986 as the most important musical and theatrical event of the decade, The Mask of Orpheus is undoubtedly a key work in Harrison Birtwistle's output. His subsequent stage and concert pieces demand to be evaluated in its light. Increasingly, it is also..

This music-analytical guide to John Adams's opera, Nixon in China presents detailed, in-depth analysis of the music tied to historical and political contexts. The opera captures an important moment in history and in international relations, and a close study of it from an interdisciplinary perspecti..

This music-analytical guide to John Adams's opera, Nixon in China presents detailed, in-depth analysis of the music tied to historical and political contexts. The opera captures an important moment in history and in international relations, and a close study of it from an interdisciplinary perspecti..

This book addresses the ways in which masculinity is negotiated, constructed, represented, and problematized within operatic music and practice. Although the consideration of masculine ontology and epistemology has pervaded cultural and sociological studies since the late 1980s, and masculinity has ..

Masque and Opera in England, 1656–1688 presents a comprehensive study of the development of court masque and through-composed opera in England from the mid-1650s to the Revolution of 1688–89. In addressing the problem of generic categorization within a highly fragmentary corpus for which a limited a..