Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century ItalyPerformed throughout Europe during the 1700s, Italian heroic opera, or opera seria, was the century’s most significant musical art form, profoundly engaging such figures as Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. Opera and Sovereignty is the first book to address this genre as cultural history, arguing that eighteenth-century opera seria must be understood in light of the period’s social and political upheavals. Taking an anthropological approach to European music that’s as bold as it is unusual, Martha Feldman traces Italian opera’s shift from a mythical assertion of sovereignty, with its festive forms and rituals, to a dramatic vehicle that increasingly questioned absolute ideals. She situates these transformations against the backdrop of eighteenth-century Italian culture to show how opera seria both reflected and affected the struggles of rulers to maintain sovereignty in the face of a growing public sphere. In so doing, Feldman explains why the form had such great international success and how audience experiences of the period differed from ours today. Ambitiously interdisciplinary, Opera and Sovereignty will appeal not only to scholars of music and anthropology, but also to those interested in theater, dance, and the history of the Enlightenment. |
Contents
1 | |
form feeling exchange | 42 |
first case study | 97 |
4 Festivity and Time | 141 |
second case study | 188 |
6 Myths of sovereignty | 226 |
third case study | 284 |
8 Morals and malcontents | 348 |
fourth case study | 389 |
Epilogue | 437 |
443 | |
493 | |
Other editions - View all
Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy Martha Feldman Limited preview - 2007 |
Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy Martha Feldman No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
absolutist action already appears aria Artaserse audience ballets boxes cadenzas called Carnival castrato century changes chap character claimed collective composer continued court dramma early eighteenth eighteenth-century especially example expression Fenice festivity figure final French give given hand Ippolito Italian Italy kind king later least less letter libretto light listeners means Metastasio monarch moral myth Naples nature nobles notes opening opera seria Opere original Parma passions performance person Perugia played political practice production recitative reform rhetorical ritual Roman Rome royal San Carlo scene score season sense singers singing social soprano sovereign sovereignty spectacle stage subjects symbolic Teatro theater tion traditional turn various Venetian Venice voice whole women
References to this book
The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle Georgia Cowart Limited preview - 2008 |