Simon Goldhill
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149844
- eISBN:
- 9781400840076
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149844.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book ...
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How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.Less
How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.
Charlotte Brunsdon
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159803
- eISBN:
- 9780191673702
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159803.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This title traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera, using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key soap-opera scholars. The book reveals that ...
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This title traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera, using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key soap-opera scholars. The book reveals that feminist scholarship on soap opera was a significant site in which the identity ‘feminist intellectual’ was produced in dialogue with her imagined other, the soap-opera-watching housewife. The book integrates personal autobiographical accounts within a broader history which traces both the move from ‘women's liberation’ to ‘feminism’, and the acceptance of soap opera as a serious object of study.Less
This title traces the history of the feminist engagement with soap opera, using a wide range of sources from programme publicity to interviews with key soap-opera scholars. The book reveals that feminist scholarship on soap opera was a significant site in which the identity ‘feminist intellectual’ was produced in dialogue with her imagined other, the soap-opera-watching housewife. The book integrates personal autobiographical accounts within a broader history which traces both the move from ‘women's liberation’ to ‘feminism’, and the acceptance of soap opera as a serious object of study.
Larry Hamberlin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195338928
- eISBN:
- 9780199855865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338928.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, Popular
The songs in Chapter 2 describe the celebrity status of Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini from the viewpoint of the working-class Italian immigrants whom these stars attracted to the Metropolitan ...
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The songs in Chapter 2 describe the celebrity status of Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini from the viewpoint of the working-class Italian immigrants whom these stars attracted to the Metropolitan and Manhattan opera houses. They highlight the contrast between those immigrants' sincere but noisy appreciation of opera and the more refined by less genuine response of elite operagoers. Gus Edwards's “My Cousin Caruso” emerges as an influential model for the topical operatic novelty song.Less
The songs in Chapter 2 describe the celebrity status of Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini from the viewpoint of the working-class Italian immigrants whom these stars attracted to the Metropolitan and Manhattan opera houses. They highlight the contrast between those immigrants' sincere but noisy appreciation of opera and the more refined by less genuine response of elite operagoers. Gus Edwards's “My Cousin Caruso” emerges as an influential model for the topical operatic novelty song.
Halina Goldberg
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195130737
- eISBN:
- 9780199867424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130737.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Led by Bogusƚawski, Elsner, and Kurpiński, the National Theater — the locale of major operatic productions — became the central cultural institution in Warsaw. It featured a rich repertory of French, ...
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Led by Bogusƚawski, Elsner, and Kurpiński, the National Theater — the locale of major operatic productions — became the central cultural institution in Warsaw. It featured a rich repertory of French, German, and Italian operas. The operatic genres of operas performed in Warsaw ranged from Singspiel, through opéra comique, tragedie lyrique, opera seria, and buffa, to grand opera. This chapter discusses the introduction into Warsaw of the newest foreign works, ushering in the Romantic aesthetic in opera. At the same time, the librettists and composers associated with the National Theater created vernacular operas, which often addressed subjects from Polish history, and conveyed patriotic sentiments though text and folkloristic music. The history and repertory of the national theater is presented, and Chopin's involvement with Warsaw's operatic scene is explained.Less
Led by Bogusƚawski, Elsner, and Kurpiński, the National Theater — the locale of major operatic productions — became the central cultural institution in Warsaw. It featured a rich repertory of French, German, and Italian operas. The operatic genres of operas performed in Warsaw ranged from Singspiel, through opéra comique, tragedie lyrique, opera seria, and buffa, to grand opera. This chapter discusses the introduction into Warsaw of the newest foreign works, ushering in the Romantic aesthetic in opera. At the same time, the librettists and composers associated with the National Theater created vernacular operas, which often addressed subjects from Polish history, and conveyed patriotic sentiments though text and folkloristic music. The history and repertory of the national theater is presented, and Chopin's involvement with Warsaw's operatic scene is explained.
Jonathan P. J. Stock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262733
- eISBN:
- 9780191734502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262733.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to present the history and music of Shanghai opera to students and scholars of ethnomusicology. Chinese music, despite being ...
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This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to present the history and music of Shanghai opera to students and scholars of ethnomusicology. Chinese music, despite being much researched by a large body of scholars, sometimes seems to remain in a peripheral position within the discipline as a whole. This study also aims to re-evaluate certain aspects of current ethnomusicological theory and practice. The chapter considers the use of the term ‘opera’ in the Chinese context followed by a discussion of Shanghai opera. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to present the history and music of Shanghai opera to students and scholars of ethnomusicology. Chinese music, despite being much researched by a large body of scholars, sometimes seems to remain in a peripheral position within the discipline as a whole. This study also aims to re-evaluate certain aspects of current ethnomusicological theory and practice. The chapter considers the use of the term ‘opera’ in the Chinese context followed by a discussion of Shanghai opera. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Jonathan P. J. Stock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262733
- eISBN:
- 9780191734502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262733.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Scholars of Shanghai opera accord their tradition, huju, a history of some two centuries or more, typically describing its rise in terms of a development from local traditions of folk song to ...
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Scholars of Shanghai opera accord their tradition, huju, a history of some two centuries or more, typically describing its rise in terms of a development from local traditions of folk song to balladry, and from ballad-singing to staged and costumed opera (in the 1920s). This chapter begins with a brief summary of the history of opera in China to provide initial orientation for the subsequent evaluation of how huju relates to and contrasts with other dramatic forms. The analysis draws on surviving primary and secondary source materials, such as the memoirs of old singers, to assess the question as to how much huju changed as it gained acceptance in the city of Shanghai. The data suggests that the generally cited model of development through stages of folk song-ballad-local opera is in need of revision, and new models are generated.Less
Scholars of Shanghai opera accord their tradition, huju, a history of some two centuries or more, typically describing its rise in terms of a development from local traditions of folk song to balladry, and from ballad-singing to staged and costumed opera (in the 1920s). This chapter begins with a brief summary of the history of opera in China to provide initial orientation for the subsequent evaluation of how huju relates to and contrasts with other dramatic forms. The analysis draws on surviving primary and secondary source materials, such as the memoirs of old singers, to assess the question as to how much huju changed as it gained acceptance in the city of Shanghai. The data suggests that the generally cited model of development through stages of folk song-ballad-local opera is in need of revision, and new models are generated.
Steven Huebner
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189544
- eISBN:
- 9780199868476
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189544.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book explores the history of late-19th century French opera through thirteen of the most important and frequently performed works of that repertory. The main aesthetic and historical problem ...
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This book explores the history of late-19th century French opera through thirteen of the most important and frequently performed works of that repertory. The main aesthetic and historical problem addressed is that of the reconciliation of Richard Wagner's influence with French operatic tradition and national identity as expressed in aesthetic terms. The choice of operas by Jules Massenet, Ernest Reyer, Camille Saint-Saëns, Édouard Lalo, Emmanuel Chabrier, Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Alfred Bruneau, and Gustave Charpentier is conditioned by Wagner's death in 1883: all were either first performed or initially conceived in the decade after this. This book argues that Wagner's impact was highly variegated as it passed through different professional, aesthetic, and temperamental filters. But his influence rarely resulted in a musical style where enough features coincided to produce a texture that an informed listener might identify as stylistic pastiche. Moreover, because French composers and critics generally did not understand Wagner's oeuvre as forming a unified corpus, they responded in different ways to the discrete phases of his development. In the pressure-cooker of aesthetic debates tinged by modernism and nationalism at the turn of the century, works perceived in very close orbit to Wagner faced an especially steep uphill struggle for acceptance. Whereas certain operas by Massenet achieved success in the marketplace without aspiring to modernist ideals of artistic progress, composers such as Vincent d'Indy and Alfred Bruneau thought of themselves as working on the post-Wagnerian cusp, and were cast by their supporters in this light. In the master narrative of music history, however, both were trumped in this respect by Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, a work that this book touches upon in its epilogue.Less
This book explores the history of late-19th century French opera through thirteen of the most important and frequently performed works of that repertory. The main aesthetic and historical problem addressed is that of the reconciliation of Richard Wagner's influence with French operatic tradition and national identity as expressed in aesthetic terms. The choice of operas by Jules Massenet, Ernest Reyer, Camille Saint-Saëns, Édouard Lalo, Emmanuel Chabrier, Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Alfred Bruneau, and Gustave Charpentier is conditioned by Wagner's death in 1883: all were either first performed or initially conceived in the decade after this. This book argues that Wagner's impact was highly variegated as it passed through different professional, aesthetic, and temperamental filters. But his influence rarely resulted in a musical style where enough features coincided to produce a texture that an informed listener might identify as stylistic pastiche. Moreover, because French composers and critics generally did not understand Wagner's oeuvre as forming a unified corpus, they responded in different ways to the discrete phases of his development. In the pressure-cooker of aesthetic debates tinged by modernism and nationalism at the turn of the century, works perceived in very close orbit to Wagner faced an especially steep uphill struggle for acceptance. Whereas certain operas by Massenet achieved success in the marketplace without aspiring to modernist ideals of artistic progress, composers such as Vincent d'Indy and Alfred Bruneau thought of themselves as working on the post-Wagnerian cusp, and were cast by their supporters in this light. In the master narrative of music history, however, both were trumped in this respect by Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, a work that this book touches upon in its epilogue.
Marc Baer
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112501
- eISBN:
- 9780191670787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112501.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter discusses briefly what happened to the OPs who participated in the 1809 theatre riot. Other notable individuals linked to this incident are also discussed in this chapter in passing. The ...
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This chapter discusses briefly what happened to the OPs who participated in the 1809 theatre riot. Other notable individuals linked to this incident are also discussed in this chapter in passing. The chapter ends with the ultimate fate of the theatre in Covent Garden, which is now known as the Royal Opera House.Less
This chapter discusses briefly what happened to the OPs who participated in the 1809 theatre riot. Other notable individuals linked to this incident are also discussed in this chapter in passing. The chapter ends with the ultimate fate of the theatre in Covent Garden, which is now known as the Royal Opera House.
Jonathan P. J. Stock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262733
- eISBN:
- 9780191734502
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262733.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
China has over three hundred distinct styles of music drama, from exorcism theatre to farce, historical romance, and shadow puppetry. This study considers one of the newer operatic forms. Established ...
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China has over three hundred distinct styles of music drama, from exorcism theatre to farce, historical romance, and shadow puppetry. This study considers one of the newer operatic forms. Established just two centuries ago, huju (Shanghai opera), is renowned for its portrayal of ordinary people, not the emperors, courtesans, and heroes of older forms. Acting and make-up aim for realism rather than symbolism, and stories deal with contemporaneous themes: the struggles of lovers to marry, women's rights after the Communist revolution (1949), and life under the new social order established by Deng Xiaoping's reforms in the 1980s. Music ranges from local folksong to syncretic adoptions of Western popular music. Adding to his extensive research on Chinese music, the author's eighteen months of fieldwork in Shanghai have allowed him to interweave material from historical reports, sound recordings, live performance, and first-hand accounts of three generations of singers into a study of a unique Chinese opera form seen equally as historical tradition, venue for social action, and forum for musical creativity. Assessing first the roots of huju in local folksong and ballad, he looks at the enduring role of emotional expressivity. The text then focuses on the rise of actresses, laying out a ‘musical’ reading of gendered performance.Less
China has over three hundred distinct styles of music drama, from exorcism theatre to farce, historical romance, and shadow puppetry. This study considers one of the newer operatic forms. Established just two centuries ago, huju (Shanghai opera), is renowned for its portrayal of ordinary people, not the emperors, courtesans, and heroes of older forms. Acting and make-up aim for realism rather than symbolism, and stories deal with contemporaneous themes: the struggles of lovers to marry, women's rights after the Communist revolution (1949), and life under the new social order established by Deng Xiaoping's reforms in the 1980s. Music ranges from local folksong to syncretic adoptions of Western popular music. Adding to his extensive research on Chinese music, the author's eighteen months of fieldwork in Shanghai have allowed him to interweave material from historical reports, sound recordings, live performance, and first-hand accounts of three generations of singers into a study of a unique Chinese opera form seen equally as historical tradition, venue for social action, and forum for musical creativity. Assessing first the roots of huju in local folksong and ballad, he looks at the enduring role of emotional expressivity. The text then focuses on the rise of actresses, laying out a ‘musical’ reading of gendered performance.
Larry Hamberlin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195338928
- eISBN:
- 9780199855865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338928.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, Popular
This chapter and the next examine novelty songs that use both opera and ragtime to express tensions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, racializing them as tensions between white and black America. ...
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This chapter and the next examine novelty songs that use both opera and ragtime to express tensions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, racializing them as tensions between white and black America. Chapter 6 is an in-depth treatment of a single song, Ted Snyder and Irving Berlin's “That Opera Rag” (1910). Through a close reading of the music and lyrics, an examination of the song's use in a stage comedy, Getting a Polish, and a consideration of the stage persona of May Irwin, the actress who interpolated the song in that comedy, the chapter demonstrates how contemporary audiences could perceive multiple levels of meaning that interact in a complex piece of social and musical commentary.Less
This chapter and the next examine novelty songs that use both opera and ragtime to express tensions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, racializing them as tensions between white and black America. Chapter 6 is an in-depth treatment of a single song, Ted Snyder and Irving Berlin's “That Opera Rag” (1910). Through a close reading of the music and lyrics, an examination of the song's use in a stage comedy, Getting a Polish, and a consideration of the stage persona of May Irwin, the actress who interpolated the song in that comedy, the chapter demonstrates how contemporary audiences could perceive multiple levels of meaning that interact in a complex piece of social and musical commentary.
Jonathan P. J. Stock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262733
- eISBN:
- 9780191734502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262733.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
A central element of the history of huju in the 20th century is the emergence of female performers: this in a tradition formerly dominated by men, some of whom impersonated female roles. This chapter ...
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A central element of the history of huju in the 20th century is the emergence of female performers: this in a tradition formerly dominated by men, some of whom impersonated female roles. This chapter focuses on issues pertaining to and associated with these new performers. Treated as a case study in the field of music and gender, and drawing on theoretical proposals from several fields, the chapter begins in the same historical area as that discussed in Chapter 1 but ranges beyond the former chapter's historical confines to consider some later data also.Less
A central element of the history of huju in the 20th century is the emergence of female performers: this in a tradition formerly dominated by men, some of whom impersonated female roles. This chapter focuses on issues pertaining to and associated with these new performers. Treated as a case study in the field of music and gender, and drawing on theoretical proposals from several fields, the chapter begins in the same historical area as that discussed in Chapter 1 but ranges beyond the former chapter's historical confines to consider some later data also.
Jonathan P. J. Stock
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262733
- eISBN:
- 9780191734502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262733.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter develops the historical consideration of Shanghai opera begun in Chapter 1, looking now at huju in mid-20th-century Shanghai. Other than the appearance of female performers, in the ...
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This chapter develops the historical consideration of Shanghai opera begun in Chapter 1, looking now at huju in mid-20th-century Shanghai. Other than the appearance of female performers, in the period from approximately 1920 to 1949, there was an expansion of troupes with a concomitant increase in specialization; the rise of new performance venues and media, most obviously recorded sound and radio broadcasting; the influence of other artistic forms, such as the spoken drama and film; and changing modes of musical learning. Distinctive schools of performance were created, several of which remain significant in terms of musical style today. Discussion of these factors is enclosed within an examination of musical place.Less
This chapter develops the historical consideration of Shanghai opera begun in Chapter 1, looking now at huju in mid-20th-century Shanghai. Other than the appearance of female performers, in the period from approximately 1920 to 1949, there was an expansion of troupes with a concomitant increase in specialization; the rise of new performance venues and media, most obviously recorded sound and radio broadcasting; the influence of other artistic forms, such as the spoken drama and film; and changing modes of musical learning. Distinctive schools of performance were created, several of which remain significant in terms of musical style today. Discussion of these factors is enclosed within an examination of musical place.
Derek B. Scott
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151961
- eISBN:
- 9780199870394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151961.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter examines some of the conventions involved in representing the erotic in music, and reveals the ideological character of these conventions. The disparity and mutability uncovered by a ...
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This chapter examines some of the conventions involved in representing the erotic in music, and reveals the ideological character of these conventions. The disparity and mutability uncovered by a comparison of representations of sexual desire in three differing musical styles (Baroque opera, the Victorian drawing-room ballad, and Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s and 1930s) show that a genealogy of sexuality in music needs to address disjunctions rather than developments, historical contingencies rather than evolutionary questions. There is certainly no progress to be discovered in the way eroticism has been depicted in music: representations of eroticism in contemporary music are not more real now than they were in the 17th century. The fact that the latter can seem cool or alien to us today points to the way sexuality has been constructed in relation to particular stylistic codes in particular historical contexts, and is therefore cultural rather than natural.Less
This chapter examines some of the conventions involved in representing the erotic in music, and reveals the ideological character of these conventions. The disparity and mutability uncovered by a comparison of representations of sexual desire in three differing musical styles (Baroque opera, the Victorian drawing-room ballad, and Tin Pan Alley in the 1920s and 1930s) show that a genealogy of sexuality in music needs to address disjunctions rather than developments, historical contingencies rather than evolutionary questions. There is certainly no progress to be discovered in the way eroticism has been depicted in music: representations of eroticism in contemporary music are not more real now than they were in the 17th century. The fact that the latter can seem cool or alien to us today points to the way sexuality has been constructed in relation to particular stylistic codes in particular historical contexts, and is therefore cultural rather than natural.
Ruru Li
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099944
- eISBN:
- 9789882207394
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099944.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Any traditional theatre has to engage the changing world to avoid becoming a living fossil. How has Beijing Opera — a highly stylized theatre with breath-taking acrobatics and martial arts, fabulous ...
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Any traditional theatre has to engage the changing world to avoid becoming a living fossil. How has Beijing Opera — a highly stylized theatre with breath-taking acrobatics and martial arts, fabulous costumes and striking makeup — survived into the new millennium while coping with a century of great upheavals and competition from new entertainment forms? This book answers that question, looking at the evolution of singing and performance styles, make-up and costume, audience demands, as well as stage and street presentation modes amid tumultuous social and political changes. The author's study follows a number of major artists' careers in mainland China and Taiwan, drawing on primary print sources as well as personal interviews with performers and their cultural peers. One chapter focuses on the career of the author's own mother and how she adapted to changes in Communist ideology. In addition, the book explores how performers as social beings have responded to conflicts between tradition and modernity, and between convention and innovation. Through performers' negotiation and compromises, Beijing Opera has undergone constant re-examination of its inner artistic logic and adjusted to the demands of the external world.Less
Any traditional theatre has to engage the changing world to avoid becoming a living fossil. How has Beijing Opera — a highly stylized theatre with breath-taking acrobatics and martial arts, fabulous costumes and striking makeup — survived into the new millennium while coping with a century of great upheavals and competition from new entertainment forms? This book answers that question, looking at the evolution of singing and performance styles, make-up and costume, audience demands, as well as stage and street presentation modes amid tumultuous social and political changes. The author's study follows a number of major artists' careers in mainland China and Taiwan, drawing on primary print sources as well as personal interviews with performers and their cultural peers. One chapter focuses on the career of the author's own mother and how she adapted to changes in Communist ideology. In addition, the book explores how performers as social beings have responded to conflicts between tradition and modernity, and between convention and innovation. Through performers' negotiation and compromises, Beijing Opera has undergone constant re-examination of its inner artistic logic and adjusted to the demands of the external world.
Hilde Roos
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520299887
- eISBN:
- 9780520971516
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520299887.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
Opera, race, and politics during apartheid South Africa form the foundation of this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a so-called colored cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. ...
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Opera, race, and politics during apartheid South Africa form the foundation of this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a so-called colored cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Time of Apartheid charts Eoan’s opera activities from its inception in 1933 until the cessation of its work by 1980. By accepting funding from the apartheid government and adhering to apartheid conditions, the group, in time, became politically compromised, resulting in the rejection of the group by their own community and the cessation of opera production. However, their unquestioned acceptance of and commitment to the art of opera lead to the most extraordinary of performance trajectories. During apartheid, the Eoan Group provided a space for colored people to perform Western classical art forms in an environment that potentially transgressed racial boundaries and challenged perceptions of racial exclusivity in the genre of opera. This highly significant endeavor and the way it was thwarted at the hands of the apartheid regime is the story that unfolds in this book.Less
Opera, race, and politics during apartheid South Africa form the foundation of this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a so-called colored cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Time of Apartheid charts Eoan’s opera activities from its inception in 1933 until the cessation of its work by 1980. By accepting funding from the apartheid government and adhering to apartheid conditions, the group, in time, became politically compromised, resulting in the rejection of the group by their own community and the cessation of opera production. However, their unquestioned acceptance of and commitment to the art of opera lead to the most extraordinary of performance trajectories. During apartheid, the Eoan Group provided a space for colored people to perform Western classical art forms in an environment that potentially transgressed racial boundaries and challenged perceptions of racial exclusivity in the genre of opera. This highly significant endeavor and the way it was thwarted at the hands of the apartheid regime is the story that unfolds in this book.
Steven Huebner
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189544
- eISBN:
- 9780199868476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189544.003.0019
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter focuses on Chabrier's opérette Le Roi malgré lui. Pierre Lalo characterized Le Roi malgré lui as a hijacking of Chabrier's true temperament in the direction of an ...
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This chapter focuses on Chabrier's opérette Le Roi malgré lui. Pierre Lalo characterized Le Roi malgré lui as a hijacking of Chabrier's true temperament in the direction of an ‘insipid pseudo-historical intrigue’. It is argued that Lalo's remark points to the perennial issue of balance between seriousness and comedy that affected the genre of opéra comique.Less
This chapter focuses on Chabrier's opérette Le Roi malgré lui. Pierre Lalo characterized Le Roi malgré lui as a hijacking of Chabrier's true temperament in the direction of an ‘insipid pseudo-historical intrigue’. It is argued that Lalo's remark points to the perennial issue of balance between seriousness and comedy that affected the genre of opéra comique.
Steven Huebner
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189544
- eISBN:
- 9780199868476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189544.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the business and politics of French opera in the late 20th century. It describes government subsidies received by the two main Parisian houses: ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the business and politics of French opera in the late 20th century. It describes government subsidies received by the two main Parisian houses: the Académie nationale de musique (the Opéra) and the Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique. It argues that at the fin de siècle, the stakes in value judgement, and the potential to touch deep-seated anxieties were particularly high at the Opéra because a fading court culture was mapped onto an institution heavily subsidized by a State which, however slowly, was reconfiguring both the remaining vestiges of the ancien régime and the more recent hegemony of the grande bourgeoisie. Richard Wagner, the composer around whom the stakes were the highest at both houses, is discussed.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the business and politics of French opera in the late 20th century. It describes government subsidies received by the two main Parisian houses: the Académie nationale de musique (the Opéra) and the Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique. It argues that at the fin de siècle, the stakes in value judgement, and the potential to touch deep-seated anxieties were particularly high at the Opéra because a fading court culture was mapped onto an institution heavily subsidized by a State which, however slowly, was reconfiguring both the remaining vestiges of the ancien régime and the more recent hegemony of the grande bourgeoisie. Richard Wagner, the composer around whom the stakes were the highest at both houses, is discussed.
Joanna Bullivant
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265390
- eISBN:
- 9780191760440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265390.003.0014
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–5), by Alan Bush (1900–95), is doubly outside the communist bloc: the work of an English communist, set in the remote South American colony of British Guiana. Yet ...
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The opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–5), by Alan Bush (1900–95), is doubly outside the communist bloc: the work of an English communist, set in the remote South American colony of British Guiana. Yet far from being an isolated curiosity, it addresses crucial aesthetic issues in post-war communism. As an enthusiast for the call for nationalist socialist realism that emanated from the Soviet Union in 1948, Bush faced particular difficulties in composing a work for British Guiana. What did national music mean in the context of an ethnically and culturally diverse population? And how was the danger of exoticism to be avoided? Tracing Bush's use of Guianese music, this chapter reveals a work indicative of the paradoxes of socialist realism, and creative in navigating these paradoxes. The work's political context and performance history are addressed as starting points for further investigation of communist cultural engagement with the Third World.Less
The opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–5), by Alan Bush (1900–95), is doubly outside the communist bloc: the work of an English communist, set in the remote South American colony of British Guiana. Yet far from being an isolated curiosity, it addresses crucial aesthetic issues in post-war communism. As an enthusiast for the call for nationalist socialist realism that emanated from the Soviet Union in 1948, Bush faced particular difficulties in composing a work for British Guiana. What did national music mean in the context of an ethnically and culturally diverse population? And how was the danger of exoticism to be avoided? Tracing Bush's use of Guianese music, this chapter reveals a work indicative of the paradoxes of socialist realism, and creative in navigating these paradoxes. The work's political context and performance history are addressed as starting points for further investigation of communist cultural engagement with the Third World.
Larry Hamberlin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195338928
- eISBN:
- 9780199855865
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338928.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera, Popular
The years between 1900 and 1920 mark a moment of change in the relations between opera and popular music in the United States, a midpoint between the intimate connection of the nineteenth century and ...
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The years between 1900 and 1920 mark a moment of change in the relations between opera and popular music in the United States, a midpoint between the intimate connection of the nineteenth century and the widening gulf of the later twentieth century. This book describes Tin Pan Alley songs that quote operatic melodies, describe opera singers or operatic characters, or in other ways allude to operatic culture. These verbal and musical allusions illuminate social issues that the songs address either indirectly or directly in a comical way, as novelties. Part 1 considers songs that use Italian opera, and especially singers such as Enrico Caruso, to comment on the period's massive wave of immigration from southern Italy. Part 2 treats songs that respond to first-wave feminism either by satirizing female opera singers or appropriating the heroines of two operas that premiered in the first decade of the century, Strauss's Salome and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The songs in part 3 use opera and its lowbrow opposite, ragtime, to debate the cultural aspirations of African Americans, expressing the era's growing awareness that America's most valuable musical contribution might be not its symphonies and operas but its vernacular music, rooted in black ethnicity but emblematic of the nation as a whole. Tin Pan Opera demonstrates how opera's role in the popular culture of the early twentieth century was only scarcely less extensive than in the nineteenth.Less
The years between 1900 and 1920 mark a moment of change in the relations between opera and popular music in the United States, a midpoint between the intimate connection of the nineteenth century and the widening gulf of the later twentieth century. This book describes Tin Pan Alley songs that quote operatic melodies, describe opera singers or operatic characters, or in other ways allude to operatic culture. These verbal and musical allusions illuminate social issues that the songs address either indirectly or directly in a comical way, as novelties. Part 1 considers songs that use Italian opera, and especially singers such as Enrico Caruso, to comment on the period's massive wave of immigration from southern Italy. Part 2 treats songs that respond to first-wave feminism either by satirizing female opera singers or appropriating the heroines of two operas that premiered in the first decade of the century, Strauss's Salome and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The songs in part 3 use opera and its lowbrow opposite, ragtime, to debate the cultural aspirations of African Americans, expressing the era's growing awareness that America's most valuable musical contribution might be not its symphonies and operas but its vernacular music, rooted in black ethnicity but emblematic of the nation as a whole. Tin Pan Opera demonstrates how opera's role in the popular culture of the early twentieth century was only scarcely less extensive than in the nineteenth.
Simon Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195181678
- eISBN:
- 9780199870806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181678.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Most of this chapter concerns the anti-formalist campaign of 1948, the corruption within Soviet musical circles that precipitated the campaign, and the official denunciation of Prokofiev, which ...
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Most of this chapter concerns the anti-formalist campaign of 1948, the corruption within Soviet musical circles that precipitated the campaign, and the official denunciation of Prokofiev, which gravely affected his health. The discussion ranges from Prokofiev's desperate efforts to improve his political standing with the operas A Story of a Real Man and Distant Seas — the former completed but barred from performance, the latter left incomplete — to his expressions of atonement for his supposed musical misdeeds. The chapter highlights the downfall of Levon Atovmyan, Prokofiev's de facto Soviet business partner, as well as his fraught relationship with Tikhon Khrennikov, the General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers. Prokofiev's divorce from Lina and her subsequent arrest and incarceration are documented in detail.Less
Most of this chapter concerns the anti-formalist campaign of 1948, the corruption within Soviet musical circles that precipitated the campaign, and the official denunciation of Prokofiev, which gravely affected his health. The discussion ranges from Prokofiev's desperate efforts to improve his political standing with the operas A Story of a Real Man and Distant Seas — the former completed but barred from performance, the latter left incomplete — to his expressions of atonement for his supposed musical misdeeds. The chapter highlights the downfall of Levon Atovmyan, Prokofiev's de facto Soviet business partner, as well as his fraught relationship with Tikhon Khrennikov, the General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers. Prokofiev's divorce from Lina and her subsequent arrest and incarceration are documented in detail.
