Opera in Theory and Practice, Image and Myth: Volume 6 Hardcover - 2003 - 1st Edition

First line

In Battista Guarini's 1588 treatise Il Verrato, amid the barrage of arguments against Dr. Iason De Nores of the Padua studio, refuting the charges of "monstrosity" and "disproportion" that had been laid at the door of the new genres of tragicomedy and pastoral, we read: And when we come to our own day, what need have we to exorcise terror and commiseration with tragic representations, having the most holy precepts of our religion, taught to us by the words of the Apostles?

From the rear cover

The History of Italian Opera marks the first time a team of scholars has worked together to investigate the entire Italian operatic tradition, rather than limiting its focus to major composers and their masterworks. Including both musicologists and historians of other arts, the contributors approach opera not only as a distinctive musical genre but also as a form of extravagant theater and a complex social phenomenon. This sixth volume in the series centers on the sociological and critical aspects of opera in Italy, considering the art in the context of an Italian literary and cultural canon rarely revealed in English and American studies. In its six chapters, contributors survey critics' changing attitudes toward opera over several centuries, trace the evolution of formal conventions among librettists, explore the historical relationships between opera and Italian literature, and examine opera's place in Italian popular and national culture. In perhaps the volume's most striking contribution, German scholar Carl Dahlouse offers his most important statement on the dramaturgy of opera.

Media reviews

Citations

• Choice, 06/01/2004, Page 1891