Handel's Operas, 1704-1726 (Clarendon Paperbacks) - Softcover

Dean, Winton; Knapp, The Late John Merrill

9780198164418: Handel's Operas, 1704-1726 (Clarendon Paperbacks)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198164416 ISBN 13: 9780198164418

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1995

After two centures of near-total neglect, Handel's operas are now increasingly popular in the theatre, but modern productions are hampered by dependence on obsolete and inaccurate editions, and by ignorance of the musical and theatrical practice of Handel's age. Although Handel's autographs and performing scores have long been available, they have never before been fully studied, still less the very early manuscript copies. The manuscripts have yielded a great deal of unknown music, besides throwing fresh light on Handel's methods of composition and performance practice.
This book covers Handel's first seventeen surviving operas, including his greatest and most successful. Each opera has a chapter, with a full synopsis of the libretto (including all original stage directions) and a comparison with its literary and dramatic sources. Each chapter covers the history of the opera in performance and the different versions in the manuscripts. Every known surviving manuscript has been examined. Eight appendices cover all performances in Handel's time, borrowings, modern revivals, new information on his singers, and a complete index of Italian first lines in all Handel's works. About the Authors: Wynton Dean is the author of Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques. John Merrill Knapp is Emeritus Professor of Music at Princeton University.

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About the Author:

WINTON DEAN is a distinguished Handelian scholar and writer on opera. He is vice-president of the Georg-Friedrich-Handel Gesellschaft in Halle and a founding Council Member of the Handel Institute in London. JOHN MERRILL KNAPP died in 1993. He was Emeritus Professor of Music, Princeton University and the editor of two volumes of the German edition of Handel's complete works, and author of The Joy of Opera.

Review:

"The first of two volumes in a long-awaited study by two preeminent Handel scholars....Essential for all music libraries."--Choice

"Offers an enormous amount of valuable information and many new and perceptive insights. Scholars and general readers alike can learn from it."--The New York Times Book Review

"A rigorous investigation of the bewilderingly abundant musical and literary sources of each opera...its most lasting influence will be on all future editions of Handel's music."--Early Music

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