Guide to Operatic Duets - Softcover

Boldrey, Richard; Foldrey, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1877761656 ISBN 13: 9781877761652

Publisher: Caldwell Pub Co, 1994

Synopsis

This essential reference work simplifies the even more overwhelming task of selecting duets. Like its companion volume, Guide to Operatic Roles & Arias, the material extensively cross references roles, duets, voice categories, languages, composers, and operas-as well as roles and their partners. A fine essay on the history of duets opens the book and sheds light on interpreting the music with meaningful and authentic style.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Boldrey is a former coach and conductor at the Chicago Lyric Opera and is the head of Opera at the University of Colorado.

In addition, he is the author of the well-received Guide to Opera series and a contributing author of The Singers' Edition: Soubrette and Light Lyric Soprano.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The duet is the most common ensemble in opera. In early French tragdie lyrique, from Lully to Rameau, nearly ninety percent of all opera ensembles were duets, with at least three or four per opera. In the middle 1700s in Italy, the duet was often the only ensemble in an opera, serving as the finale movement of an act-Se viver non degg'io (Mozart, Mitridate), for example. In comic opera after 1750, the only other ensemble besides the usual large finale was the requisite duet for the principal buffa couple. In the Classical period at the end of that century, duets became even more prevalent for both principal and secondary characters. A hundred years later, the Italian operatic duet had assumed an importance equal to the aria. The nineteenth-century Italian "grand duet"-between lovers, cohorts, rivals, or enemies-was frequently the high-light of an act.

Operatic duets are normally associated with lovers-usually soprano and tenor-such as Mim and Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohme. Composers of Italian opera seria in the middle 1700s wrote duets almost exclusively for the principal lovers, but the couple was usually a soprano and a male castrato (either soprano or alto). Composers of the French opra comique of the same period wrote fewer duets for lovers, instead writing them to highlight dramatic situations, and nearly half of the duets were for characters of the same sex. Italian composers gradually followed the French and wrote same-sex duets, which became common in opera seria by the 1780s. In the nineteenth century, composers wrote duets for nearly every combination of voices, role types, and relation-ships, not just for lovers. Famous non-lover duets include Mira, o Norma (Bellini, Norma), Sous le dme pais (Delibes, Lakm), L'amo come il fulgor del creato (Ponchielli, La Gioconda), Solenne in quest'ora (Verdi, La forza del destino), and Au fond du temple saint (Bizet, Les pcheurs de perles).

Edition details

• Publisher: Caldwell Pub Co
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1877761656
• ISBN 13: 9781877761652
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1