Opera Production and Its Resources, Vol. 4 (The History of Italian Opera, Part 2: System)

Bianconi, Lorenzo; Pestelli, Giorgio

ISBN 10: 0226045900 / ISBN 13: 9780226045900

Published by University of Chicago Press, 1998

About this Item

Vg--some light edge wear to dust jacket and boards but overall a clean crisp copy.

Seller Inventory # 004518

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Opera Production and Its Resources, Vol. 4 (The History of Italian Opera, Part 2: System)
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226045900
• ISBN 13: 9780226045900
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Music

About this title

Synopsis

Standing at the forefront of historiographical research, The History of Italian Opera marks the first time a multidisciplinary team of scholars has worked together to investigate the entire Italian operatic tradition, rather than limiting the 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.

Opera Production and Its Resources traces the social, economic, and artistic history of the production of opera from its origins around 1600 to contemporary stagings. From the very beginning, opera has been a chronically deficit-producing enterprise. Yet it maintained unchallenged preeminence in the culture of all Italians for centuries. The first half explores the central role of theater impresarios in putting on these complex productions and in increasing the output of librettos and scores. The second half considers the roles of the three key figures in the creation of any opera: the librettist, the composer, and the singer.

About the Authors

Lorenzo Bianconi is a professor of musical dramaturgy at the University of Bologna, Italy. He is the author of Music in the Seventeenth Century.

Giorgio Pestelli is a professor of music history at the University of Turin, Italy, and music critic for La Stampa. He is the author of The Age of Mozart and Beethoven. Together they edited Opera Production and Its Resources and Opera on Stage, both books in The History of Italian Opera series published by the University of Chicago Press.