The Oxford Handbook of Opera: A Comprehensive Resource for Teachers(OXFORD HANDBOOKS SERIES)

What is opera? Contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Opera respond to this deceptively simple question with a rich and compelling exploration of opera's adaption to changing artistic and political currents. Fifty of the world's most respected scholars cast opera as a fluid entity that continuously reinvents itself in a reflection of its patrons, audience, and creators. The synergy of power, performance, and identity recurs thematically throughout the volume's major topics: Words, Music, and Meaning; Performance and Production; Opera and Society; and Transmission and Reception. Individual essays engage with repertoire from Monteverdi, Mozart, and Meyerbeer to Strauss, Henze, and Adams in studies of composition, national identity, transmission, reception, sources, media, iconography, humanism, the art of collecting, theory, analysis, commerce, singers, directors, criticism, editions, politics, staging, race, and gender. The title of the penultimate section, Opera on the Edge, suggests the uncertainty of opera's future: is opera headed toward catastrophe or have social and musical developments of the last hundred years stimulated something new and exciting, and, well, operatic? In an epilogue to the volume, a contemporary opera composer speaks candidly about opera composition today. The Oxford Handbook of Opera is an essential companion to scholars, educators, advanced students, performers, and knowledgeable listeners: those who simply love opera.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Helen M. Greenwald PART I WHAT IS OPERA? 1. What is Opera? Tim Carter 2. Genre Emanuele Senici 3. Musical Theater(s) Derek B. Scott 4. Operatorio? Monika Hennemann 5. The Concept of Opera Lydia Goehr PART II WORDS, MUSIC, AND MEANING The Libretto and the Score 6. Oft-Told Tales Vincent Giroud 7. The Language of National Style Marina Frolova-Walker 8. Musical Dramaturgy Damien Colas 9. Versification Andreas Giger 10. The German Libretto of the Early Nineteenth Century John Warrack 11. Analysis William Drabkin Humanism, Verisimilitude, and Voice 12. Opera between the Ancients and the Moderns Wendy Heller 13. Verisimilitude Thomas Betzwieser 14. Voice Michal Grover-Friedlander 15. Characterization Julian Rushton 16. Meaning Lawrence Kramer PART III PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION 17. Divas and Divos Hilary Poriss 18. Castrato Acts Martha Feldman 19. Rehearsal Practices Mark Everist 20. Acting Simon Williams 21. The Chorus Ryan Minor 22. The Orchestra Alessandro Di Profio 23. Dance Linda J. Tomko 24. Production Aesthetics and Materials Katherine Syer 25. Costumes Veronica Isaac 26. Regietheater/Director's Theater Ulrich Müller 27. Historically Informed Performance Mary Hunter PART IV OPERA AND SOCIETY 28. Opera Composition and Cultural Environment Marianne Betz 29. Patronage Valeria De Lucca 30. Audiences Georgia Cowart 31. Autographs, Memorabilia, and the Aesthetics of Collecting Daniela Macchione 32. Politics Marc A. Weiner 33. Religion Jesse Rosenberg 34. Race and Racism John Graziano 35. Gender Alexandra Wilson 36. Exoticism W. Anthony Sheppard 37. Censorship Francesco Izzo PART V TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION 38. How Opera Traveled Louise K. Stein 39. The Operatic Canon James Parakilas 40. Critics Paul Watt 41. Soundings Offstage Thomas Christensen 42. Visual Media Marcia J. Citron 43. Operatic Images Helen M. Greenwald 44. Sources Linda B. Fairtile 45. Reconstructions Charles S. Brauner 46. Editing Opera Patricia B. Brauner 47. Writing the History of Opera Philip Gossett PART VI OPERA ON THE EDGE 48. 1900-1945 Joy H. Calico 49. After the Canon Robert Fink EPILOGUE 50. Composing Opera Jake Heggie Index of Musical Works General Index

About the Author :
Helen M. Greenwald is Chair of Music History & Musicology at New England Conservatory. She is the author of numerous articles on vocal music from the 18th -20th centuries and program notes for major arts organizations, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera. She is the editor of the critical edition of Verdi's Attila (Ricordi and the University of Chicago Press, 2012) and co-editor of the critical edition of Rossini's Zelmira (Fondazione Rossini, 2005).

Review :
[I]f one wishes to engage broadly and in-depth with this infuriating but addictive art form...[t]here are many hours of fascinating reading therein. Greenwald and her large cast are to be congratulated on having produced a major contribution to opera scholarship. No single theme or thesis is propounded; rather, the book covers an exceptionally wide range of issues intelligently investigated. The best writers here are erudite,witty, thoughtful, a little weird. They can analyse and explain but they are are still prepared to surrender to the impact of a greedy, usually overtly emotional art form. I don't know any other book quite like this...Drawing upon the enormously varied ways the performing arts are experienced, this handbook shows how modern scholarship commands the routes into thinking and writing about the constantly evolving genre of opera. The range of subject matter is remarkable. After an exhilarating plunge into the possible responses to the question posed in Tim Carter's sparkling essay, "What is Opera," the book settles into a more sober assessment of the basics of genre, form, and style, plots and the words they are told in, and some of the controversies and curiosities embedded in this multi-dimensional medium. It is an inviting approach: the structure is clear and...the language is accessible...Some chapters seem destined to become classics...This impressive handbook...deserves to be in frequent use... It's good, and rightly contemporary, to see some 250 pages, more than a fifth of the text, given up to "Performance and Production," a subject now recognized as integral to assessing opera in print...Because it is new and has contributions from a large number of scholars working at the coalface of their subjects...the Handbook's strength is its close contact with a wide range of current opera scholarship...It is also readable in a way that might have been considered suspect a few decades ago...[I]t looks handsome and has been well printed, the illustrations included. [The Oxford Handbook of Opera] offers us an unprecedentedly thorough cross-examination of the many positions and approaches now taken within what might be called 'opera studies.'...A wealth of intriguing material is presented in these essays...It is nonetheless the three chapters that explicitly address editorial practice that are most thought-provoking in the context of [The Oxford Handbook of Opera] as a whole. Taken together, these contributions...will offer many readers a rare insight into the processes, decisions, and difficulties that surround and inform one of the discipline's more mysterious portals to contemporary operatic culture.