Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to BerioOpera performances are often radically inventive. Composers’ revisions, singers’ improvisations, and stage directors’ re-imaginings continually challenge our visions of canonical works. But do they go far enough? This elegantly written, beautifully concise book, spanning almost the entire history of opera, reexamines attitudes toward some of our best-loved musical works. It looks at opera's history of multiple visions and revisions and asks a simple question: what exactly is opera? Remaking the Song, rich in imaginative answers, considers works by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, and Berio in order to challenge what many regard as sacroscant: the opera’s musical text. Scholarly tradition favors the idea of great operatic texts permanently inscribed in the canon. Roger Parker, considering examples ranging from Cecilia Bartoli's much-criticized insistence on using Mozart's alternative arias in the Marriage of Figaro to Luciano Berio's new ending to Puccini's unfinished Turandot, argues that opera is an inherently mutable form, and that all of us—performers, listeners, scholars—should celebrate operatic revisions as a way of opening works to contemporary needs and new pleasures. |
Other editions - View all
Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio Roger Parker Limited preview - 2006 |
Remaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio Roger Parker No preview available - 2006 |
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Adelia Adorno Alfano amato aria Art Thou Troubled Azucena bars basset horn Berio Bertarido Boito cabaletta Calaf century chapter close composer composer’s compositional context continuity draft Cosė fan tutte course cresc critical Deh vieni desio Donizetti dorma dramatic duet earlier Ernest Bloch example fact Falstaff famous fan tutte Ferrarese Fiordiligi fragment further George Frideric Handel gesture Giacomo Puccini Giulio Ricordi Giuseppe Giuseppe Verdi Goehr gypsies Handel Hutcheon idea Il trovatore Italian kiss La traviata letter libretto Lių Luciano Luciano Berio means melody motive moto di gioia musical musicological narrative Nessun dorma nozze di Figaro opening opera orchestral Parsifal performances perhaps prelude premiere Puccini Puccinian radical repertory revisions Ricordi ritornello Rodelinda rondō score sense singing sketches stage Susanna theme thought Timur tion traviata trills trovatore Turandot Verdi-Boito Verdi’s Violetta violin vocal voice Wagner Wagnerian words work-concept