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Opera, Or The Undoing Of Women
''Opera, or the Undoing of Women'' () is a 1979 book by French philosopher Catherine Clément Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty Cla ..., in which the author explores the way in which traditional operatic plots often feature the death of female characters – in her words, "the infinitely repetitive spectacle of a woman who dies, murdered." Besides the literal deaths of characters such as Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Cio-Cio-San, Tristan und Isolde, Isolde and Pelléas et Mélisande (opera), Mélisande, Clément also discusses metaphorical deaths – for example, Turandot's power and the Der Rosenkavalier, Marschallin's sexuality. Clément makes many references to works outside the field of traditional musicological and opera scholarship, including Jules Michelet's ''Satanism a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catherine Clément
Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan, working in the fields of anthropology and psychoanalysis. A member of the school of French feminism and écriture féminine, she has published books with Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva. She has also made contributions to musicology; her '' Opera, or the Undoing of Women'' (1979) is notable for its emphasis on the representation of women in opera. She lived many years overseas, as her husband, André Lewin (1934–2012), was a diplomat who was France's Ambassador to India, Austria, Guinea, Gambia and Senegal. She was awarded the Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite in 2012 and the Commander of the Legion of Honour in 2017. Bibliography Novels * ''Bildoungue ou la vie de Freud'', Christia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; full title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''. It is a ''dramma giocoso'' blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as ''opera buffa''). It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theatre (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. ''Don Giovanni'' is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte". Composition and premiere The opera was commissioned after the success of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, ''La Tosca'', is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's Campaigns of 1800 in the French Revolutionary Wars#Italy, invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. ''Tosca'' premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Sonnambula
''La sonnambula'' (; ''The Sleepwalker'') is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the ''bel canto'' tradition by Vincenzo Bellini set to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ''ballet-pantomime'' written by Eugène Scribe and choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer called ''La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur''. The ballet had premiered in Paris in September 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism. The role of Amina was originally written for the soprano sfogato Giuditta Pasta and the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, but during Bellini's lifetime another soprano sfogato, Maria Malibran, was a notable exponent of the role. The first performance took place at the Teatro Carcano in Milan on 6 March 1831. The majority of twentieth-century recordings have been made with a soprano cast as Amina, usually with added top-notes and other changes according to tradition, although it was released in soprano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Ring Des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the . The composer termed the cycle a "" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a ("preliminary evening"). It is often referred to as the ''Ring'' cycle, Wagner's ''Ring'', or simply ''The Ring''. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the ''Ring'' cycle are, in sequence: * '' Das Rheingold'' (''The Rhinegold'') * '' Die Walküre'' (''The Valkyrie'') * '' Siegfried'' * ''Götterdämmerung'' (''Twilight of the Gods'') Individual works of the sequence are often performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that a viewer could watch any of them without having watched the previous parts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Puritani
' (''The Puritans'') is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and changed to three acts before the premiere on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet whom Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries. The opera is based on ''Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers'' (''Roundheads and Cavaliers''), a historical play written by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine and set in the English Civil War. Except for its title, the opera is not in any way based on Walter Scott's 1816 novel '' Old Mortality'' (translated into Italian in 1825 as ''I Puritani di Scozia''), despite some claims to the contrary. When Bellini arrived in Paris in mid-August 1833, he had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance ''Parzival'' of the '' Minnesänger'' Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance ''Perceval ou le Conte du Graal'' by the 12th-century ''trouvère'' Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. ''Parsifal'' was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on ''Parsifal'' productions until 1914, however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otello
''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the La Scala, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. The composer was reluctant to write anything new after the success of ''Aida'' in 1871, and he retreated into retirement. It took his Milan publisher Giulio Ricordi the next ten years, first to encourage the revision of Verdi's 1857 ''Simon Boccanegra'' by introducing Boito as librettist and then to begin the arduous process of persuading and cajoling Verdi to see Boito's completed libretto for ''Otello'' in July/August 1881. However, the process of writing the first drafts of the libretto and the years of their revision, with Verdi all along not promising anything, dragged on. It was not until 1884, five years after the first drafts of the libretto, that composition began, with most of the work finishing in late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norma (opera)
''Norma'' () is a ''tragedia lirica'' or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after the play ''Norma, ou L'infanticide'' (''Norma, or The Infanticide'') by Alexandre Soumet. It was first produced at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1831. The opera is regarded as a leading example of the bel canto genre, and the soprano prayer "Casta diva" in Act 1 is a famous piece. Among the well known singers of Norma of the first half of the 20th century was Rosa Ponselle who played the role in New York and London. Notable exponents of the title role in the post-war period have been Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, and Montserrat Caballé. Composition history Crivelli and Company were managing both La Scala and La Fenice in Venice, and as a result, in April–May 1830 Bellini was able to negotiate a contract with them for two operas, one at each theatre. The opera for December 1831 at La Scala became ''Norma'', while the one for the 1832 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg
(; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera. The story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of ''Meistersinger'' (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depiction of the Nuremberg of the era and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucia Di Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel '' The Bride of Lammermoor''. Donizetti wrote ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' in 1835, when he was reaching the peak of his reputation as an opera composer. Gioachino Rossini had recently retired and Vincenzo Bellini had died shortly before the premiere of ''Lucia'' leaving Donizetti as "the sole reigning genius of Italian opera".Mackerras, p. 29 Not only were conditions ripe for Donizetti's success as a composer, but there was also a widespread interest in the history and culture of Scotland. The perceived romance of its violent wars and feuds, as well as its folklore and mythology, intrigued 19th century readers and audiences. Walter Scott dramatized these elements in his novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor'', which inspired several musical works including ''Lucia''.Mackerras, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
