The Politics of Opera : : A History from Monteverdi to Mozart / / Mitchell Cohen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Cohen, Mitchell,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2017]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (512 p.) :; 20 halftones.

A wide-ranging look at the interplay of opera and political ideas through the centuriesThe Politics of Opera takes readers on a fascinating journey into the entwined development of opera and politics, from the Renaissance through the turn of the nineteenth century. What political backdrops have shaped opera? How has opera conveyed the political ideas of its times? Delving into European history and thought and an array of music by such greats as Lully, Rameau, and Mozart, Mitchell Cohen reveals how politics—through story lines, symbols, harmonies, and musical motifs—has played an operatic role both robust and sotto voce.Cohen begins with opera's emergence under Medici absolutism in Florence during the late Renaissance—where debates by humanists, including Galileo's father, led to the first operas in the late sixteenth century. Taking readers to Mantua and Venice, where composer Claudio Monteverdi flourished, Cohen examines how early operatic works like Orfeo used mythology to reflect on governance and policy issues of the day, such as state jurisdictions and immigration. Cohen explores France in the ages of Louis XIV and the Enlightenment and Vienna before and during the French Revolution, where the deceptive lightness of Mozart's masterpieces touched on the havoc of misrule and hidden abuses of power. Cohen also looks at smaller works, including a one-act opera written and composed by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Essential characters, ancient and modern, make appearances throughout: Nero, Seneca, Machiavelli, Mazarin, Fenelon, Metastasio, Beaumarchais, Da Ponte, and many more.An engrossing book that will interest all who love opera and are intrigued by politics, The Politics of Opera offers a compelling investigation into the intersections of music and the state.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Prologue: Mixtures, Boundaries, Parallels -- Acknowledgments -- Part 1: Metamorphoses, ancient to Modern -- Chapter 1. Who Rules? -- Chapter 2. Reigning Voices -- Chapter 3. Laws and Laurels -- Part 2: Mantua to Venice -- Chapter 4. Orpheus’s Ways -- Chapter 5. A Prince Decides on Naxos -- Chapter 6. The Political Scenario of Monteverdi’s Venice -- Chapter 7. Revealing Ulysses -- Chapter 8. Spectacles -- Part 3: Under French Suns -- Chapter 9. Agitations and Absolutes -- Chapter 10. In the Winds: The Decades of Pernucio And Telemachus -- Chapter 11. Vertical, Horizontal -- Chapter 12. Nature and Its Discontents -- Part 4: Ancients in Modernity -- Chapter 13. From Elysium to Utica -- Chapter 14. From Crete to Rome -- Part 5: “. . . And Although I Am No Count . . .” -- Chapter 15 Masters and Servants -- Chapter 16. Gaits of History -- Chapter 17. Looking for Enlightenment -- Chapter 18. Tamino’s Wonder -- Appendix: “Backstage” -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index