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Interludes in opera articulate moments when the lush voices of singers and vivid spectacle of scenery and action are removed and often the curtain is drawn, and thus they span a functional gap between textless instrumental music and explicit theatrical vehicle. Although composers and analysts suggest rich and multivalent meanings for the music, those implications often escape decoding by audiences. Even the interlude titles — Zwischenspiel, entr'acte, intermezzo — suggest their intermission-like nature. As functional placeholders for scene changes and the like, the interludes are for many a cue to relax attentive listening, read synopses, and whisper with companions. Undaunted by such complexities, Morris takes up the problematic nature of operatic interludes, engaging their ambiguities with eyes wide open in an effort to enrich our understanding of these challenging bits of music.
According to the book jacket, this is the first major scholarly study of Così fan tutte, considered to be one of Mozart's least-understood operas and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte's most interesting text. Così fan tutte has been studied extensively, despite the broad assertion stated in the book. What the author of this study brings to the reader, which others have not, is a detailed examination of the philosophical, pastoral, and comic background of the libretto, characters, and music of the opera. New perspectives on text and tone in the opera, the subtle use of the pastoral mode, and the tension and balance between philosophy and comedy are what the author brings to the study of this work. In addition, the author does an intensely close reading of the primary sources of the opera, in order to support his theories and statements.
The importance of the Teatre del Liceu, can not be overstated. The house ranks with all the leading theatres of the world, being right up there with Paris, London, New York, Vienna, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Turin, Naples, Buenos Aires, and other cities of comparable importance. During its long history (158 years at the time of writing) it featured many of the great singers. These include Caruso, Battistini, Tamagno, Ruffo, Caballe, Tebaldi, Mario, Pavarotti, Vignas, Lazaro, O'Sullivan, Stracciari, Pagliughi, Gayarre, Masini, Stagno, Lauri-Volpi, Bellincioni, and countless others. Quite a few of these who sang there before 1897 are represented on the accompanying disc.
Thomas May's stated goal in Decoding Wagner is indeed summarized in his subtitle, An Invitation to His Music Dramas. Mr. May offers an introduction to those who may seek a reliable yet succinct guide in their first Wagnerian experience; a further potential readership is seen among those who have attended performances of Wagner but who wish to expand their appreciation of the music dramas. In his chronological overview of Wagner's oeuvre from the mid-1830s until the close of his career May presents an approachable guide to appreciating the composer's operatic genius. As an illustration of May's commentary on the works, a generous selection of Wagner's music is included on two Discs that accompany the volume in a protective sleeve.
Books described as a "Companion" to this or that and published by university presses should be required to come with a Reader Beware label. As is the case with many books put out by university and many for-profit publishers, the main reason for publishing these is to advance the tenure and promotion prospects of the authors. This is not a bad thing, except that all too often the books aren't very good.
In Making Words Sing, Jonathan Dunsby investigates what he calls the "vocality" of song, that is, the "quality of having voice," as the author states in the introduction to his study. By using this perspective, Dunsby focuses on the intensification of the text that occurs when words are set to music, which stands in opposition to the kind of "songfulness" that Lawrence Kramer discussed in Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).
"Puccini & the Girl" is a rare and engrossing work of scholarship that can be enjoyed on several levels. For the Puccini-lover, to say nothing of one who has a special interest in La Fanciulla del West, it will provide a wealth of information not previously available, particularly all in one place. Any one interested in the creative process will find it exposed and examined clearly. The scholar will recognize the fascinating chance discovery, the thrill of the chase and the deep rewards of work undertaken lovingly and with rigorous care by the dedicated and passionate co-authors.
Jack Winsor Hansen's 520-page biography of Sibyl Sanderson (1865 - 1903) is packed with romanticism and gossip that will delight and titillate true worshipers of operatic divas and inquisitive opera fans. It also fills a gap in the music-historical writings about opera at the end of the 19th century.
Cage's music is like Einstein's theorem: most people know it exists, know it's important, but beyond these facts know nothing about it (count me in this category when it comes to Einstein).
If any opera lover feels daunted by the many biographies and analytical tomes dedicated to the life and art of Giacomo Puccini, Norton has done that reader a tremendous favor with the publication of The Puccini Companion. Tightly organized, this series of essays details the life, discusses the operas, and provides a wealth of supplementary information about the composer.
Much current popular culture assumes that its audience is knowledgeable of the American musical. References to, and parodies of, specific musicals are frequently a part of episodes of The Simpsons and South Park, and ads for companies as diverse as The Gap and the World Wrestling Entertainment promotion recently have restaged numbers from West Side Story to plug their products or events. Rarely, if ever, are the sources acknowledged; it is simply taken for granted that a general audience will understand the quotations and parodies.
"I particularly want to reach newcomers" writes Anthony Tommasini, Times chief classical music critic, in his preface. I do not think they will be helped very much by this book. A rookie who picks it up and reads the subtitle may expect something more than two operas by Bellini, two by Donizetti, one Gounod (not Faust), one Massenet (not Manon) and no Lohengrin.
"New musicology" is the cultural study, analysis and criticism of music, which proffers the belief that music has societal, religious, political, personal, and sexual agendas. Consequently, new musicology, much like the discussion of such topics at social gatherings, can be polarizing.
Here's a serious niche book, a relatively slender volume dealing with a topic at once both arcane and surprisingly central to some of the major controversies in opera production today. I think it has major problems but it has become for me the pebble dropped into the pond that sends ripples to unexpected places, raising interesting questions in the process.
Among the recent publications on opera, The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera, edited by David Charlton, breaks new ground with its systematic and thorough exploration of grand opera, a specific part of the genre which played an important role in the musical culture of the nineteenth century.
This volume has long been regarded as the definitive work on the subject, and has been quoted in countless later works whenever a reference was required to the performance histories of individual operas. Taken as a whole, especially when one considers the state of library science when the book was first written, it is a magnificent piece of work, and belongs on the bookshelf of every researcher in the operatic field.
Roger Scruton’s new book is an engrossing attempt, intensely argued throughout, to persuade the reader that Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde is a religious work, not only in the vague sense that it elevates our feelings into an exalted condition that strikes the non-religious as “religious”, but in the precise sense that it incarnates, as the Eucharist incarnates the doctrine of Christianity, a doctrine that would give our meaningless lives a sufficient meaning if we were to believe and follow it. Nearly half a century ago, Joseph Kerman, in Opera as Drama, called Tristan “a religious drama” and suggested an analogy between it and Bach cantatas dealing with religious conversion and conveying religious experience. Twenty years later, Michael Tanner, a resolutely acute writer on Wagner, described Tristan and Bach’s St Matthew Passion as the two supreme examples of works “of which it is a prerequisite that one suspends disbelief . . . in the ethos which the work embodies and promulgates”. At the same time he admitted that the love unto death of Tristan and Isolde is not “a kind of living that can be rationally valued”. More recently and less cautiously, in his Wagner, he calls Tristan “the one work of Wagner’s which seems to be making an unconditional demand on our capacity to embrace a new, redeeming doctrine”.
Wagner, bloody Wagner; will we ever have done with the man? I don’t suppose that we’ll ever have done with his operas. For many of us, they are indispensable art; among the defining achievements of the Western tradition. “There is no music deeper . . . and no drama deeper either. (The Ring) is enough in itself to place Wagner alongside Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Mozart.” If you don’t think Wagner is that good, you won’t like Wagner and Philosophy, Bryan Magee’s new book about him. Whether or not he is that good, there is surely a problem that arises insistently about Wagner but not Michelangelo or Mozart or, least of all, about Shakespeare: that of getting the art clear of the artist. Shakespeare is notorious for disappearing from his plays, but Wagner is everywhere in his operas. You just can’t think about them and not think about him; nor would he conceivably have wished you to.
The title of this book, "The Cambridge Companion to Rossini" probably means different things to different people.
Writing a history of an important and complex operatic repertory spanning three dynamic centuries is a daunting task, one that is perhaps better suited to several specialists than a single author. While an individual rarely possesses the scholarly breadth to write with expertise and authority on so much music, he or she can impart a unifying perspective and a consistent set of goals. But this advantage can also prove to be a limitation.
Every CD collector faces the day (or days, in the case of the truly dedicated collector) when denial no longer suffices — the shelves are sagging and overflowing, and the time has come to purchase yet another storage unit. Perhaps others have done what I did once to forestall that day — I removed all the booklets from my opera sets (and cover boxes as well, of course) and stored them on that increasingly archaic furniture item, a bookshelf.
As a space-saving maneuver, this worked; as a time-saver, the effort proved questionable. All too often, when I want to check a libretto, I find my poor organizational skills make the desired one difficult to locate. If found, I have a tendency to fail to replace it or to toss it on top of the shortest pile, insuring further frustration on my next visit.
This is where a volume such as Charles Osborne's The Opera-Lover's Companion might have great usefulness. Promoted on the front cover as "an informal and indispensable guide to the most frequently performed operas," the book in its essence contains the sort of short essay on the opera's history found in many a libretto, along with the requisite act/scene summary, followed by a brief critique. The only feature of Osborne's book not common to librettos is a single recommendation for the "best available" recording. I can think of many an opera recording where the consumer would appreciate the favor of having a better set suggested in the libretto of the disappointing one purchased; it seems unlikely that the CD companies will adopt the idea. 175 operas receive this treatment, covering operas from Monteverdi and Gluck up to those of Dallapiccola and Tippett.
However, there may not be many other collectors as foolish as I am. If one has a large CD collection and the librettos are easily retrievable, the need for this book becomes doubtful. Osborne's plumbs no analytical depths nor offers any fresh insights. Mozart's Nozze di Figaro earns almost 7 pages; the opera's place in the composer's career gets detailed elaboration. Da Ponte's work is called less complex than Beaumarchais's play but also praised for being "more tightly knit, and less rambling" - an unfortunate redundancy, but not untypical of Osborne's style. Then after almost three pages of plot summary, four paragraphs cover Mozart's music. Here's a typical example of Osborne as analyst: "the duets and ensembles move the plot along confidently, while contriving to present themselves as highly mellifluous musical entities." Those are some brazen, scheming duets and ensembles, offering all that confident contrivance. The recommended set, by the way, is the Erich Kleiber.
Here the contrast with the essays of an adequate libretto becomes clear: with the libretto comes a recording! If one doesn't know the music, one can trace the musical examples to the track listing and hear what Osborne's attempts to describe. Surely a listener familiar with the score does not need to be told that Dove sono is "full of a tender regret." The more passionate listener may, in fact, wonder if "tender regret" comes close to capturing the whole emotional range of the aria.
Since the vast majority of the entries are much briefer than this one for Nozze, it seems fair to conclude that the typical opera fan with even a modest acquaintance with the standard repertory will find Osborne's book of limited value. Without a strong personality, entrancing style, or some other compelling ingredient, reading the book becomes as attractive a proposition as piling one's lap with a 175 CD set of booklets and reading the main essay and summary one after another. If that sounds like a delightful afternoon to anyone, this book will spare one's lap a great deal of discomfort.
Perhaps then, the book is for the less initiated listener. From a personal perspective, I can only say that in my most green years of incoherent exploration of the art form, I never once thought, "I'd like to have the best of CD booklet essays all bound together!" Plot summaries often present an impediment to appreciating the drama of an opera, in my opinion; as a rule they make for unusually dull and confusing reading. The essays can be of greater interest, but a variety of styles and viewpoints has more appeal. The sameness of Osborne's style, with its heavy reliance on superlative synonyms, and his rather anodyne critical judgments make the 604-page book a hard slog; reading a few entries randomly lessens the tedium, but not by much. The helpful volumes in my opera-loving infancy were the then-current Gramophone Good CD Guide and Penguin Guide. With a number of writers offering more detailed responses to a much wider range of recordings, those volumes served me very well. After Osborne has praised the conductor of one of his chosen sets as "stylish" for the umpteenth time, I would no longer know what the term meant and seek more expansive remarks elsewhere.
The selection of the 175 operas raises other questions. First, the issue of the omitted operas that can hardly be called obscure or truly rare: Massenet's Thais has had successful stagings in recent years and a major label CD set featuring Fleming and Hampson. Fleming also brought Bellini's initial success Il Pirata to the Metropolitan not so long ago; it is absent. Puccini's La Rondine? Flying too low for Osborne's radar, I suppose. The upsurge in late classical and early romantic opera might have meant a mention of Spontini's Vestale or Cherubini's Medea — might have, but doesn't. I'm glad that seven of Donizetti's operas rate inclusion, but the absence of La Favorite and Roberto Devereaux still puzzles, as both have had some presence internationally of late.
Of the compelling 20th century operas brought to San Francisco Opera by Pamela Rosenberg, only Busoni's Doctor Faustus gets coverage. No Ligeti Le Grand Macabre, or Messiaen's St. Francis, or Thompson's Mother of Us All. In fact, of American opera, only Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Barber's Vanessa, and Moore's Ballad of Baby Doe rate inclusion by Osborne. None of Floyd's does, and most regrettably, neither Nixon in China nor Death of Klinghoffer from John Adams is present.
British composers, perhaps unsurprisingly, receive a warmer welcome. No major Britten work is excluded. Two of Tippett's appear, and if The Beggar's Opera gets an entry, why can't Bernstein's Candide? Others may question other inclusions, from Hindemith's Cardillac (one of several included operas that have no available recording to recommend) to Verdi's very early Oberto. Verdi gets ample space, as does Rossini, and deservingly so.
Many may find Osborne's selections for recommended recordings fine starters for interesting debate. The Barenboim Ring gets his nod, as does the Malfitano/Terfel/Dohnanyi Salome. I have heard a highlights CD of Marton/Carreras/Maazel's Turandot — that would not be my recommendation. Is the Domingo/Sutherland/Bonynge Tales of Hoffman easily available? Somehow it has escaped my notice. Perhaps Osborne has overlooked the Rattle recording of Szymanowski's King Roger, or he doesn't think it deserves recommendation. A note perhaps might helpfully explain why not.
I would also be very curious as to where I can find the Donna del Lago conducted by Maurizio Pollini! An editing mistake, I suppose. But what a fascinating document that would be: an especially dry and analytical pianist leading Rossini's over-the-top bel canto masterpiece. Other than that accidental slip, not much humor lightens the book1.
Ultimately, the value of this book as "companion," therefore, depends on one's taste in friends. If a rather dull but reliably informed chum appeals, then Osborne's book will indeed be an amiable partner. For this opera-lover, there can be no single essential companion. If the opera is beloved, I need a range of recordings, and a DVD or two, and programs and ticket stubs as evidence of live encounters. Osborne's book would be one lonely, forgotten acquaintance in my home.
Chris Mullins
1 A recording of La donna del lago was made under the Sony label in conjunction with performances at the Rossini Opera Festival of 1983. Maurizio Pollini, the pianist, conducted. The recording appears to be out of print at this time.
