(Ebook) National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera II: Central and Eastern Europe (The Ashgate Library of Essays in Opera Studies) by Michael C. Tusa ISBN 9780754629061, 0754629066

(Ebook) National Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Opera II: Central and Eastern Europe (The Ashgate Library of Essays in Opera Studies) by Michael C. Tusa ISBN 9780754629061, 0754629066

This volume offers a cross-section of English-language scholarship on German and Slavonic operatic repertories of the "long nineteenth century," giving particular emphasis to four areas: German opera in the first half of the nineteenth century; the works of Richard Wagner after 1848; Russian opera between Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov; and the operas of Richard Strauss and Janácek. The essays reflect diverse methods, ranging from stylistic, philological, and historical approaches to those rooted in hermeneutics, critical theory, and post-modernist inquiry.lnterdisciplinary by its very nature, opera demands a variety of scholarly and critical perspectives to begin to do justice to the literary, theatrical, and musical means with which it works and the social, cultural, and historical contexts into which it is woven. These challenges are compounded w hen- as is the case with many nineteenth century operas - works accumulate new meanings over time through frequent restagings, changing social and cultural conditions, and shifting critical environments. Fortunately, over the past thirty years or so, scholars and  critics with diverse backgrounds and interests have created a body of writing that has opened new vistas on the genre.
The essays included in the present volume demonstrate some of this healthy variety of method and perspective, aiming, in particular, to offer a representative cross-section of English-language scholarship on German and Slavonic operatic repertories of the 'Iong nineteenth century', the critical period between the French Revolution and the First World War that witnessed fundamental reconfigurations of the social, political and philosophical bases of Western civilization. The topics covered here are intended to complement those treated in the companion volume, edited by Steven Huebner, which focuses on French, Italian and English operatic traditions in the same period...