Monteverdi's last operas : a Venetian trilogy
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was the first important composer of opera. This innovative study by one of the foremost experts on Monteverdi and seventeenth-century opera examines the composer's celebrated final works--Il ritorno d'Ulisse (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642)--from a new perspective. Ellen Rosand considers these works as not merely a pair but constituents of a trio, a Venetian trilogy that, Rosand argues, properly includes a third opera, Le nozze d'Enea (1641). Although its music has not survived, its chronological placement between the other two operas opens new prospects for better understanding all three, both in their specifically Venetian context and as the creations of an old master. A thorough review of manuscript and printed sources of Ritorno and Poppea, in conjunction with those of their erstwhile silent companion, offers new possibilities for resolving the questions of authenticity that have swirled around Monteverdi's last operas since their discovery in the late nineteenth century. Le nozze d'Enea also helps to explain the striking differences between the other two, casting new light on their contrasting moral ethos: the conflict between a world of emotional propriety and restraint and one of hedonistic abandon [Publisher description]
Print Book, English, ©2007
University of California Press, Berkeley, ©2007
xxiv, 447 pages, 22 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, music, facsimile ; 27 cm
9780520249349, 0520249348
80020015
Orpheus in Venice. Prologue ; A new Ulysses ; The myth of Venice
Discoveries and reception. Scholarship ; Performance
Sources and authenticity : three librettos. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ; Le nozze d'Enea e Lavinia ; L'incoronazione di Poppea
Two scores. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ; L'incoronazione di Poppea
Ancients and moderns. A question of genre ; Five acts or three ; Modern Taste
A master of three servants. Monteverdi's way with words ; Speech and song, recitative and aria ; The role of meter ; Fashioning the "just ;ament" : Arianna's Venetian progeny ; Comedy
Constructions of character. Shaping an epic or rewriting Penelope ; The wily hero ; Deepening a psychological drama
The philosopher and the parasite. Heroic pedant, ambiguous philosopher ; Tragic buffoon ; Directors and critics ; Music and text ; Post mortem
Epilogue
Appendixes. Giacomo Badoaro, Il ritorno d'Ulisse, preface ; Argomento et scenario delle Nozze d'Enea in Lavinia ; Giacomo Badoaro, Ulisse errante, preface ; L'incoronazione di Poppea : argomento, scenario, preface ; Il ritorno d'Ulisse : Badoaro's argomento compared with Dolce's Allegorie and Dolce's argomenti compared with Badoaro's structure ; Le nozze d'Enea e Lavinia : scenario compared with Dolce's allegorie ; Supernatural scenes ; Singers
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