Bøger i Cambridge Studies in Opera serien

Emanuele Senici offers a new and unusual look at Italian opera in the nineteenth century, focusing on operas which present Alpine virgins as the female protagonist. The book explores the connection between landscape and gender in opera, from Bellini's La sonnambula (1831) to Puccini's La fanciulla del West (1910).

Thomas considers the use of operatic spectacle and music by Louis XIV as a vehicle for absolutism; the resistance of music to the aesthetic and political agendas of the time; and the long-term development of opera in eighteenth-century humanist culture, examining key works by Lully, Rameau and Charpentier, among others.

This edited volume focuses on opera in Italy and France from the 1600s to the present day. The volume is divided into three sections, each of which is preceded by a concise and informative introduction explaining how the chapters in that section contribute to our understanding of opera.

Wagner's Ring cycle, argues Foster, follows an evolutionary model of Greek poetry and politics adapted from Hegel. Providing a thorough analysis of three of the most important poetic genres - epic, lyric, and drama - this book interrogates the ways in which Wagner uses Greek aesthetics to further his own ideological goals.