Description:
What happens when operas that are comfortably ensconced in the canon are thoroughly rethought and radically recast on stage? What does a staging do to our understanding of an opera, and of opera generally? While a stage production can disrupt a work that was thought to be established, David J. Levin here argues that the genre of opera is itself unsettled, and that the performance of operas, at its best, clarifies this condition by bringing opera's restlessness and volatility to life.
Unsettling Opera explores a variety of fields, considering questions of operatic textuality, dramaturgical practice, and performance theory. Levin opens with a brief history of opera production, opera studies, and dramatic composition, and goes on to consider in detail various productions of the works of Wagner, Mozart, Verdi, and Alexander Zemlinsky. Ultimately, the book seeks to initiate a dialogue between scholars of music, literature, and performance by addressing questions raised in each field in a manner that influences them all.Brief description:
David J. Levin is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies, the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, and chair of the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. He is also the Senior Adviser to the Provost for Arts at the University of Chicago. In addition to his academic work, he has served as dramaturg for various opera companies in the United States and Germany.
Review Quotes: "Examining some seminal opera productions of the 'post-naturalistic' period, David Levin stimulates readers to be more adventurous and contextual in their own opera explorations. Among other things, Unsettling Opera is a great teaching manual about how to ask questions of opera scores and how to find one's way to their sub-texts. I read the book with an ever-growing sense of excitement."--Pamela Rosenberg, Berline Philharmonic