William Ashbrook

la vita

Donizetti

Philip Gossett

Andrew Porter

Julian Budden

Mosco Carner

Friedrich Lippmann

These five biographies provide the first complete survey of Italian opera from the early buffo operas of Rossini to Verdi's great masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, and the verismo operas of Puccini. Andrew Porter has been highly praised for his original and enlightening account of Verdi, and Philip Gossett has received similar acclaim for his treatment of Rossini. Porter, Gossett, William Ashbrooke, Julian Budden, Mosco Carner, and Friedrich Lippmann, all acknowledged experts in the field of Italian opera, combine to offer insight into the traditions and workings of one of the most fascinating periods in the history of opera. Book jacket.

Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini

The New Grove Masters of Italian Opera

The series will include both new and recent titles drawn from the whole range of the Press's very substantial publishing programs.

Donizetti and His Operas

Harold Powers

Unfinished at Puccini's death in 1924, Turandot was not only his most ambitious work, but it became the last Italian opera to enter the international repertory. In this colorful study two renowned music scholars demonstrate that this work, despite the modern climate in which it was written, was a fitting finale for the centuries-old Great Tradition of Italian opera. Here they provide concrete instances of how a listener might encounter the dramatic and musical structures of Turandot in light of the Italian melodramma, and firmly establish Puccini's last work within the tradition of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. In a summary of the sounds, sights, and symbolism of Turandot, the authors touch on earlier treatments of the subject, outline the conception, birth, and reception of the work, and analyze its coordinated dramatic and musical design. Showing how the evolution of the libretto documents Puccini's reversion to large musical forms typical of the Great Tradition in the late nineteenth century, they give particular attention to his use of contrasting Romantic, modernist, and two kinds of orientalist coloration in the general musical structure. They suggest that Puccini's inability to complete the opera resulted mainly from inadequate dramatic buildup for Turandot's last-minute change of heart combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character.

The End of the Great Tradition

Puccini's "Turandot"

William Ashbrook

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