Dramma Giocoso

The three Mozart/Da Ponte operas offer an inexhaustible wellspring for critical reflection, possessing a complexity and equivocation common to all great humane works. They have the potential to reflect and refract whatever locus of contemporaneity may be the starting point for enquiry. Thus, even postmodern and postmillennial concerns, far from seeming irrelevant to these operas, are instead given new perspectives by them, whilst the music and the dramatic situations have the multivalency to accept each refreshed pallet of interpretation without loss of their essential character. These operas seem perennially ‘new'. In exploring the evergreen qualities of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, this collection of studies does not shun approaches that have foundations in established theory, but refracts them through such problems as the tension between operatic tradition and psychological realism, the co-existence of multiple yet equal plots, and the antagonism between the tenets of tradition and the need for self-actualization. In exploring such themes, the authors not only illuminate new aspects of Mozart's operatic compositions, but also probe the nature of musical analysis itself.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

"Dramma Giocoso" was written by Julian Rushton, Stefan Rohringer, Sergio Durante and James Webster.

Julian Rushton is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Leeds and Chairman of the Editorial Committee of Musica Britannica.

Stefan Rohringer is Professor of Music Theory at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.

Sergio Durante is Director of the Department of Art and Music History at the University of Padua.

James Webster is Goldwin Smith Professor of Music at Cornell University. He is the author of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style.

"Dramma Giocoso" was edited by Darla Crispin.

Darla Crispin is a pianist and musicologist tracing perspectives from artistic research. Formerly an ORCiM Research Fellow, she is currently Associate Professor of Musicology at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), Oslo.

Yes, "Dramma Giocoso" is part of the "Geschriften van het Orpheus Instituut/Collected Writings of the Orpheus Institute" series. It's book 10 in the series.

In association with

The publications in the series "Collected Writings of the Orpheus Institute" contain musical testimonies and music-theoretical reflections with a strong emphasis on musical practice.

Editorial Board
Peter Dejans, Luk Vaes

CONTENTS

PREFACE

- Julian Rushton
'By their arias shall ye know them': characterization in aria-based opera

- Stefan Rohringer
Don Ottavio and the history of the tenor voice

- Sergio Durante
Don Giovanni then and now: text and performance

- James Webster
The Act IV Finale of Le nozze di Figaro: Dramatic and Musical Construction

PERSONALIA

COLOPHON