A Poetics of Handel's Operas

— —

Nathan Link (is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music, is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music, Centre College)

A Poetics of Handel's Operas

Nathan Link (is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music, is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music, Centre College)

$216

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press Inc
02 August 2023

Music: styles & genres; Western "classical" music; Choral music; Opera

What should we consider when thinking about the relationship between an onstage performance and the story the performance tells? A Poetics of Handel's Operas explores this question by analyzing the narratives of Handel's operas in relation to the rich representational fabric of performance used to convey them. Nathan Link notes that in most storytelling genres, the audience can naturally discern between a story and the way that story is represented: with film, for example, the viewer would recognize that a character hears neither her own voiceover nor the ambient music that accompanies it, whereas in discussions of opera, some audiences may be distracted by the seemingly artificial nature of such conventions as characters singing their dialogue. Link proposes that when engaging with opera, distinguishing between the performance we see and hear on the stage and the story represented offers a meaningful approach to engaging with and interpreting the work.

Handel's operas are today the most-performed works in the Baroque opera seria tradition. This genre, with its intricate dramaturgy and esoteric conventions, stands to gain much from an investigation into the relationships between the onstage performance and the story to which that performance directs us. In his analysis, Link offers theoretical studies on opera and narratological theories of literature, drama, and film, providing rich engagement with Handel's work and what it conveys about the relationship between text, story, and performance.

By: Nathan Link (is H.W. Stodghill Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music is H.W. Stodghill Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music Centre College)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 163mm, Width: 237mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780197651346
ISBN 10: 0197651348
Pages: 388
Publication Date: 02 August 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures List of Musical Examples Editorial Principles About the Website Acknowledgements Dedication Introduction Chapter 1. Song Chapter 2. Time Chapter 3. Orchestra Chapter 4. Character Chapter 5. Storytellers Glossary Works Cited Index

Nathan Link is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music at Centre College and Vice-President of the American Handel Society. Since earning his doctorate in music history at Yale University, he has coedited the two-volume collection Word, Image, and Song, and published work in several journals, including the Journal of the American Musicological Association and The Opera Quarterly.

Reviews for A Poetics of Handel's Operas

The chapter headings of Link's intriguingly titled Poetics of Handel's Operas hint at the nature of this extraordinary volume: Song, Time, Orchestra, Character, and Storytelling. Taking full advantage of all we have learned about Handel's operas over the past half-century, from the likes of Winton Dean et al, Link goes beyond facts and figures to focus, not on the what, but on the how, and not from the point of view of the composer alone but from his relationship with his audience-on the expressive contract established between them. By engaging a variety of critical strategies drawn from literary, film, and dramatic theory, Link brilliantly illuminates Handel's storytelling in ways that can be applied to operas of any period, including our own. * Ellen Rosand, author of Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre * The Poetics of Handel's Operas offers a wholly new analytic system based on narrative storytelling that will surely have a strong impact on Handel scholarship - and also has the potential to mark a turning point in the study and performance of opera seria. A seminal work. * Ellen T. Harris, Class of 1949 Professor of Music Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *