Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Preface; A note on Italian prosody; Map; Introduction: the Italianness of Italian opera; Part I. The Origins of Opera: 1. The Renaissance intermedi; 2. The elements of early opera; 3. The beginnings of opera; 4. Monteverdi's Orfeo; Part II. The Venetian Hegemony: 5. Opera in seventeenth-century Rome; 6. Opera comes to Venice; 7. The nature of Venetian opera; 8. The development of the musical language; 9. Cesti's L'Orontea; Part III. Opera Seria: 10. The dramma per musica; 11. 'Perfection and public favour'; 12. The performance of opera seria; 13. The collapse of the Metastasian ideal; 14. Opera seria in an age of ferment; 15. A half-century of L'Olimpiade; Part IV. The Tragedy of Comedy: 16. The commedia dell'arte; 17. Contrascene and intermezzi; 18. The flowering of comic opera in Naples and Venice; 19. Apogee and decline; 20. Il barbiere di Siviglia: Paisiello's and Rossini's settings; Part V. Romantic Opera: 21. Italian Romanticism; 22. Dramatic themes: the libretto; 23. The life of the theatre; 24. The musical language of Italian Romantic opera; 25. Rossini in Naples; 26. A franker Romanticism; 27. The young Verdi; 28. Bellini's Norma; Part VI. Cosmopolitanism and Decadence: 29. Italian grand opera; 30. Scapigliati and bohemians; 31. Verdi and Boito; 32. Verismo; Personalia; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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David Kimbell traces the history of Italian opera from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century.

Reviews

'... authoritative, highly readable, and wide-ranging account of opera in Italy.' New Theatre Quarterly '... a wonderful read.' Tim Blanning, The Independent