Music Soundtracks, Opera - General & Miscellaneous, Musical Theater/Broadway, Music Films and Musicals

Opera on Screen

Name: Opera on Screen
Author: Marcia J. Citron
ISBN: 9780300191417

by Marcia J. Citron

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Overview

What happens to opera when it’s presented on the screen? How does an opera change when it becomes a movie, a television presentation, or a video? This book is the first to explore opera and its treatment on the screen from a musicologist’s perspective. Marcia Citron provides a fascinating history of the nearly 100-year-old genre, examines landmark works of opera on screen from a variety of viewpoints, and shows how different electronic media shape the conception of this art form.

The book begins with a comprehensive survey of the origins and development of screen opera. Citron then focuses on such significant works as Franco Zeffirelli’s Otello, Francesco Rosi’s Bizet’s Carmen, Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Tales of Hoffmann, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s Parsifal, Peter Sellars’s four opera productions for television, and the celebrated relay telecast of Otello from the Royal Opera House in London. The author draws on ideas from diverse fields, including media studies and gender studies, to examine issues ranging from the relationship between sound and image to the place of the viewer in relation to the spectacle. As she raises questions about divisions between high art and popular art and about the tensions between live and reproduced art forms, Citron reveals how screen treatments reinforce opera’s vitality in a media-intensive age.

About the Author, Marcia J. Citron

Marcia J. Citron is professor and chair of musicology, and Martha and Henry Lovett Distinguished Service Professor at Rice University. She is the author of the acclaimed book Gender and the Musical Canon.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Beginning with a chronological introduction to opera-media interaction, Citron (Rice Univ.; Gender and the Musical Canon) analyzes several filmed or videotaped operas using elements of contemporary academic discourse--gender roles, class divisions, sexual identity, etc. She addresses both familiar targets such as Peter Sellars's Mozart series and Franco Zeffirelli's productions as well as films that are less well known (to American audiences) such as Hans-J rgen Syberberg's Parsifal and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Tales of Hoffmann. Her cogent statements and fluid language make the reader eager to (re)view the operas, although the overuse of the term diegetic (in film criticism and theory, the totality of the physical world experienced by the characters) is off-putting. Extensive up-to-date research is evident, though the author does draw a few far-fetched conclusions (e.g., that Prince Charles and Princess Diana's appearance in the audience of Brian Large's Otello video foreshadows their relationship difficulties). A valuable resource for opera and film scholars, this volume is recommended for specialized collections and academic and larger public libraries.--Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Internet Bookwatch

How does an opera change when it becomes a movie or a video? Opera on Screen examination is the first to explore how opera is treated on the screen, blending musical with film analysis and including ideas from gender studies and other disciplines to examine connections between art and its reproduction and depiction in other media.