Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
Published on 22. July 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
398 pages
978-1-107-52902-1 (ISBN)
Description
Scientific thinking has long been linked to music theory and instrument making, yet the profound and often surprising intersections between the sciences and opera during the long nineteenth century are here explored for the first time. These touch on a wide variety of topics, including vocal physiology, theories of listening and sensory communication, technologies of theatrical machinery and discourses of biological degeneration. Taken together, the chapters reveal an intertwined cultural history that extends from backstage hydraulics to drawing-room hypnotism, and from laryngoscopy to theatrical aeronautics. Situated at the intersection of opera studies and the history of science, the book therefore offers a novel and illuminating set of case studies, of a kind that will appeal to historians of both science and opera, and of European culture more generally from the French Revolution to the end of the Victorian period.
Reviews / Votes
'There is an interesting discussion of whether opera was beneficial or dangerous for the mentally ill. This exploration of the intersection of two important aspects of 19th-century Western life will interest scientists and musicians alike.' R. Pitts, Choice 'Over the course of the essays, all of which are excellent, the book weaves a very solid network of living objects, which resonate with each other from chapter to chapter and bear witness to the inextricable entanglement between the operatic stage and the scientific stage in nineteenth-century opera, echoes of which are still audible today.' Isabelle Moindrot, Revue de musicologieMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
15 Printed music items; 2 Tables, black and white; 25 Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
685 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-107-52902-1 (9781107529021)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
David Trippett | Benjamin Walton
Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
Book
08/2019
Cambridge University Press
€148.20
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Content
1. Introduction: the laboratory and the stage David Trippett and Benjamin Walton; Part I. Voices: 2. Pneumotypes: Jean de Reszke's high pianissimos and the occult sciences of breathing James Q. Davies; 3. Vocal culture in the age of laryngoscopy Benjamin Steege; 4. Operatic fantasies in early nineteenth-century psychiatry Carmel Raz; 5. Opera and hypnosis: Victor Maurel's experiments in suggestion with Verdi's Otello Celine Frigau Manning; Part II. Ears: 6. Hearing space in the music of Hector Berlioz Julia Kursell; 7. From distant sounds to Aeolian ears: Ernst Kapp's auditory prosthesis David Trippett; 8. Wagner, hearing loss, and the urban soundscape of late nineteenth-century Germany James Deaville; Part III. Technologies: 9. Science, technology and love in late eighteenth-century opera Deirdre Loughridge; 10. Technological phantoms of the opera Benjamin Walton; 11. Circuit listening Ellen Lockhart; Part IV. Bodies: 12. Excelsior as mass ornament: the reproduction of gesture Gavin Williams; 13. Automata, physiology and opera Myles Jackson; 14. Wagnerian manipulation: Bayreuth and the sciences of the mind James Kennaway; 15. Unsound seeds Alexander Rehding.