
Contents
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Acts of Performance Acts of Performance
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Voices Voices
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Humans versus Rhyming Aliens Humans versus Rhyming Aliens
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Prima la Musica Prima la Musica
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Subtle Distinctions: Bizet, Verdi, and Wagner Subtle Distinctions: Bizet, Verdi, and Wagner
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A Simple Test A Simple Test
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Bibliography Bibliography
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15 Characterization
Get accessJulian Rushton is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Leeds, having previously taught at the Universities of East Anglia and Cambridge. He has published on Gluck, Mozart (including the ‘Master Musicians’), Berlioz, and Elgar, has edited music by Berlioz, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Potter, and has lectured on Berlioz in several countries. Among his books are The Musical Language of Berlioz (1983), a Cambridge Music Handbook on Roméo et Juliette (1994), and The Music of Berlioz (2002). He edited The Cambridge Berlioz Encyclopedia and four volumes of the New Berlioz Edition, and has published articles on Béatrice et Bénédict and, titled ‘Misreading Shakespeare’, on Roméo et Juliette and the Shakespearean allusions in Les Troyens, as well as an article on H. H. Pierson’s Shakespeare-based symphonic poems.
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Published:07 April 2015
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Abstract
Chapter 15 discusses what Joseph Kerman has called “the most obvious” contribution of music to an opera, characterization. The primacy of music in this respect has been disputed, notably by Peter Kivy, who considers musical characterization to be an illusion. The chapter suggests that a rounded characterization in opera results from collaboration between poet, composer, and singer, and it reaches audiences through music as much as through words and plot. It takes issue with Edward T. Cone’s view that operatic characters are themselves composers, and that diegetic music in opera is impossible; and it discusses operatic acting with reference to a critique by David Hare. Examples are taken from operas by Verdi and Wagner, and allusion is made to, among others, Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Puccini, Berg, and Britten.
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