Morality and Viennese opera in the age of Mozart and Beethoven / Martin Nedbal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nedbal, Martin, author.

Series:

Ashgate interdisciplinary studies in opera

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von, 1714-1787. Rencontre imprévue.

Gluck, Christoph Willibald.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Entführung aus dem Serail.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Zauberflöte.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827. Fidelio--(1814).

Beethoven, Ludwig van.

Opera--Austria--Vienna--18th century.

Opera.

Opera--Austria--Vienna--19th century.

Opera--Moral and ethical aspects--Austria--Vienna--18th century.

Opera--Moral and ethical aspects--Austria--Vienna--19th century.

Physical Description:

xvi, 243 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Summary:

This book explores how the Enlightenment aesthetics of theater as a moral institution influenced cultural politics and operatic developments in Vienna between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Moralistic viewpoints were particularly important in eighteenth-century debates about German national theater. In Vienna, the idea that vernacular theater should cultivate the moral sensibilities of its German-speaking audiences became prominent during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, when advocates of German plays and operas attempted to deflect the imperial government from supporting exclusively French and Italian theatrical performances. Morality continued to be a dominant aspect of Viennese operatic culture in the following decades, as critics, state officials, librettists, and composers (including Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven) attempted to establish and define German national opera. Viennese concepts of operatic didacticism and national identity in theater further transformed in response to the crisis of Emperor Joseph II's reform movement, the revolutionary ideas spreading from France, and the war efforts in facing Napoleonic aggression. The imperial government promoted good morals in theatrical performances through the institution of theater censorship, and German-opera authors cultivated intensely didactic works (such as Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio) that eventually became the cornerstones for later developments of German culture. Book jacket.

Contents:

Cultivating the court and the nation in Gluck's La rencontre imprévue

Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the didactic aesthetics of the national Singspiel

Morality and Germanness in Die Zauberflöte

Die Zauberflöte and subversive morality in suburban operas

The politics of morality at the court theater in the late 1790s

How German is Fidelio? Didacticism in Beethovenian operas.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781472476579

1472476573

OCLC:

940342234