Essays on Handel and Italian OperaIn this valuable collection of essays, published to coincide with the tercentenary of Handel's birth, Reinhard Strohm examines the relationship between Handel's great operas and the earlier European Baroque tradition, focusing on the Italian school, to which they are so crucially indebted. Handel's immediate heritage included the figures of Scarlatti, Gasparini and Vivaldi; this book establishes that context, concentrating on contemporary operatic practice, and proceeds to analyse three of Handel's best-known works. It shows how they elaborate and develop the style and method of the Italian operatic theatre, embracing previous traditions and synthesizing them with a new and exciting accentuation. |
Contents
Alessandro Scarlatti and the eighteenth century | 15 |
Handel and his Italian opera texts | 34 |
Francesco Gasparinis later operas and Handel | 80 |
Operatic practice | 93 |
An opera autograph of Francesco Gasparini? | 106 |
Vivaldis career as an opera producer | 122 |
Handels pasticci | 164 |
Answers to the past | 213 |
Metastasios Alessandro nellIndie and its earliest settings | 232 |
Comic traditions in Handels Orlando | 249 |
Notes | 271 |
289 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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