# Opera essays



## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

So my subject is opera essays. Now I am neither talking about the short two-page essays one finds in liner notes, nor about the book-length essays, such as Tanner's _Wagner_, but rather the 15-30 page essays which we might find a dozen in a slim volume.

I don't know if I am unusual, but I quite enjoy reading these types of essays on opera. It might just be a OCPD thing , so do let me know if I am strange and should shut up while I'm ahead, but I thought we could have a thread about our favorite essays on opera (as a genre) or a single opera (such as the billions of essays on various Wagner operas).

I'm going to start not with a favorite essay, since I have an enormous number, but a book of essays which I have just ordered and am looking forward to reading, if only because of the description on Amazon.com and its first few pages, also available on Amazon:
*Andre, Naomi, Karen M. Bryan, Eric Saylor, and Guthrie Ramsey, eds. Blackness in Opera. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2012.*

So what are your favorite essays? Least favorite? Ones which were illuminating? Ones which you completely disagreed with? Those that were obscure or too wordy? Historical essays which are as fresh now as they were written way back when?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

I like to read essays that I can find for free on the internet. Mostly ones that will introduce me to the concept of a new opera, along with a detailed synopsis of the plot and the context in which it was written. Usually these are freely available for most non-modern operas - people have been writing about them for decades, after alll. Sometimes there are 'study packs' on various operas that are written for the purpose (I assume) of music students that I find very useful. Any further research, such as the source for the libretto, can be researched further. Some of these texts (and libretti based on them) are available for free on project Gutenberg, as kindle ebooks or from music publishers' websites. There are also some academic websites that allow you access to more in depth essays if you sign up and/or upload your own files. I've never found a problem in finding quite a lot of free information online. Saying that, however, I have still found it useful to collect a few opera reference books that contain many of the main operas and composers. I also have found the 'Complete Operas of...' series written by Charles Osbourne to be extremely helpful. They deal with each opera by a given composer seperately and in enough detail regarding context, plot summary and musical examination to suit my present purposes.


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

Due to my work (R&D), i deal a lot with cientific articles and i know sites for that.

But what about music? Is there some browser similar to www.sciencedirect.com?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

dionisio said:


> Due to my work (R&D), i deal a lot with cientific articles and i know sites for that.
> 
> But what about music? Is there some browser similar to www.sciencedirect.com?


I have bookmarked this one: http://www.academia.edu/

I must have found something there of some interest at some point.  There are several other sites that pop up now and again when I do a search, though I can't recall their names. There is always a mix of papers by graduates, faculty members and independent researchers. I am not terribly fussy (it is usually fairly easy to tell which is which) since I judge them on how interesting they might be and/or how much I actually understand. But I'm sure you find the same thing with scientific papers. I generally find that doing a search for a given work with the word 'analysis' or 'essay' and perhaps 'pdf' works pretty well. Someone else might be able to give you more reliable pointers on how to find a more reliable source. On the other hand, if you are doing R&D, perhaps you have access to a university library? If so, they are likely to have many copies of past musical journals in the right department.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Well, that looks like a fascinating book!

Kind of makes me wish there were a nearby source of such essays - oh wait, I'm actually in a library right now --- I suppose they might have something ... lol


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

tyroneslothrop said:


> So my subject is opera essays. Now I am neither talking about the short two-page essays one finds in liner notes, nor about the book-length essays, such as Tanner's _Wagner_, but rather the 15-30 page essays which we might find a dozen in a slim volume.


Is the work of Father Owen Lee (e.g.: _First Intermissions_) too brief for consideration here?

If one views Magee's _Aspects of Wagner_ as a series of ambitious yet accessible essays (which I think is a better way to look at them than merely chapters in a book), I'd say that they'd easily qualify, as well.

Ones with which I disagree? Well, even some of the best commentators have lapses. I'm sure _I_ have a few when I write about opera. No-one is exempt. For instance (IMO), people trip over _Tannhäuser_, all the time. Normally, I'm not going to "call out" these lapses, unless they're an essayist's seminal point. _Then_ I'll be motivated enough to initiate a rectification project.


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## sunandshadow (Sep 21, 2012)

There's a quite peculiar essay on music, I believe specifically Wagner, as it relates to structural analysis of mythology, in the last volume of Claude Levi-Strauss's Mythologiques. (I read it in English translation, dunno if it makes more sense in English.)

(I personally love reading list sort of essay, or longer nonfiction, about plot structure and theme in fiction; structural analysis, narratology, and all sorts of how-to-write theory. So I understand why they can be fun to read.  )


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