Mercadante in Paris (1835-36): The Critical View

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Saverio Mercadante and France (1823-1836)

This thesis explores the impact of Mercadante’s operas in France during the 1820s and 1830s. The study covers a period from the French premiere of Elisa e Claudio in Paris (1823) up to the period immediately preceding the worldpremiere of Il giuramento (Milan, La Scala, 11 March 1837), which is traditionally regarded as the first of Mercadante’s ‘reform’ operas and the watershed of his mature style. Modern music historians and early biographers have suggested that Mercadante’s encounter with French operatic conventions was the trigger for his ‘reform’ impulse, which the composer himself acknowledged in one of his most famous letters. As a contribution to discussion of Mercadante’s stylistic developments, I examine a number of case studies which probe the French reception of his early output. Chapter 1 provides a historical survey of French critical assessments of Mercadante in the nineteenth century, revealed in the ongoing discourse of the time regarding Italian opera in France. Chapter 2 explores the critical reception of Elisa e Claudio, staged at the Théâtre Italien in 1823. Chapter 3 studies the process of transfer that brought about the transformation of Elisa e Claudio into the pasticcio Les Noces de Gamache, produced for the Théâtre de l’Odéon by the composer Luc Guénée in 1825. Chapter 4 reconstructs Mercadante’s sojourn in Paris and the genesis of I briganti during the 1835-36 season at the Théâtre Italien. Chapter 5 frames the Italian performances of I briganti and the related revision process in the context of Mercadante’s French experience. In focusing on the intertwined responses of Franco-Italian music criticism, this study of Mercadante’s early operas shows the value of the study of pan-European criticism and of cultural transfer as a larger framework within which to locate studies of Mercadante’s developments in style and aesthetics

The Exterminating Angel

This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 708601- PROPERA - The Profanation of Opera: Music and Drama on Filmauthorsversionpublishe

Mercadante in Paris (1835-36): The Critical View

The abstract is included in the text

The Unsung One: The Performer’s Voice in Twentieth-century Musical Monodrama

In an examination of the evident yet overlooked subject of the singing body in opera studies, focusing on the soloist’s voice and role in twentieth-century musical stage works for a single performer offers a number of engaging insights. By observing contemporary staging and practices in light of current performance theories and studies of voice and opera, it is possible to construct an alternative reading of the performer’s embodied voice in musical monodrama, until now not fully addressed in the opera studies discourse. I argue that the performer’s agency should be redefined as a compelling extra-text to be asserted both theoretically and practically in the discourse and production surrounding twentieth-century monodrama and music theater stage works for one performer

Recital I (for Cathy): A Drama ‘Through the Voice’

Work on this article began as a contribution to a wider discussion of twentieth-century music theatre, and in particular a genre in the category of twentieth-century musical monodramas – one-act staged monologues with, or in music for, one performer. 1: My current research focuses on the genesis and performance tradition of works composed for solo female singer, and raises questions about the creative agency of the performer in the making of such works, reflecting on matters such as subjectivity, voice, and identity. 2: If this outlook may slightly drift from a conventional narrative springing from the composer’s voice, a critical investigation of the collaborative process foregrounding the genealogy of some of these works is compelling, especially since every composer who embarked on this ‘genre’, or compositional topos, inflected it in idiosyncratic ways. In works such as Erwartung, La Voix humaine, The Testament of Eve, Neither, and La machine de l’etre ˆ , the performative voice of the female soloist to whom the work was tailored became a generative element capable of shaping the formal, musical, and dramaturgical material. 3: Examination of selected case studies, focusing especially on the creative and performative processes surrounding these works, triggers an array of questions about gender politics. More importantly, transversal insight into the making of these works and their performativity reveals the interconnected nature of the two phases of creation and performance. In musical monodrama, more than in larger forms of music theatre, the two processes interweave and depend on each other; reconstructing the performative genealogy of the ‘work’ reveals an intrinsic impasse in the very notion of the musical ‘text’ associated exclusively with the compiled score and its literary sources

Mercadante in Paris (1835-36): The Critical View

The abstract is included in the text

Mercadante in Paris (1835-36): The Critical View

The abstract is included in the text