“absolute present”—Dargestellten Zeit—opera is not narrative at all. Elegant
elucidations are presented for these ideas.
416.Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner.Ed. Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker.
Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1989. ix, 304p. ISBN 0-520-06157-8. MT95
.A59.
Eleven significant papers that grew out of a 1984 conference at Cornell U.
They include James A. Hepokoski, “Verdi’s Composition of Otello: The Act II
Quartet”; Joseph Kerman and Thomas S. Grey, “Verdi’s Groundswells: Sur-
veying an Operatic Convention”; Anthony Newcomb, “Ritornello ritornato:
A Variety of Wagnerian Refrain Form”; Patrick McCreless, “Schenker and the
Norns”; and these entered separately: Philip Gossett on the genesis of Ernani
(#1877), Roger Parker on motives in Aida(#1868), Martin Chusid on tonality
in Rigoletto (#1917), David Lawton on tonality in Aida (#1867), John
Deathridge on the genesis of Lohengrin(#2022), Carolyn Abbate on opera as
symphony (#2058), and Matthew Brown on Isolde’s narrative (#2077). See
also #413. Expansive index of names and topics.- Webster, James. “Understanding opera buffa: Analysis = Interpretation.” In
Opera buffa(#2141), 340–377.
Should be read with his #1288. Webster here takes a more open view toward
operatic unity. “About the continuing centrality of analysis to operatic under-
standing there can be no doubt.” - Marco, Guy A. “On Key Relations in Opera.” 19thCM3 (1979): 83–88.
Proposes a path toward a general theory of operatic structure that includes
tonal relations and the operating principles of the textual and visual compo-
nents in the work. Follows Langer (#399): “When two arts are combined, one
becomes the patterngiver for both, and it is on the basis of those patterns that
the work’s value may be judged. In the combination of music and text, the
music gives the pattern...and takes the credit or blame for the result.” But
the laws of drama are not thereby set aside; opera “can hold in firm unity, over
a time period of considerable magnitude, the diverse systems of norms which
constitute dramatic and musical laws.” It does so by taking those laws to gen-
eral levels: approach and retreat, stress, balance, and reconciliation. Tonality is
able to reflect such elements; the article endeavors to show how it does so.
94 Opera