composers who do best with that articulation (Monteverdi, Purcell, Gluck,
Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Debussy, Berg, and Stravinsky). Those whose music,
however beautiful it may be, fails to articulate the text are condemned as
“cynical” and “false.” Puccini and Richard Strauss head that unhappy list.
Even the select few are guilty at times of nonarticulating: Mozart nods in Così
fan tutteand Don Giovanni(“dramatically cynical”). But Gluck is forgiven
for making “Che farò senza Euridice” into a dance number instead of a sor-
rowful exhibit, the aria being “beyond grief.” Whatever one may think of its
philosophic underpinning, the book has perceptive studies of Otello, Wozzeck,
and The Rake’s Progressand a valuable analysis of Tristan’s last act. Index, no
bibliography.- Schmidgall, Gary. Literature as Opera. New York: Oxford U.P., 1977. xi,
431p. ISBN 0-1950-2213-0. ML3858 .S348.
Examines the process of transforming a work of literature into an opera, fol-
lowing the idea that the literary quality of the original ought to be retained.
Schmidgall is skeptical about current composers, who seek among inferior
stage works for material. Backnotes, no bibliography, good expansive index of
names, titles, and topics.
See also Donington (#283).
Gender Studies
The next entries fall into the drama-emphasis category, but they share a special con-
cern for the way operatic texts depict women—and sometimes men. One gender study
does fit into the music-emphasis group (#408).
- Clément, Catherine. Opera, or the Undoing of Women.Trans. Betsy Wing.
Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 1988. xviii, 201p. ISBN 0-8166-1653-1.
ML2100 .C613.
Originally L’opéra, ou la defaite des femmes (Paris: B. Grasset, 1979).Patriar-
chal values pervade opera libretti, to the disadvantage of female characters.
Clément is not much concerned with music, so she gives no credit to the splen-
did expressiveness of women singing; as reviewer Karin Pendle put it: “Opera
heroines are often tormented and even slain in their male-dominated worlds;
but the music in which their sufferings are expressed so often ennobles them
that they appear heroic figures, not victims.” One musical element is impor-
tant: chromaticism, which has a seductive quality (Isolde, Carmen). Leitmotiv
is a puzzle to Clément, at least in its function as a discloser of thoughts; she
wonders “what would the ‘thoughts’ of a fictional character be?” Neverthe-
less, various operatic texts are intriguingly elucidated through a woman’s eyes,
and many insights emerge. For example, in the Ring,“mothers are the great
sacrificial victims.” Has it been noticed before, in the vast Ringliterature, that
the mothers are “just barely of some use for childbearing; after that they disap-
pear”? Wing’s translation is excellent, preserving the vivid diction of the origi-
nal. Backnotes, bibliography, expansive index.
84 Opera