mobile.” To understand opera, one must address such ambiguities. To be
“real,” songs are heard by others on stage, or form a basis for actions, like the
parade after “Non più andrai.” The ambiguity represents the conscious and
subconscious aspects of the personality. In spoken drama a higher level of
speech takes the role of operatic song, as in Shakespeare. “Sympathetic mus-
ings” on this fascinating exposition, by Ellen Rosand, appear in her “Operatic
Ambiguities and the Power of Music,” COJ4-1 (March 1992): 75–80.- Katz, Ruth. Divining the Powers of Music: Aesthetic Theory and the Origins
of Opera.New York: Pendragon, 1986. xi, 224p. ISBN 0-9187-2848-7.
ML3858 .K32.
An intriguing application of philosophic issues to the history of opera. Katz
doubts the usual reasons ascribed to the origin of opera, asserting the need to
consider nonmusical factors. Why did the Camerata find acceptance? Because
opera was seen as an expression of the power of music—an area of much spec-
ulation in that time of emerging scientific thought. Opera was “an ongoing
laboratory” in which to test “the nature and boundaries of musical powers.”
There is a chapter on “social circles” where such ideas were debated toward
the end of the 16th century, and there are interesting discussions of the place
that the Camerata and similar groups had in the sociocultural context. Bibliog-
raphy of about 250 items, name and topic index. - Poizat, Michel. The Angel’s Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Opera.
Trans. Arthur Denner. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell U.P., 1962. xiv, 220p. ISBN 0-8014-
2388-0. ML1700 .P6513.
Originally Opéra, ou le cri de l’ange(Paris: Métailié, 1986). A psychoanalytic
explanation of our desire for opera. Our “ecstatic pleasure in seeking to forget
or deny... [our] fundamental attachment to language” is at the root. Poizat
quotes Lacan: “There would be no music if language had not preceded it”; we
want to return to the absence of language in our ancient past. [However, a cur-
rent anthropologic view is that language originated in musical ritual.] An aria
represents emotion and high feeling; recitative, a calm pleasure in the music.
So an aria is “a cry” and Poizat’s opera lover is one who is tortured by it (“I
cried and cried”). Thus “the evolution of opera singing in general as a trajec-
tory from speech to cry”—but only in female singing. “Male singing tends to
re-emerge as pure speech.” This murky philosophy does produce some inter-
esting perspectives on male and female roles, castrati, travesti, and the like.
Bibliography of about 150 items, expansive index. - Abel, Samuel D. Opera in the Flesh: Sexuality in Operatic Performance. Boul-
der, Colo.: Westview, 1996. xv, 235p. ISBN 0-8133-2900-0. ML1700 .A24.
Responds to Poizat (#407) and Koestenbaum (#390). Abel accepts Poizat’s
view of jouissance(which equates operatic pleasure and sexual pleasure) but
wants it to be literal, not metaphoric. Opera, he says, is not simply like sex, it
is sex; indeed, the orgasm is the model for describing operatic experience. Like
McClary (#391), he is concerned with “excess” and its meaning. Text is not
the bearer of these meanings; it is the music and the voice that are the seductive
elements. Bibliography of about 200 items, expansive index.
90 Opera