Weep, shudder, die : on opera and poetry Cover Image

Book

Weep, shudder, die : on opera and poetry / Dana Gioia.

Summary:

"A unique book about opera--personal, impassioned, and provocative. Weep, Shudder, Die explores opera from the perspective by which the art was originally created, as the most intense form of poetic drama. The great operas have an essential connection to poetry, song, and the primal power of the human voice. The aim of opera is irrational enchantment, the unleashing of emotions and visionary imagination. Gioia rejects the conventional view of opera which assumes that great operas can be built on execrable texts. He insists that in opera, words matter. Operas begin as words; strong words inspire composers, weak words burden them. Ultimately, singers embody the words to give the music a human form for the audience. Weep, Shudder, Die is a poet's book about opera. To some, that statement will suggest writing that is airy, impressionistic, and unreliable, but a poet also brings a practical sense of how words animate opera, lend life to imaginary characters, and give human shape to music. Written from a lifelong devotion to the art, Gioia's book is for anyone who has wept in the dark of an opera house."--Amazon.com.

Record details

ISBN: 9781589881969
ISBN: 1589881966
Physical Description: xii, 220 pages ; 21 cm
Edition: First Paul Dry Books edition.
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Paul Dry Books, 2024.
Copyright: ©2024

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Preface -- Librettist as idiot -- Music by the book -- The librettist as guide -- Opera as export -- A brief note on Romanticism -- The imaginary operagoer -- The composer as judge -- Auden abandons poetry -- Mozart vs. Mozart -- Hofmannsthal meets Strauss -- Opera as primitive spectacle -- Verse or prose? -- A tale of two composers -- Searching for a tradition -- Still a foreign art -- Our unheard repertory -- American opera begins -- Can opera talk? -- Lost and found in Vienna -- Bernstein's broken promise -- Opera and song -- Operatic Sondheim -- A tale of two librettists -- Putting it together -- Personal drama.