Research Catalog

Title

American opera / Elise K. Kirk.

Author

Kirk, Elise K. (Elise Kuhl), 1932-

Publication

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2001], ©2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 459 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

• "With this overview, Elise K. Kirk provides a lively history of one of America's liveliest arts. A treasure trove of information on a substantial, heretofore neglected repertoire, American Opera sketches musical traits and provides plot summaries, descriptions of sets and stagings and biographical details on performers, composers and librettists for more than a hundred American operas, many of which have received unjustifiably scant attention since their premieres.".
• "From the spectacle and melodrama of William Dunlap's Pizarro, in Peru (1800) and the pathos of Caryl Florio's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1882) to the chilling psychological drama of Jack Beeson's Lizzie Borden (1965) and the lyric elegance of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles (1991), opera in America displays the energy and diversity of the nation itself.
• Kirk shows that this rich, varied repertoire includes far more than the familiar jewels Porgy and Bess, Candide, Susannah, and The Consul."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Music in American life

Uniform Title

Music in American life.

Subject

• Opera > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: Opera - Lyric Barometer of American Life -- Pt. 1. The Voyage, 1730 to 1915. 1. The British Connection. 2. The Earliest American Operas. 3. National Themes and the American Image. 4. Mime, Melodrama, and Song. 5. Grand Opera - the American Way. 6. In the Spirit of Comedy -- Pt. 2. The Signposts, 1880 to 1960. 7. Wagnerism and the American Muse. 8. Native Americans through Symbolism and Song. 9. American Opera at the Met: The Gatti-Casazza Story. 10. From the Black Perspective. 11. Innovators and Iconoclasts; or, Is It Opera? 12. The Impact of Mass Media -- Pt. 3. The Discoveries, 1945 to the Turn of the Century. 13. The New American Verismo. 14. New York City Opera's "American Plan" 15. Dreamers of Decadence. 16. Bold Turns on Familiar Paths. 17. Heroes for Our Time. 18. Toward the New Millennium and Beyond. Epilogue: American Opera at the Crossroads -- App. Milestones in American Opera.

ISBN

0252026233

LCCN

00009959

OCLC

• ocm44414175
• SCSB-14497809

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries