Early German Romantic Opera Research Papers (original) (raw)

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Weber's own sketch for staging the effects of the Wolf's Glen Scene from Der Freischütz, contradicting Schinkel's proposed staging. Weber's ideas influenced by Robertson's fantasmagoria of the turn of the century and their novel... more

Weber's own sketch for staging the effects of the Wolf's Glen Scene from Der Freischütz, contradicting Schinkel's proposed staging. Weber's ideas influenced by Robertson's fantasmagoria of the turn of the century and their novel technologies.

• • by Anthony Newcomb
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  • Nineteenth Century Studies, German Romanticism, Carl Maria von Weber, Early German Romantic Opera
• • by Eftychia (Effie) Papanikolaou
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  • Musicology, Journalism, Cultural Musicology, Nineteenth-Century Music
• • by Joseph Morgan
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  • Early German Romantic Opera
• • by Kevin R. Burke
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  • German opera (early nineteenth-century), 19th Century Music Criticism, Early German Romantic Opera

Through the analysis of some of the most relevant German singing treatises of the mid-19th century, this paper aims for a better understanding of vocal performance practice, with regards to dramatic works in German language between the... more

Through the analysis of some of the most relevant German singing treatises of the mid-19th century, this paper aims for a better understanding of vocal performance practice, with regards to dramatic works in German language between the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. Mozart’s and von Winter’s Singspiele, Weber’s and Wagner’s operas, as well as coeval German translations of French works (Iphigenia in Tauris by Gluck, Joseph in Aegypten by Méhul) belong to this repertoire. Several musical extracts thereof are included in the above-mentioned manuals – written by renowned German singing teachers – in order to clarify how and where appoggiaturas, legatos, portamenti, articulation and dynamics have to be performed. Performance instructions from different treatises can even lead to opposite perspectives: the most interesting example of this phenomenon is Die grosse italienische Gesangschule (1848) by Heinrich Ferdinand Mannstein, whose ‘Italianate’ style of singing – for instance, with frequent portamenti – is keenly criticised by Franz Hauser’s Gesanglehre für Lehrende und Lernende (1866). Further suggestions about the addition of marcati, crescendo and decrescendo, anticipazioni della nota and other nuances, as explained by Julius Hey (1832-1909) in the Deutscher Gesangs-Unterricht (1884), reveal how far singers need to broaden their palette of expressive means when performing Mozart, Weber or Wagner nowadays; furthermore, the ‘national’ characters of singing evoked in the titles of some treatises («italienische Gesangschule», «Deutscher Gesangs-Unterricht») raise the question whether a correspondence between specific performance practices and national styles can be traced.

• • by Livio Marcaletti
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  • Transnational History, Vocal Pedagogy, Historically Informed Performance (HIP), German Opera