Readying Cavalli's Operas for the Stage

Ellen Rosand, George A. Saden Professor of Music at Yale University, is the author of Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: the Creation of a Genre (1991) and Monteverdi’s Last Operas: A Venetian Trilogy (2007). She is the general editor of the new Baerenreiter edition of the operas of Francesco Cavalli, a composer with whom she has been associated since her Ph.D. dissertation days.

• Contents: Preface; Introduction, Ellen Rosand; Part I Historiography of Performances and Editions: Cavalli’s operas: notes from a performing editor, Jane Glover; Editing Cavalli’s operas: fashion or necessity, Álvaro Torrente; After the premiere: the use of alternative sources in revivals of Cavalli’s operas, Dinko Fabris. Part II The Manuscript Scores: Inside Cavalli’s workshop: copies and copyists, Jennifer Williams Brown; Maria Cavalli: in the shadow of Francesco, Christine Jeanneret; Editing the performance score: toward a new understanding of 17th-century work concepts, Hendrik Schulze. Part III Giasone, Production and Interpretation: Behind the scenes of Cavalli’s Giasone of 1649, Beth L. Glixon; Spectacle and drama, or, how many sets do we really need to perform 17th-century opera?, Jonathan Glixon; Hysipyle, Medea, and the Ovidian imagination: taming the epic hero on Cavalli’s Giasone, Wendy Heller; Shakespeare and the Golden Fleece, Lawrence Manley. Part IV Making Librettos: Plotting the myth of Giasone, Fausta Antonucci and Lorenzo Bianconi; Cicognini’s Giasone: between music and theater, Anna Tedesco; ‘Ecco reciso alfine il groppo de l’inganno’: Giovanni Faustini’s Euripo from the sources to the plot, Nicola Badolato. Part V Cavalli Beyond Venice: Giasone: a source overview, Thomas Lin and Joseph Salem; Balbi’s Febiarmonici and the first ‘road shows’ of Giasone (1649-1653), Nicola Michelassi; Orione in Milan: a Cavalli premiere, Davide Daolmi; ‘Ercole amante sconosciuto’: reconstructing the revised version of Cavalli’s Parisian opera, Michael Klaper; Ercole amante, the first tragédie en musique?, Barbara Nestola; Select bibliography; Index.

‘Books as clear, inviting, well-structured and as necessary as this don’t come along often. It is a compendium of scholarly insights and practical guidance, and not to be missed’.The Musical Times'The book is well produced, with clean music examples and photos of Cavalli's manuscripts … Readying Cavalli's Operas can be recommended overall to any opera enthusiast with a lively interest in how 17th-century Italian opera was composed, staged and transmitted … it furthers significantly our understanding of the most influential figure of 17th-century Italian opera'.Opera Magazine'… an impressive publication and a compelling advertisement for the healthy state of research on the subject. The quality and coherence of the collection reflect the standing and focus of the parent conference'.Early Music'… a useful reference book. It should appeal to anyone interested in early opera … this is a detailed reference book, which can be read by both students and devotees of early opera. It offers a fascinating insight into the world of 17th-century opera and its evolutionary process of dramatic production, constantly changing, as it was moulded to the needs of the performers and the requirements of the theatre'.The Consort'There is a cornucopia of interdisciplinarity here, combining music with linguistics, theatre, and English and Spanish literature, with the collection presenting both the fruit of long-term thinking by established Cavalli scholars but also interesting new approaches that expand the existing discourses. There is both theoretical pondering and practical suggestions, and together the essays provide a holistic approach. … the level of detailed interdisciplinarity afforded here is a welcome addition to our discipline'.Brio'This volume is dense. The scholarship throughout is thoughtful, robust, and deep.'Fontes Artis Musicae