Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes Volume II: Applied Perspectives: Compositions and Performances

by Jane Davidson (Editor), Michael Halliwell (Editor), Stephanie Rocke (Editor)

Overview

There can be little doubt that opera and emotion are inextricably linked. From dramatic plots driven by energetic producers and directors to the conflicts and triumphs experienced by all associated with opera’s staging to the reactions and critiques of audience members, emotion is omnipresent in opera. Yet few contemplate the impact that the customary cultural practices of specific times and places have upon opera’s ability to move emotions. Taking Australia as a case study, this two-volume collection of extended essays demonstrates that emotional experiences, discourses, displays and expressions do not share universal significance but are at least partly produced, defined, and regulated by culture. Spanning approximately 170 years of opera production in Australia, the authors show how the emotions associated with the specific cultural context of a nation steeped in egalitarian aspirations and marked by increasing levels of multiculturalism have adjusted to changing cultural and social contexts across time. Volume I adopts an historical, predominantly nineteenth-century perspective, while Volume II applies historical, musicological, and ethnological approaches to discuss subsequent Australian operas and opera productions through to the twenty-first century. With final chapters pulling threads from the two volumes together, Opera, Emotion, and the Antipodes establishes a model for constructing emotion history from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367681890
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/01/2022
Series:	Routledge Research in Music
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jane W. Davidson has performed in and directed opera for more than 30 years. She is currently Head of Performing Arts at the University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium of Music. She has published widely, across the field of music psychology, musicology and practice as research. She is president of the Australian Music and Psychology Society.

Michael Halliwell has enjoyed a career as an opera singer in Europe and as an academic at the University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He has published widely and is president of the International Association for Word and Music Studies.

Stephanie Rocke is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, with wide-ranging interests and publications in music and culture across time.

Table of Contents

List of figures vii

Notes on contributors ix

Introduction to Volume II 1

Part I Australian composers and their operas 7

1 From European romantic to 'wild colonial boy'? John Antill and post-colonial Australian opera David Symons 9

2 The voice of emotion in contemporary Australian opera Michael Halliwell 26

3 Translating page to stage: creating emotionally engaging opera for children Emma Jayakumar 50

4 Speechless: an operatic response to human rights abuse in twenty-first-century Australia Joel Crotty Cat Hope 75

5 The Divorce: a soap opera Helen Rusak 90

Part II Antipodean performance and practice 113

6 From patriotism to alterity: charting the Australian experience of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas Jane W. Davidson Stephanie Rocke 115

7 "Lamento d'Arianna": a transhistorical study of staged emotions and affective audience responses Daniela Kaleva 137

8 Assembling Voyage to the Moon: emotion, creativity, and historicity in a new Australian opera Joseph Browning Jane W. Davidson 167

9 Emotion as multiple: rehearsing Voyage to the Moon Joseph Browning 192

Part III Collection conclusions 219

10 Antipodean classification, the emotions of othering, and malticulturalism Stephanie Rocke 221

11 What have we learned about emotions f through Antipodean opera contexts? Stephanie Rocke Jane W. Davidson Michael Halliwell 234

Index 245