Full, penetrating analysis, guide to five great operas: Don Giovanni, Entführung aus dem Serail, Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, and Die Zauberflöte. 343 musical illus.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charm and expertise...,
By Izolda (North Haven, CT United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Listener's Guide to Mozart's Great Operas (Dover Books on Music, Music History) (Paperback)
If I am not wrong, this book has been previously released under the title "Famous Mozart Operas. An analytical guide for the opera-goer and armchair listener", that's at least the title of the second edition I now have in front of me. For the readers acquainted with it, this new title may be a little misleading and suggesting a new revised edition. Equally misleading may be the double authorship: the Amazon.com database gives both Spike Hughes and Patrick Cairns Hughes as the book's authors, but this is simply a confusion resulting from the fact that Spike Hughes's real name - Patrick Cairns - has been used for copyrights. Hughes's book is a wonderful guide for anybody interested in Mozart operas - beginners will find here expert guidance through the operas' complicated plots, advanced Mozartians - a series of delightfully written essays highlighting many important points too often taken for granted. In the author's words, the book is meant to "serve as a supplement to those programmes found in most opera houses or to the analytical notes on the picturesque "sleeves" of L.P. records (I imagine that the new edition has "CD" here) which tell the story in more or less intelligible terms but do not always explain why the tenor should suddenly want to burst into a song, nor what he is singing about when he does". The guide contains 343 musical illustrations usually no longer than 5-6 bars, designed, according to the author, with the student of orchestration in mind, but this shouldn't set off anybody without a reading knowledge of music. Even without it, one is able to follow and enjoy Hughes's musical arguments easily - his language is simple and devoid of heavy specialistic jargon, though readers with no theoretical knowledge of music may sometimes need to consult a little dictionary of musical terms. I can't help thinking how wonderful it would be if such a delightful book - one of its kind - could be re-edited in our CD-room era with these musical illustrations actually played - or, even easier, supplemented by references to certain milestone recordings (just little notes on the margin referring to tracks and timing - nothing more simple in the CD era!). The book is divided into 5 chapters, each devoted to one opera ("Entfuehrung aus dem Serail; the three Da Ponte operas; Die Zauberfloete). Musical illustrations are inserted along the text and, where necessary, shortly discussed. These illustrations together with Hughes's insightful comments are the high points of the book and it would be difficult to find a popular introduction to Mozart's operas done with more charm combined with expertise. The guide is also very helpful in following stage productions of Mozart's operas either in the theater or on video. We have to remember that Mozart's stage instructions are very often skimpy and most of the important staging hints can be found in the libretti themselves (this seems to be of no importance to some opera directors today). Hughes's book offers its readers a vivid description of an "ideal" production, taking into considerations even the smallest of Mozart's stage directions. It also highlights certain difficult points, easily unnoticed, but important for the dramatic action. It is so easy to get lost in some of the plots - "Marriage of Figaro" being the best example - and Hughes does everything to make them as clear as possible, often borrowing helpful hints from literary works or other operas (here Beaumarchais's original play and Rossini's "Barbiere"). How many times did you wonder about the relation between Rossini's and Mozart's characters? If you are not eager to read Beaumarchais, this guide will answer all your questions. Here and there the author makes some mysterious statements that make you feel like a bad student who didn't do his homework. In the chapter on "The Magic Flute", page 200, description of Tamino's encounter with Papageno, brings a surprising piece of information about Papageno's past (supposedly told by Papageno himself): his "mother had been in the service of the <Queen who flames like a star at night>". I was really surprised, since the libretto - at last in the form I know it - never says anything about Papageno's mother, even more - the bird-catcher, asked by Tamino about his parents, declares that he knows nothing about them. Everything he knows, he continues, is that he has his straw hut nearby, which protects him "from the rain and cold". I don't know where the idea of Papageno's mother comes from, but before I suggest a mistake I would like to hear from more experienced Mozart opera lovers. The other strange statement appears in "Cosi fan tutte", when Despina, laughing at the two "Albanian" visitors' appearances, says - in Hughes translation: "What clothes! What faces! What moustaches! Are they Poles or Turks or what?" I am Polish and I was very surprised to find an allusion to Poles in no less than one of the Mozart's masterpieces, while the whole operatic literature contains maybe two or three. Despina, however, doesn't say Poles, she says "Vallacchi", what - if you listen to the opera without following the printed text - can easily be taken for "Polacchi". But Poland was hardly exotic in Mozart's times (in fact, it never was because of generally Western character of its culture) and making Guglielmo and Ferrando look like Poles wouldn't help create an exotic aura around them. "Vallacchi" are simply Wallachians or Rumanians, if we want to use a more familiar term, Wal(l)achia being a province of Rumania. These are, however, minor complaints about the book that cannot be praised enough for its charm, general expertise and beautiful language - the world of Mozart's operas as seen through it is now even more delightful (if it were possible). Indispensable!
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