Cambridge Companion To Rossini, The

Description:
This Companion is a collection of specially commissioned essays on one of the most influential opera composers in the repertoire. The volume is divided into four parts, each exploring an important element of Rossini's life, his world, and his works: biography and reception; words and music; representative operas; and performance. Within these sections accessible chapters, written by a team of specialists, examine Rossini's life and career; the reception of his music in the nineteenth century and today; the librettos and their authors; the dramaturgy of the operas; and Rossini's non-operatic works. Additional chapters centre on key individual operas chosen for their historical importance or position in the present repertoire, and include Tancredi, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Semiramide, and Guillaume Tell. The last section, Performance, focuses on the history of Rossini's operas from the viewpoint of singing and staging, as well as the influence of editorial work on contemporary performance practice.

Review:
'This scholarly, extensive overview of Rossini's operas, liturgical works and piano and vocal works reflects the dramatic turnaround in appreciation that has occurred in the last fifty years or so.' Music Web International '...offers many hours of thoroughly delectable and mostly instructive reading.' Nineteenth-Century Music Review

Table of Contents:
List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Preface and abbreviations; 1. Introduction: Rossini's operatic operas Emanuele Senici; Part I. Biography and Reception: 2. Rossini's life Richard Osborne; 3. Rossini and France Benjamin Walton; 4. The Rossini Renaissance Charles S. Brauner; Part II. Words and Music: 5. Librettos and librettists Paulo Fabbri; 6. Compositional methods Philip Gossett; 7. The dramaturgy of the operas Marco Beghelli; 8. Melody and ornamentation Damien Colas; 9. Off the stage Richard Osborne; Part III. Representative Operas: 10. Tancredi and Semiramide Heather Hadlock; 11. Il barbiere di Siviglia Janet Johnson; 12. Guillaume Tell Cormac Newark; Part IV. Performance: 13. Singing Rossini Leonella Grasso Caprioli; 14. Staging Rossini Mercedes Viale Ferrero; 15. Editing Rossini Patricia B. Brauner; List of works; Bibliography; Index.

Author Biography:
Emanuele Senici is University Lecturer in Music at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of St Hugh's College. He has published in a number of journals and contributed to the Cambridge Companion to Verdi (2003). He is also co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal, 2003.