Opera: The Art of DyingOur modern narratives of science and technology can only go so far in teaching us about the death that we must all finally face. Can an act of the imagination, in the form of opera, take us the rest of the way? Might opera, an art form steeped in death, teach us how to die, as this provocative work suggests? In Opera: The Art of Dying a physician and a literary theorist bring together scientific and humanistic perspectives on the lessons on living and dying that this extravagant and seemingly artificial art imparts. Contrasting the experience of mortality in opera to that in tragedy, the Hutcheons find a more apt analogy in the medieval custom of contemplatio mortis--a dramatized exercise in imagining one's own death that prepared one for the inevitable end and helped one enjoy the life that remained. From the perspective of a contemporary audience, they explore concepts of mortality embodied in both the common and the more obscure operatic repertoire: the terror of death (in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites); the longing for death (in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde); preparation for the good death (in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung); and suicide (in Puccini's Madama Butterfly). In works by Janacek, Ullmann, Berg, and Britten, among others, the Hutcheons examine how death is made to feel logical and even right morally, psychologically, and artistically--how, in the art of opera, we rehearse death in order to give life meaning. |
From inside the book
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... audiences — in all their variety , from opera fans to physicians , from people with musical , literary , or general cultural interests to , say , medical historians . ( This is also why Introduction: Music and "Murky Death"
... cultural differences was undertaken by French historian Philippe Aries in his books Western Attitudes towards Death : From the Middle Ages to the Present ( 1974 ) and The Hour of Our Death ( 1981 ) . Because most subsequent thinking on ...
... cultural trappings become constants , as exemplified publicly by Queen Victoria's many years of mourning her consort's death as the " Widow of Windsor . " Like many others , Aries argues that a major shift occurred in the course of the ...
... cultures , this is when the meaning of individual death changed , be- coming shameful , in a sense . He calls this " forbidden " or " invisi- ble " death . 9 He notes the displacement that has occurred as the provision of care moved ...
... cultural manifestations . This book explores the concepts of death and dying in an attempt to bring together the perceptions of both worlds , for they have not often " spoken to " each other , despite the obvious need for dialogue on ...
Contents
The Contemplation of Death | 15 |
Eros and Thanatos Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde | 45 |
All That Is Ends Living while Dying in Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen | 73 |
Orphic Rituals of Bereavement | 96 |
Tis a Consummation Devoutly to Be Wishd Staging Suicide | 123 |
The Undead | 146 |
Be Acquainted with Death Betimes | 184 |
Notes | 189 |
Acknowledgments | 232 |
Index | 233 |