A Poetics of Handel's Operas

by Nathan Link

Overview

What should we consider when thinking about the relationship between an onstage performance and the story the performance tells? A Poetics of Handel's Operas explores this question by analyzing the narratives of Handel's operas in relation to the rich representational fabric of performance used to convey them. Nathan Link notes that in most storytelling genres, the audience can naturally discern between a story and the way that story is represented: with film, for example, the viewer would recognize that a character hears neither her own voiceover nor the ambient music that accompanies it, whereas in discussions of opera, some audiences may be distracted by the seemingly artificial nature of such conventions as characters singing their dialogue. Link proposes that when engaging with opera, distinguishing between the performance we see and hear on the stage and the story represented offers a meaningful approach to engaging with and interpreting the work.

Handel's operas are today the most-performed works in the Baroque opera seria tradition. This genre, with its intricate dramaturgy and esoteric conventions, stands to gain much from an investigation into the relationships between the onstage performance and the story to which that performance directs us. In his analysis, Link offers theoretical studies on opera and narratological theories of literature, drama, and film, providing rich engagement with Handel's work and what it conveys about the relationship between text, story, and performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197651346
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/17/2023
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	9.33(w) x 6.42(h) x 1.19(d)

About the Author

Nathan Link is H.W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of Music at Centre College and Vice-President of the American Handel Society. Since earning his doctorate in music history at Yale University, he has coedited the two-volume collection Word, Image, and Song, and published work in several journals, including the Journal of the American Musicological Association and The Opera Quarterly.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Musical Examples
Editorial Principles
About the Website
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Introduction

Chapter 1. Song
Chapter 2. Time
Chapter 3. Orchestra
Chapter 4. Character
Chapter 5. Storytellers

Glossary
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The chapter headings of Link's intriguingly titled Poetics of Handel's Operas hint at the nature of this extraordinary volume: Song, Time, Orchestra, Character, and Storytelling. Taking full advantage of all we have learned about Handel's operas over the past half-century, from the likes of Winton Dean et al, Link goes beyond facts and figures to focus, not on the what, but on the how, and not from the point of view of the composer alone but from his relationship with his audience-on the expressive contract established between them. By engaging a variety of critical strategies drawn from literary, film, and dramatic theory, Link brilliantly illuminates Handel's storytelling in ways that can be applied to operas of any period, including our own." — Ellen Rosand, author of Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre

"The Poetics of Handel's Operas offers a wholly new analytic system based on narrative storytelling that will surely have a strong impact on Handel scholarship - and also has the potential to mark a turning point in the study and performance of opera seria. A seminal work." — Ellen T. Harris, Class of 1949 Professor of Music Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

From the Publisher