Overview
In Performing Opera: A Practical Guide for Singers and Directors Michael
Ewans provides a detailed and practical workbook to performing many of
the most commonly produced operas. Drawing on examples from twenty-four
operas ranging in period from Gluck and Mozart to Britten and Tippett,
it illustrates exactly how opera functions as dramatic form. Grounded in
close analyses of performances of thirty scenes and five whole operas
by first-rate singers and celebrated directors, Performing Opera
provides readers with an appreciation of the unique challenges and
skills required by performers and directors. It will assist them in
their own performance and equip them with detailed knowledge of works
most commonly featured in the repertoire. In the first part of the book
the analysis progresses from scenes in which the singers are silent, via
arias and monologues, duets and confrontations, up to ensembles. Wider
issues are subsequently addressed: encounters with offstage events,
encounters with the numinous, characterization, and the sense of
inevitability in tragic opera.