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Grand Opera: Mirror of the Western Mind

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Employing a remarkable combination of expertise in music, opera, and psychological insight, Eric Plaut explores the great operas and their composers from the time of the French Revolution to the onset of the First World War. He sees opera as the preeminent medium for expressing human willfulness, its characters driven by emotions of passionate intensity. The great composers of opera were also governed by their feelings and heavily influenced by the life of their time. Weaving together these social, psychological, and historical strains, Dr. Plaut investigates the meaning behind eighteen of the greatest operas, including Tristan and Isolde , Madame Butterfly , Tosca , Die Fledermaus , The Barber of Seville , Aida , Tales of Hoffmann , Fidelio , Lucia di Lammermoor , Carmen , Boris Godounov , Otello , Salome , and Faust . At the same time he looks into the lives of their composers, seeking those experiences and characteristics which help to explain both the opera in question and the composer's larger body of works. The result is an unusually satisfying and perceptive view of grand opera, a book that will be essential for opera lovers and informative and entertaining for general readers.

333 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 1993

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Profile Image for Carol.
1,428 reviews
January 20, 2013
This book covers 18 of the major 19th century operas, starting with Mozart (it's the "long 19th century") and ending with Richard Strauss, from a psychological perspective. Thus, Plaut concentrates more on the librettos, the composer's lives, and the relationship between the two rather than on musical features. However, Plaut does regularly bring in the musical content, making extremely interesting and insightful observations in the process. I particularly liked his point about the kind of music written for Don Giovanni and Leporello versus that for the other main characters. Plaut's discussions of Verdi's and Puccini's works were also illuminating.
However, this book did fall short on a couple of points for me. Plaut relies heavily on Freudian psychology, which, while in many ways appropriate for operas that emanated out of similar cultural milieus as Freud himself, was not always convincing. Thankfully, Plaut is not unconditionally committed to the Freudian view, and even includes a really nice, concise take-down of Freud's views on female psychology. The other problem with the book for me was that, in covering 18 operas in a little over 300 pages, I did not feel that there was enough depth. After reading a chapter, I often was left wanting more. I rather wish that Plaut had chosen 9 or 10 operas instead so that he could have done more extensive analysis.
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