Contextualizing Melodrama in the Czech Lands

In Concert and on Stage

Judith Mabary

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English

Routledge
29 April 2022

The Arts: General & Reference; Performance art; Theatre Studies; Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900); Opera

Series: Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera

"The mention of the term ""melodrama"" is likely to evoke a response from laymen and musicians alike that betrays an acquaintance only with the popular form of the genre and its greatly heightened drama, exaggerated often to the point of the ridiculous. Few are aware that there exists a type of melodrama that contains in its smaller forms the beauty of the sung ballad and, in the larger-scale works, the appeal of the spoken play. This category of melodrama is one that surfaced in many cultures but was perhaps never so enthusiastically cultivated as in the Czech lands. The melodrama varied greatly at the hands of its Czech advocates. While the works of Zdeněk Fibich and his contemporary Josef Bohuslav Foerster, a composer best known for his songs, remained closely bound to the text, those of conductor/composer Otakar Ostrčil reveal a stance that privileged the music and, given their creator’s orchestral experience, are more reminiscent of the symphonic poem. Fibich in his staged works and Josef Suk (composer/violinist and Dvořák’s son-in-law), in his incidental music reflect variously late nineteenth-century Romanticism, the influence of Wagner, and early manifestations of Impressionism. In its more recent guise, the principles of the staged melodrama reside quite comfortably in the film score. Judith A. Mabary’s important volume will be of interest not only to musicologists, but those working in Central and East European studies, voice studies, European theatre, and those studying music and nationalism."

By: Judith Mabary
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 371g
ISBN: 9780367539641
ISBN 10: 0367539640
Series: Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera
Pages: 260
Publication Date: 29 April 2022
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Judith A. Mabary is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Her research interests center on Czech music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, namely the life and works of Antonín Dvořák, Zdeňek Fibich, Bohuslav Martinů, and Vítězslava Kaprálová as well as the genre of Czech melodrama.