Research Catalog
Feasting and fasting in opera : from Renaissance banquets to the Callas diet
- Title
- Feasting and fasting in opera : from Renaissance banquets to the Callas diet / Pierpaolo Polzonetti.
- Author
- Polzonetti, Pierpaolo
- Publication
- Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- ©2021
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JME 22-27 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Music |
Details
- Description
- xv, 319 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- "In this book, opera scholar Pierpaolo Polzonetti shows that the consumption of food and drink is a meaningful, essential component of opera, both on and off the stage. The book explores how convivial culture shaped the birth of opera and its development, especially through the early nineteenth century, when eating at the opera house was still common. Through analyses of convivial scenes in operas from Monteverdi to Verdi and Puccini, the book then shows how food/drink consumption and sharing, or refusal to do so, define the characters' identity and relationships. The first part of the book moves chronologically from around 1480 to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Wagner's operatic reforms put a stop to conviviality at the opera house by banishing refreshments during the performance and mandating a darkened auditorium and absorbed listening. The second part instead focuses on questions of comedy, embodiment, and indulgence in both tragic and comic operas from Monteverdi to Mozart. In the third part, Polzonetti looks at opera characters, their onstage consumption of coffee and chocolate, and what it signifies for their social standing within the opera. The book ends with an illuminating and entertaining discussion of the diet Maria Callas underwent in preparation for her famous performance as Violetta in Verdi's La traviata. Neither food lovers nor opera lovers will want to miss Polzonetti's page-turning and imaginative book"--
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-310) and index.
- Contents
- Convivial beginnings. The symposium and the birth of opera ; The Renaissance banquet as multimedia art ; Orpheus at the cardinal's table ; Eating at the opera house -- "Tastes funny" : tragic and comic meals from Monteverdi to Mozart ; Comedy as embodiment in Monteverdi and Mozart ; The insatiable : tyrants and libertines ; Indulging in comic opera : gastronomy as identity -- The effects of feasting and fasting ; Coffee and chocolate from Bach to Puccini ; Verdi and the laws of gastromusicology ; The Callas diet.
- Call Number
- JME 22-27
- ISBN
- 9780226804958
- 022680495X
- LCCN
- 2021005729
- OCLC
- 1237653052
- Author
- Polzonetti, Pierpaolo, author.
- Title
- Feasting and fasting in opera : from Renaissance banquets to the Callas diet / Pierpaolo Polzonetti.
- Publisher
- Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- Copyright Date
- ©2021
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-310) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JME 22-27