Ideology in Britten's Operas

Offers a thematic examination of Britten's operas, focusing particularly on the way that ideology is presented on stage.

J. P. E. Harper-Scott (Author)

9781108402873, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 October 2020

345 pages, 17 b/w illus. 19 music examples
24.5 x 17 x 2 cm, 0.61 kg

'… deeply original and brilliantly wrought … Ideology in Britten's Operas is an intellectually stimulating achievement-agile in critical-theoretical perspective, musical in its score analyses, and engaging to read. It is also an ambitious book, seeking in Britten's operas a testing-ground for a broader ideologically framed criticism.' Philip Rupprecht, Music and Letters

This thematic examination of Britten's operas focuses on the way that ideology is presented on stage. To watch or listen is to engage with a vivid artistic testament to the ideological world of mid-twentieth-century Britain. But it is more than that, too, because in many ways Britten's operas continue to proffer a diagnosis of certain unresolved problems in our own time. Only rarely, as in Peter Grimes, which shows the violence inherent in all forms of social and psychological identification, does Britten unmistakably call into question fundamental precepts of his contemporary ideology. This has not, however, prevented some writers from romanticizing Britten as a quiet revolutionary. This book argues, in contrast, that his operas, and some interpretations of them, have obscured a greater social and philosophical complicity that it is timely - if at the same time uncomfortable - for his early twenty-first-century audiences to address.

Part I. Mappa Mundi: 1. Defining ideology
2. Ideological narratives
Part II. The Ship of State: 3. From manifest violence to its historical sediment
4. The occultation of history
Part III. New World: 5. Women and children
6. A shadow falls on castle walls.

Subject Areas: Musical scores, lyrics & libretti [AVQ], Opera [AVGC9], 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Music: styles & genres [AVG], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV]