Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination

Explores the rich and varied interactions between nineteenth-century science and the world of opera for the first time.

David Trippett (Edited by), Benjamin Walton (Edited by)

9781107529021, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 July 2021

397 pages, 25 b/w illus. 2 tables 15 music examples
24.4 x 16.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.7 kg

'There is an interesting discussion of whether opera was beneficial or dangerous for the mentally ill. This exploration of the intersection of two important aspects of 19th-century Western life will interest scientists and musicians alike.' R. Pitts, Choice

Scientific thinking has long been linked to music theory and instrument making, yet the profound and often surprising intersections between the sciences and opera during the long nineteenth century are here explored for the first time. These touch on a wide variety of topics, including vocal physiology, theories of listening and sensory communication, technologies of theatrical machinery and discourses of biological degeneration. Taken together, the chapters reveal an intertwined cultural history that extends from backstage hydraulics to drawing-room hypnotism, and from laryngoscopy to theatrical aeronautics. Situated at the intersection of opera studies and the history of science, the book therefore offers a novel and illuminating set of case studies, of a kind that will appeal to historians of both science and opera, and of European culture more generally from the French Revolution to the end of the Victorian period.

1. Introduction: the laboratory and the stage David Trippett and Benjamin Walton
Part I. Voices: 2. Pneumotypes: Jean de Reszke's high pianissimos and the occult sciences of breathing James Q. Davies
3. Vocal culture in the age of laryngoscopy Benjamin Steege
4. Operatic fantasies in early nineteenth-century psychiatry Carmel Raz
5. Opera and hypnosis: Victor Maurel's experiments in suggestion with Verdi's Otello Céline Frigau Manning
Part II. Ears: 6. Hearing space in the music of Hector Berlioz Julia Kursell
7. From distant sounds to Aeolian ears: Ernst Kapp's auditory prosthesis David Trippett
8. Wagner, hearing loss, and the urban soundscape of late nineteenth-century Germany James Deaville
Part III. Technologies: 9. Science, technology and love in late eighteenth-century opera Deirdre Loughridge
10. Technological phantoms of the opéra Benjamin Walton
11. Circuit listening Ellen Lockhart
Part IV. Bodies: 12. Excelsior as mass ornament: the reproduction of gesture Gavin Williams
13. Automata, physiology and opera Myles Jackson
14. Wagnerian manipulation: Bayreuth and the sciences of the mind James Kennaway
15. Unsound seeds Alexander Rehding.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Opera [AVGC9], Romantic music [c 1830 to c 1900 AVGC5], Theory of music & musicology [AVA]