{"title":"General Introduction","authors":"C. Newark, W. Weber","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190224202.013.30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190224202.013.30","url":null,"abstract":"Despite increasing interest in canonic discourses in the arts, relatively little attention has been given to opera. Reasons include its close relationship with commerce and the relative fluidity of its texts. But it is also an inherently problematic sort of canon, one that evolved very differently from that of concert music: current issues include the increasing restriction of its core, even while the viable repertory is arguably broadening, and especially the fact that the most revered works are all more than a century old. The financial difficulties being experienced by opera houses around the world, even some of the most famous, seem connected to these issues. This introduction explores some of the different meanings of operatic canonicity and the associated terminology, the methods by which it is determined, and, through a survey of some of the main arguments advanced in the ensuing chapters, the historical forces that shaped it.","PeriodicalId":337592,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122571023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Setting the Standard","authors":"Kimberly White","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190224202.013.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190224202.013.17","url":null,"abstract":"The individual and collective contributions and professional activities of singers had a significant effect on the programming, circulation, and status of operatic works in nineteenth-century France. In the past three decades, scholars engaged in research on performers have made significant strides in revealing, on the one hand, the collaboration of singers and their contributions to the works they performed and, on the other, the structure and dynamics of the operatic marketplace. This chapter explores the various ways in which singers influenced the shape of repertory through their individual choices, the institutional structures under which they worked, and the shifting patterns and places of performance. Indeed, nostalgia for the singers who “created” a role had an important function in the canonization process: the French expression créer un rôle (“create a role”) consciously elevated this activity and imbued it with authorial force. This chapter is paired with Hilary Poriss’s “Redefining the standard: Pauline Viardot and Gluck’s Orphée.”","PeriodicalId":337592,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116831351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}