by Joy H. Calico (Author)

From an award-winning author, the first thorough examination of the important influence of opera on Brecht's writings.

Front Jacket

Brecht at the Opera is a remarkably compelling and exciting book. It not only explains why Brecht's relationship to opera is so vexed, it complicates the formulaic terms by which we have come to understand that vexation--extending, deepening, and refining our sense of the place of music in Brecht's projects as well as Brecht's place in the history of opera. It is amazingly thorough, very well written, and exceedingly provocative.--David J. Levin, author of Unsettling Opera

Calico strikes a subtle balance between attentive elucidation of Brecht's theories and a less obedient exploration of the ways his achievements were grounded in an operatic tradition that he (and most later commentators) have preferred to dismiss as antiquated and irrelevant. The author offers the clearest account I have read of the concept of Gestus and--in a move that might have pleased Brecht himself quite a bit--takes on the promiscuous use of the label 'Brechtian' in recent criticism. The book's final chapter, a lively and personal meditation on what kinds of staging might really produce an effect of estrangement, is likely to become an energizing point of reference for those of us who write about opera in performance.--Mary Ann Smart, author of Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera

In this first systematic, English-language study on Brecht and the opera, Joy Calico provides a carefully documented reconstruction of his lifelong engagement with the genre. The book provides a compelling argument that Brecht's modernist theater practices can be traced back to his early resistance to the emotionalized experience engendered by musical theater.--Marc Silberman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Back Jacket

Brecht at the Opera is a remarkably compelling and exciting book. It not only explains why Brecht's relationship to opera is so vexed, it complicates the formulaic terms by which we have come to understand that vexation--extending, deepening, and refining our sense of the place of music in Brecht's projects as well as Brecht's place in the history of opera. It is amazingly thorough, very well written, and exceedingly provocative.--David J. Levin, author of Unsettling Opera

"Calico strikes a subtle balance between attentive elucidation of Brecht's theories and a less obedient exploration of the ways his achievements were grounded in an operatic tradition that he (and most later commentators) have preferred to dismiss as antiquated and irrelevant. The author offers the clearest account I have read of the concept of Gestus and--in a move that might have pleased Brecht himself quite a bit--takes on the promiscuous use of the label 'Brechtian' in recent criticism. The book's final chapter, a lively and personal meditation on what kinds of staging might really produce an effect of estrangement, is likely to become an energizing point of reference for those of us who write about opera in performance."--Mary Ann Smart, author of Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera

"In this first systematic, English-language study on Brecht and the opera, Joy Calico provides a carefully documented reconstruction of his lifelong engagement with the genre. The book provides a compelling argument that Brecht's modernist theater practices can be traced back to his early resistance to the emotionalized experience engendered by musical theater."--Marc Silberman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Author Biography

Joy H. Calico is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Musicology and Professor of German Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Arnold Schoenberg's 'A Survivor from Warsaw' in Postwar Europe.

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