Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In this innovative book, Gundula Kreuzer argues for the foundational role of technologies in the conception, production, and study of nineteenth-century opera. She shows how composers increasingly envisioned novel audiovisual effects as integral to their works and how the uses and meanings of the required machineries consistently changed, sometimes still resonating in contemporary stagings, performance art, and popular culture. Focusing on devices (what Kreuzer dubs "Wagnerian technologies") intended to amalgamate opera's various media while veiling their mechanics, Curtain, Gong, Steam offers a practical counter-narrative to Wagner's idealist theories of total illusionism. Its multifaceted exploration of the three titular technologies repositions Wagner as catalyst more than inventor in the history of operatic production. With its broad chronological and geographical scope, the book deepens our understanding of the material and mechanical conditions of historical operatic practice as well as of individual works, both well-known and obscure.