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Operatic ambiguities and the power of music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Extract

‘Pur sempre su le nozze canzoneggiando vai.’ Arnalta's remark to Poppea (L'incoronazione di Poppea, Act II scene 10), occasioned by Poppea's lyrical exultation over the death of Seneca, provokes the closing sententia of Edward T. Cone's recent exploration of the ambiguous world of opera and its inhabitants. Translating the nurse's comment as ‘You're forever going around singing songs about your wedding’, Cone concludes that ‘this is just what characters in opera do: they go around singing songs all the time’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 ‘The World of Opera and its Inhabitants’, in Musk: A View from Delft, ed. Morgan, Robert P. (Chicago, 1989), 125–38.Google Scholar

2 ‘Opera Talk: A Philosophical “Phantasie”’, this journal, 3 (1991), 6377.Google Scholar

3 (Berkeley, , 1974).Google Scholar