Reconstructing the creative process: music in the nineteenth-century theater

Everist, Mark (2022) Reconstructing the creative process: music in the nineteenth-century theater. In, Donin, Nicolas (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Creative Process in Music. New York. Oxford University Press. (doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190636197.013.23).

Abstract

Music for the stage involves many more cultural artifacts than are evoked by such terms as “opera.” Considering a broader span of works than just continuous or through-composed opera brings into consideration such genres as opéra comique, Syngestykker, and Posse mit Gesang. With this change of perspective comes the possibility of reflecting on a wider variety of agents (in the terms of the sociologist Howard Becker) than the traditional librettist-composer paradigm permits. These basic principles are explored through two examples. The comédie-vaudeville: Le quaker et la danseuse, with its generic use of borrowed material, throws down a challenge to conventional views of authorship, and in doing so extends the array of agents under consideration. This study is juxtaposed with an examination of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, where the broader context of the work’s immediate reception reveals an equally broad range of agents engaged in the projection of the work.

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