Unsettling Opera: Staging Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Zemlinsky

While a stage production can disrupt a work that was thought to be established, David J. Levin here argues that the genre of opera is itself unsettled, and that the performance of operas, at its best, clarifies this condition by bringing opera’s restlessness and volatility to life.
            Unsettling Opera explores a variety of fields, considering questions of operatic textuality, dramaturgical practice, and performance theory. Levin opens with a brief history of opera production, opera studies, and dramatic composition, and goes on to consider in detail various productions of the works of Wagner, Mozart, Verdi, and Alexander Zemlinsky. Ultimately, the book seeks to initiate a dialogue between scholars of music, literature, and performance by addressing questions raised in each field in a manner that influences them all.

            “Levin is one of the few scholars who functions effectively as both a literary critic in the University and a practical dramaturg in the opera house. His fascinating book demonstrates how critical readings of music and text can generate stagings that challenge and compel. . . . An indispensable guide.”—Philip Gossett