Hollywood opera : envisioning opera for the movies, 1926-1938
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- While the phenomenon of operatic singing in classical Hollywood cinema is well known, the topic has been marginalized in opera / film studies of the past twenty-five years. Indeed, the very fact that, between 1926 and 1938, all of the Hollywood studios announced plans for full- and feature-length movie operas has escaped historical notice. During the same period, various studios experimented with introducing operatic performances in the context of conventional narrative pictures, as a means of preparing cinema audiences for fully sung opera on screen. Drawing on hundreds of previously unexamined sources, this study reveals the full extent of Hollywood's operatic ambitions during the early sound era, illuminating a phase of cultural development during which opera, in various Hollywood forms, reached a wider audience than ever before. The dissertation consists of five chapters and an epilogue, which proceed in more or less chronological order. Chapter 1 traces the early history of American cinema's relationship with opera, from the visionary projections of Thomas Edison in the late-1880s through the early years of sound. Here I examine the conceptual origins of Hollywood opera, and the various technological and aesthetic barriers to the production of full-length operas on film. Chapter 2 focuses on The Rogue Song (1930), and considers how MGM and various other studios, believing American cinema audiences to be unready for fully sung opera on film, set about cultivating appreciation for the operatic voice in movies. Chapter 3 treats Columbia Pictures' One Night of Love (1934), and the ensuing "opera boom" of 1935-1938, during which Hollywood filmmakers employed opera as a dramatic element in conventional narrative pictures. Chapter 4 explores the emergence of "imaginary" opera—custom-made opera sequences commissioned by the studios to fulfill specific dramatic needs, and as a supplement to the repertoire of well-known and popular (genuine) operatic arias, many of which, by 1936, had already been filmed. Chapter 5 discusses the revival of Hollywood's plans to produce full-length movie operas in 1935, and the subsequent abandonment of those plans with the end of the opera boom in February 1938. In an epilogue I briefly survey the continued presence of operatic performances in Hollywood movies 1939-1962, highlighting two films—Serenade (1956) and My Geisha (1962)—which, respectively, anticipate the techniques of New Hollywood and "art" films, post-1970.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Calver, Joseph D |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Music. |
| Primary advisor | Grey, Thomas S |
| Thesis advisor | Grey, Thomas S |
| Thesis advisor | Hinton, Stephen |
| Thesis advisor | Ma, Jean, 1972- |
| Advisor | Hinton, Stephen |
| Advisor | Ma, Jean, 1972- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Joseph D. Calver. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Music. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Joseph David Calver
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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