Is opera a stagnant or evolving art form?
nick....@ntlworld.com
give me there opinons so that I may use them for research.
The title for it is , "Is opera a stagnant or an evolving art form?"
What are peoples thoughts?
Vince Quaresima
My thought is that you are not ready to author a dissertation
until/unless you can properly distinguish when to use THEIR as opposed
to THERE...
Perhaps you should revisit English 101 first...
Dan Tritter
it was always my apprehension that examiners hearing a dissertation
defense were anxious to hear the author's thoughts. all the rest is a
collection of footnotes and anecdotes of little academic value. and it
wouldn't be a bad idea to focus your question with respect to
performance practice, composition or vocal pedagogy. as it stands, your
rhetorical questions are merely inviting generalization that will add
nothing to your topic.
david...@aol.com
I don't believe any institution will accept such a vague and general
thesis for a dissertation. You're having us on.
-david gable
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
art of opera...there will always be operatic performances. Yes...even of
all the old 'haggard' compositions...and even despite of some of the newer
ones.
Opera will even endure the Eurotrash directors and designers...and different
idiot house administrators.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
<nick....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
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aest...@hotmail.com
Don't artforms (e.g., opera) evolve to an optimum point and then go
into decline?
Hans Christian Hoff
An impossible question, at least if the aim is to give a meaningful
answer. Opera is such a manysided phenomenon that it may very well be both.
If you look upon the number of new works staying in the rep opera is
obvious in decline. In some other respects (i.e.public attendance) it is
probably not, and it may be in decline in some parts of the world and on
the rise in other parts (i.e. Japan). In stagecraft it is probably
evolving, but not everyone sees this as an evolution towards improvement.
The choice of title is not a good one.
Regards
Hans
strauss...@gmail.com
> Don't artforms (e.g., opera) evolve to an optimum point and then go
> into decline?
Only if you believe in the possibility of objective artistic optimum
states and a decline-and-fall teleological concept of artistic history
and development.
-la monstre straussienne (who doesn't)
J S
Wagner, Puccini, (a few of) Richard Strauss, and a few other composers
there would be no such art form. It's from the pool created by this
handful of geniuses that all the world's houses are kept open. There
would not be enough people in the artistic community to support them
without this foundation.
I do believe that opera, in so far as new compositions go, has been in
decline since Puccini.
There have been "experiments" since then, there have been interesting
and a few bold and compelling works, but nothing, imo, that could be
said to be great art, in the same sense as is Figaro or Rigoletto or La
Boheme or The Ring.
I expect this situation will change eventually, when we once again have
among us the type of geniuses who can create works comparable to the
above mentioned.
(It is curious that most great opera composers were working within a
relatively similar period of time).
The upside to all this is that they left the world a legacy that is so
excellent that it would seem to be imperishable. If we never have
another new opera, I think most of us feel so blessed with what we *do*
have, that we have no real reason to complain.
~ Roger
Mrs Terfel
directors with even crazier and more controversial ideas....
As long as new productions are being put on, and new singers taking on
the classic roles then I don't imagine opera will ever become
"stagnant"
Mrs T xx
Hans Christian Hoff
regarded as museal or not, as long as it is on exhibition. I am quite
content that we will never see the likes of the works of Michelangelo or
Rembrandt, but I do hardly regret the fact as long as it is still
possible to see David or the Night Watch. To have some future genius
make something that surpasses Don Giovanni will be a boon, but if that
does not happen (as it probably will not) it does not retract an iota
from my enjoyment of what we already got.
Regards
Hans
alanwa...@aol.com
When I had to do a dissertation it had to be your ORIGINAL thoughts,
not those of others.
Have things changed?
I believe you have to decide them by yourself and be judged by same.
In my time, if you quoted from others, you had to specifically
acknowledge same at the end of the dissertation.
I suspect it is originality they will be looking for, not google
groups.
Good luck. And PS: Google groups won't help you out on the road,
staring at a score you have never seen before whether talking about it
or playing it.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Mark D Lew
<nick....@ntlworld.com> wrote:
My thought is that opera is an antique art form. That is, for 90% of
the opera-loving audience, the essence of opera is tied to the fact
that the art form is no longer living. In that sense, one cannot
successfully write a new opera any more than one can design a new piece
of 17th century furniture. If it's new, then it's not authentic.
If the new opera doesn't sound like old operas, then the fans say it's
"not opera". But if it does, then it's just derivative and we may as
well have the real thing instead of this watered down imitation.
The antique nature of the art form is at the heart of all the struggles
about opera's future. Artists feel a need to do something new with it,
but anything new is by definition less like "real" opera.
Obviously, by characterizing "opera" in this way, I'm excluding
contemporary opera. I would say that contemporary opera is a separate
art form of its own, and I would observe that contemporary opera tends
to succeed most when it isn't presented as "opera" at all.
mdl
P.S. By the way, I'm disappointed in all those who joined in just to
snipe at the original poster for daring to ask others for opinions.
Jeez, guys, give it a rest. It's not like he's asking you to write the
paper for him. He's going to write it himself, but he wants to share
ideas with others. What's wrong with that? If soliciting ideas from
others is considered cheating then I say that's a good hint of what's
wrong with the education system today. Scire ubi aliquid invenire
possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est.
REG
at least, has written a few (I think Satyaghraha above all)? Are you not
being a little hard on the notion of what opera audiences want, since I
think that same dilemma faces all classsical music audiences, which is the
divergence between the sense of popular music and "classical" music.
I think that for me the question is whether the "drama" of opera can any
longer be conveyed through opera as such, and whether it's now conveyed in
such forms as independent films, etc. I am leaving aside the musical
vocabulary issues, and saying that, however diluted and popular the
message, opera did convey a message through mid century or so that people
wanted to hear, or at least were responsive to - now,with the growth of new
media, opera is "antiquated", maybe, because it's all about sound, and
little about "substance". Something like Dr. Atomic may try to change that,
but I am saying that the audience may no longer want to getit in that form -
not because it's "old fashioned", but because it's much easier to get and
absorb through other media.
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
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grndp...@aol.com
constitutes an opera.
As David Gable has pointed out there are many forms of musical drama.
Along with ones he has cited there are also:
Gilbert & Sullivan
Operetta a la Friml, Herbert, Romberg
Musicals of the sort written by Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Cole
Porter, Frank Loesser (not to mention Kurt Weill, Andre Messager,
Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar).
Taking an expansive view I would say that opera is evolving.
The only point Gable raises that I would modify is the notion that
dominant cultures from previous eras actually die. That we still
thrill to works like Don Giovanni, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata
makes me wonder if we can ever say that the cultures in which they
emerged are truly dead.
==G/P Dave
Steve Silverman
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1128534952.4...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> The question posed by this thread cannot be answered because there is
> no single genre, "opera." Late 18th-century Mozartean comedy was one
> genre. Wagnerian music drama was another. Primo ottocento melodramma
> a la Donizetti and Bellini was another. Philip Glass's "operas" belong
> to yet another. There always have been and always will be new attempts
> at forms of "music drama" as there have been from the time of the
> medieval miracle plays on down to the present.
Surely you would not deny that there is a generic, universally understood
definition of the term "opera"? One that encompasses a staged drama that is
sung against an instrumental backdrop, and that is written by a recognised
composer of music possessing acknowledged artistic value (dangerous ground,
that one). The roll call of such composers begins with Peri and ends (thus
far in our musical history) with the likes of Corigliano, Ades, Barry, and
yes even Maazel. Admittedly, there is some fuzziness in the definition
around the issues of who determines artistic value and why the works of
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, and Lloyd Webber should not be
classified as opera, but I think you would agree that most people (or at
least those who have an interest in whether or not the art form is stagnant)
know what opera is, even if they cannot supply a watertight definition.
Breaking opera down into it's sub-genres is not really germane to the
argument. The level of granularity that is involved in discussing the
stagnation (or not) of azione scenica, intermedio, tragedie lyrique, opera
seria, semi-opera, singspiel, dramma giocosa, opera buffa, drame larmoyante,
etc., etc., is not helpful in this case. The question only makes sense when
applied to the generic term, and in so doing, there is undoubtedly a case to
be made for the stagnation of opera.
For the first three hundred and fifty or so years of the art form, the
concept of a pre-exisitnig canon of works that was repeatedly rolled out was
more or less non-existent. The repertoire was constantly refreshed and
reinvigorated by a stream of new operas, many of which have now fallen by
the wayside, that people flocked to see. It is only in the era that began
around sixty years ago, that composers lost the knack of writing operas that
could be counted upon to regularly fill theatres. I don't know what
percentage of performances in the world of opera this season will be based
on new works, but I wouldn't mind betting that it's in single figures. Opera
is hardly developing at all, and if that's not stagnation, I don't know what
is. The only thing that is keeping the art form from preservation in aspic
is the work of directors who take the score as their jumping off point for
creating innovative productions designed to breathe new life into the drama.
They are not always successful, but at least they are trying.
> Attending performances of the standard repertory is like visiting a
> museum, not that there's anything wrong with that. Monteverdi, Handel,
> Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini,
> Strauss, and Berg are all a part of history. These composers are all
> dead and the cultures that produced them and the conditions under which
> they labored have disappeared. But it doesn't make any more sense to
> refer to their styles as stagnant than it does to refer to the high
> impressionist style as stagnant simply because Monet, Renoir, et al are
> dead.
Again, the issue isn't whether or not Impressionism is dead, but the health
of painting as a continually developing art form.
Steve Silverman
alanwa...@aol.com
What is wrong with it is that it had to be, in my day, my original
thoughts not my original thoughts shared with others. Just mine.
Has it changed? Off the lectures and the books. Just that.
David Melnick
>
> What is wrong with it is that it had to be, in my day, my original
> thoughts not my original thoughts shared with others. Just mine.
>
> Has it changed? Off the lectures and the books. Just that.
>
There is usually a survey of previous literature on the
subject in any dissertation. The question is whether we
qualify as "literature"!!
I think Dan Tritter's advice was the best in this thread so
far, regarding both originality and dividing the question
into three parts: performance practice, composition and
vocal pedagogy.
Sincerely,
Plain Tailed Wren
J S
be original, which is admirable; and while I'm not asking you to reveal
your views here; if *you* were required to write a paper on the
identical subject, do you think, at this point, that you could actually
come up with a totally new and unique idea - one that isn't shared by at
least a few of the rest of those interested in opera?
It seems to me that the question is one that's on so many of our minds,
and that has been chewed over so many times, that a really original
opinion would be virtually impossible.
Please understand, though: I'm not saying you couldn't do it! :-)
~ Roger
Ortrud
-Ortrud Jones
Dan Tritter wrote:
> [nothing of importance]
Jon John
dtritter
golly nedsies, orturd, that sharp riposte must have had all the village
idiots slapping their thighs at its originality and aptness of thought.
now wipe your nose and go back to your swimming hole. it's the large
porcelain bowl with a chrome handle in the room marked "ladies" ....
Steve Silverman
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1128548246.2...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Steve, I do not in fact believe that there is some ideal and unchanging
> Platonic essence of opera underlying even all of the works in the
> standard repertory.
That is not what I am suggesting. Nor is it, IMO, relevant to the original
question.
>Moreover, your definition of the concept of opera
> hovers between two poles: (a) the so vague as to apply to any and all
> attempts at a musical theatre and (b) question begging (that is,
> "defining" by resorting to recognizable composer names without making
> explicit what, exactly, those disparate names are meant to define).
Absolutely right. I would suggest that, without using these qualifiers, it
is impossible to come up with a concise, black and white definition of opera
that includes all the appropriate works and excludes all the inappropriate
ones. Paradoxically perhaps, there can be little doubt that everybody who
participates in this newsgroup understands precisely what is meant when they
see the word "opera".
> It's not "opera in general" that flourishes but some kind of opera in
> particular. In that sense, late 18th century Mozartean comedy is as
> dead as the High Renaissance style in Italian painting. Puccini,
> Strauss, and Berg are equally dead. So is impressionist painting. So
> our discussion cannot be about how we're to keep late 18th-century
> Mozartean comedy from stagnating.
I believe that we are debating different points. The the original question
relates to the form. Your argument addresses stylistic variants within the
form. We don't have verismo houses, or singspiel houses, or dramma giocosa
houses. We have opera houses where people can go to see any of the stylistic
variants that the management of those houses choose to stage. One could
argue that opera seria is healthier today than it has been for two hundred
years, but that tells us nothing about whether or not opera as an art form
is stagnating.
>
> SNIP
>.
> As for survival of the
> museum, large opera houses today and most small ones are essentially
> museums. They do not in fact depend on a constantly renewed supply of
> new works..
I wouldn't disagree, but that is a matter of commercial success. Depending
on how one chooses to define "stagnant" it could also be argued that this
concentrated focus on the past for want of something new to counter-balance
it is evidence of the stagnation of both art forms. It would not be true of
painting of course, because there is a constant and copious flow of new
works being displayed in galleries large and small around the world. I
wonder if one even needs both hands to count the number of new operas that
are presented to the public each year.
La Donna Mobile
nick....@ntlworld.com wrote:
>I'm preparing for my dissertation and was wondering if people could
>give me there opinons so that I may use them for research.
>
>The title for it is , "Is opera a stagnant or an evolving art form?"
>
>What are peoples thoughts?
>
>
>
I think it depends to some extent whether one thinks that opera's
purpose is to make perceptive statements about the human condition,
society, current events, or whether you think its purpose is purely
entertainment, to tell a story that exists just for its own sake. I
think it lies at various points in between these two extremes. The fact
that the majority of productions are of old operas, means it must be
stagnating, because by definition, it is saying little new about society
or human condition, or indeed current events. Some new operas are based
on new material, but many more are reworking of old themes eg Ades The
Tempest or in the case of Dr Atomic, using pre-existing material to
create a work about a new theme, although one could hardly say a
'current event'.
If, on the other hand, you see it purely as entertainment for its own
sake, it should be looked at in that context. The Gramophone changed the
nature of opera; it also changed the nature of popular music. Add TV,
video, DVD into that mix (which are really just continuation of the
Gramophone concept) and you have an art form which, on the whole, is not
changing in itself, but is definitely changing in relation to the
audience. To be able to watch an opera on DVD, when the majority fit
onto just one disc, is quite different from listening on a series of 78
records. Most of the great opera composers would never have imagined
that people would watch their works on a screen in their home, often
without company. But then, I don't suppose Shakespeare or Austen etc
thought that either.
Sometimes change is imperceptible. I was really surprised at the fact
that it was usual for singers to provide their own costumes until fairly
recently. That would be unthinkable now. I also have a perception that
acting was not very important in older days - some people cite Callas as
the first acting singer, although I think it's not that clear cut.
Nevertheless, even watching DVDs of performances from say thirty years
ago, it is very striking how different the acting is compared to
contemporary DVDs. In general, it seems to me that the singers were
acting to the house and the camera was a neutral bystander observing
that, whereas I think that nowadays, singers are far more aware of the
cameras being present and are, to a greater or lesser extent, acting to
the cameras.
I am also struck by reports of various opera houses especially in the
US. I am oversimplifying madly, and inviting flames upon myself, but it
seems that there is a need for big-voiced singers; failure to be big
enough ultimately means failure. Yet they are expected to sing in a
house with 4,000 people a work that may have been written for a house
quarter of the size. To be purist, one could argue it's not that the
singers are too small, but that the houses are too big.
On the other hand acoustic technology has moved on in great steps. I
read somewhere or other that the protracted time it took for the
Festival Hall to get Planning Permission means that the acoustic
technology is far superior to what was envisaged at early stages of the
project (Lambeth Planning's motto ought to be - "We Do It Slowly But We
Get It Right"!). Also, most of us have an expectation that when we go to
an opera house or concert hall that we will be able to listen to the
music, uninterrupted by noise from our neighbours. Yet that is a fairly
recent development (late-ish 19th Century?) from times when people went
to be seen, and to chat etc, and, presumably, the opera was little more
than background - a bit like houses you go into when the TV is on
constantly regardless of whether it's actually being watched.
May I ask at which Educational Institute you are preparing your
dissertation, and at one level?
--
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog/
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
La Donna Mobile
david...@aol.com
Steve,
I'm not sure we're in great disagreement.
>I believe that we are debating different points.
I'm not so much debating a point as pointing out the absence of a well
defined point to debate. I'm also pointing out that the rise and fall
of genres is the whole ongoing history of art.
>We don't have verismo houses, or singspiel houses, or dramma giocosa houses.
Not any more, we don't. That's part of a shift to museum culture.
Nowadays we can go to The Art Institute in Chicago and find statues of
the Buddha, Renaissance altar pieces, armor, china, silverware, and
miniatures by Paul Klee subsumed under the single rubric of "visual
art." In the 19th century there were zarzuela houses throughout Spain
and Mexico as well as a much smaller number of operas houses where
Italian and French operas were presented. In Vienna "operetta" was
excluded from the Staatsoper until Mahler insisted on introducing
Fledermaus. In the 19th century, a theatre was built in Bayreuth to
meet the specific demands of Wagner's operas. In Paris in the 19th
century, three different genres were recognized: Italian opera,
(French) grand opera, and opera comique. These three genres were
presented at different houses. There were additional venues for every
manner of lighter fare. In the 18th century, buffa and seria were
presented for different audiences in different venues, and Singspiel
was presented where Singspiel, other kinds of "low" comedy, and no
other kind of musical theatre was presented.
-david gable
aest...@hotmail.com
- A living civilization creates; a dying, builds museums.
Martin F. Fisher
aest...@hotmail.com
- To the extent that the mandarin idea of a high
culture survives, it is among traditional conservatives, whose
conception of culture, unfortunately, is that of museum curators.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7043
Twittering One
Art form ~ ?
Concerning the
'...shift to museum culture'
~ A living civilization creates;
A dying, builds museums.
Martin F. Fisher"
~ Aesthete
"Concerning the success or failure
Of Picasso,
The stand of birch grew closer."
~ Zoe
"O, but what of ~ Dare not forget ~
MFK Fisher, dinner, Aunt
Helen, Whitman Samplers, gifts wrapped
Festively for Christmas,
Answered Prayers
Breakfast at Tiffany's, red ruby ear rings,
Stockings hung,
Holly dangled from ~ !"
~ Joseph
"Prismatic
Ice
Shatters glass
Pieces
Parting
Light's prismatic spectrum ..."
~ The Annotator
Twittering One
Must people introduce ,
Or deduce ~
But The Blackbird of Christopher, Friends & Company,
Who were already introduced by you,
Now will introduce
The Next
Nouveau Ballet ...
The Good Bye of Thusly ~. It Is Thee, Opposite
When we requested, when we commissioned choreography
>From Pooh, an Interlude, or Intermezzo
Performance work, we requested,
What we got
Was this very strange, very odd dance
Piece de Résistance ~
The Opposite of An Introduction
Which says
What ~ ?
That Is, Which Was ~ ?"
~ White Chalk
Twittering One
What did not help us as much, or not nearly
As much, we had hoped, but fortunately,
Who,
An owl kept ahead, remarkable tempo, agile
As pretty Hedgewick ~
"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q
Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q"Q
... and The Introduction,
As requested, as indicated, our company performs
In the opposite direction, or contrary harmony,
Of contraindicated tempo,
Stepped off ~
In the opposite direction
Of an introduction, so, O, alas,
My dear Pooh,
This performance stands
As a remarkable introduction to contrary
Contrapuntal counterpoint ~
As a fine classical introduction
To The High Contradictions."
~ Suzanne
Twittering One
~ Twittering ~
Le danseur, en Le Box de Musique,
Please put back."
~ Mum
Twittering One
Again, I ask
~ Twittering ~
"~ and,
Because you very good with choreography
Of long words and works
I am sure that It
Is him, is
~ aa Milne,
Dancing ...
Of The Room of The Corner of Pooh
Set Against Thee ~ Of The High Diction Of ~ Something
A dance,
A very high romance, a very serious,
If a
Disabling enchantment, an illegal mesmerized
Work of The Infamous Miser of Matter
Whereby, a world, a particle of sand,
A drop of water,
A swirling paperweight, upon a desk
Of someone you know ~
The Dance of The Intimate
Snowflake ...
Contains The parts & The Elements,
The choreographed dance pieces, glass pieces, shards
Of prismatic light,
Are illogical or contradictory with one the other."
~ Ms Moth
"A resort to ratio or the manufacture of a retort or ratio
Which opposes, or appears
To have stood in dissension, upon your declension,
Your grammar."
~ Mark Noir
"O, once you mentioned Robert's
Rules Of Disorder ~
With somebody ..."
~ Ms Moth
"Or something."
~ Mark Noir
Twittering One
~ Twittering
"o, alas,
Again, I ask
~ Twittering ~
Le danseur, en Le Box de Musique,
Please put back."
~ Mum
"Know ~ !
All the Ones I love,
Hear ~
Here inside
My Box de Le Musique."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
The following article says ~
'In Defense of Mandarines
& Mandrakes.'"
~ Aesthete
"The Love of 3 Oranges,
O, I know ..."
~ Twittering
Lookingglass
"La Donna Mobile" <ladonn...@REMOVEbrixton.fsworld.co.uk> wrote in
message news:di3qmn$kj5$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
(snip)
The fact
> that the majority of productions are of old operas, means it must be
> stagnating, because by definition, it is saying little new about society
> or human condition, or indeed current events. Some new operas are based on
> new material, but many more are reworking of old themes eg Ades The
> Tempest or in the case of Dr Atomic, using pre-existing material to create
> a work about a new theme, although one could hardly say a 'current event'.
>
I would think that a GOOD opera will continue to speak to the "human
condition", regardless of how old or new that opera is. As a species, I find
Human Beings infinitely fascinating......... ;^) ... whether the scenario is
ancient Rome or modern America... the basic qualities of "Humanness" are
unchanging... only the fashions change... IMHO.
dave............ www.Shemakhan.com
REG
"Twittering One" <twitter...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1128645545....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Twittering One
~ Reg
"An owl
Who knew."
~ Folly
Twittering One
Owl ~
~ head * wind ~
!WWWWW^WWWWW!
Twittering One
Who kept her head, Zoe,
My prognosticator,
My astrologer,
My mythologer,
My astronomer,
My mayhem thologyer."
~ Twittering
REG
didn't they? It wasn't as if people said "Comedy is different than Italian
Opera, and each deserves a separate home". It was more about
entrepreneurship and different impresarios cornering the market in different
areas, particularly in France, I think. You are suggesting that the
commercial aspect was secondary to a kind of abstract aspect of "dividing
up" opera in a certain categorical, Platonic way,and I am not convinced
that's the case, particularly since it didn't seem to happen in Italy as far
as I am aware, or anyplace else. What we had in Italy were Ricordi Houses
and Sanzogno Houses, but you wouldn't suggest for a moment that there is a
difference between Ricordi operas or Sanzogno (not sure if I have the name
right, but you get it) operas, other than who got which writers, are you???
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1128634943.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Twittering One
Would be a rich mine of story, glittering with variations
Of many tales. But there is more, for the myths
Of ancient Greece are lavishly embellished with art.
The brilliant images carved in stone and painted
On vases not only illustrate the ancient stories,
They offer additional details ~
And sometimes they provide the only version
We have."
~ Nancy Hathaway,
>From "The Friendly Guide to Mythology"
[p. 136]
david...@aol.com
>But David, the different houses reflected different managements primarily, didn't they?
Of course they did. The fact remains that opera comique, French grand
opera, and Italian opera were strictly segregated in 19th century
Paris, that performances of the three distinct genres were confined to
what was considered the appropriate house. In short, management felt
itself competent to mount and market a particular genre and not "opera"
in general. Handel founded an opera company in London to mount a
particular kind of opera, not surprisingly the kind he wrote himself.
He didn't mount operas by Rameau. Schikaneder, who was himself a
particular kind of comic actor and singer, mounted Singspiels of a kind
in which he himself could perform. The Festspielhaus in Bayreuth was
created as an ideal venue for the performance of Wagner's operas, his
as yet unwritten ones as well as the ones he had already written. It
started out as a laboratory and only became a museum when Wagner died.
In all of these cases, what got performed at a particular house was
closely tied to the creation of a particular living genre (or, if you
insist, of a particular subgenre of "opera"). The Met and Covent
Garden of today are not tied to the ongoing propagation of any living
genre whatsoever. They are museums in which many different genres are
preserved.
I don't want to espouse the existence of any new ironclad Platonic
essences myself. The Donizetti whose Marino Faliero was mounted at the
Theatre Italien was not an entirely different man from the Donizetti
who wrote Dom Sebastien for the Opera. Still, he conceived of a very
different kind of work for each theatre. Same goes for Rossini and
Verdi. Just compare Barber and Tell.
I just want to point out that the opera culture of today does not
reflect some eternal unchanging approach hardwired into the organism.
I'm also not bashing the big houses of our time. I'm all for museums,
and the healthier they are, the happier I am.
As for the creation of new works, I think that nobody has much control
over what is most important for their creation, that not even some sort
of hypothetical generous commission program is remotely as essential
for new creation as cultural circumstances over which none of us can
possibly have much control. The decline of certain forms of music
education doesn't help. The failure to expose our young to classical
music in general and opera in particular doesn't help. The real
solution is making kids take piano and violin lessons again, having
kids singing in choirs and playing in school orchestras again. How do
you bring that about? Does anybody think the next Presidential
election in the United States is going to hinge on any such issue?
-david gable
aest...@hotmail.com
period) and then go into a long decline which is charactertized by
stagnation?
According to the following article:
- Art cannot continue to exist if we lose sight of how it once existed
in its optimal state
Twittering One
Art form ~ ?
But don't artforms evolve to an optimum peak
(i.e., the 'classical'
period) and then go into a long decline,
Which is characterized by
Stagnation?
According to the following
Article ~
'Art cannot continue to exist
If we lose sight of how it once existed
In its optimal state.'"
~ Aesthete
"Berlyne's Theory of Optimum
Complexity ~
A theory promoted by Daniel Berlyne
That the pleasure evoked by different kinds of stimuli
Is related to their degree of novelty.
Accordingly, those stimuli
With the greatest hedonic value
(pleasure rating)
Tend toward some optimum degree of novelty
Or optimum
Complexity.
The least pleasure is evoked
When the stimulus is excessively novel
(or complex),
And when there is insufficient
Novelty
(or complexity)."
~ Folly
"Therefore, Thusly,
A Bell Curve, arcing over, as a rainbow ...
Or rather, according to THAT
Theory
There are many many more in store ..."
~ Margaux
Twittering One
A lullaby
(or cradle song),
A song sung to lull
Or pacify
An infant by reducing
The infant's arousal level.
Lullabies feature lilting
Languor, or lovely language
Often heard
Deep,
Deep in The Forest of The Deep
Sleep,
Where Morpheuus,
Where Orpheus
Strings
A lyre,
Too, found in infant ~
Directed speech,
Or, baby talk
Dirty to me."
~ Twittering
Twittering One
In many musical genres, the dynamics
Ascend or descend, according to a ramp
Pattern ~
Crescendos longer, to ascend,
Diminuendos,
Slower to descend ~
Musical dynamics are typically organized
So they
Build in a gradual way,
But fall, decay, dissolve, subside relatively
Quickly ~
Fall down
Drop
Sink
Slip
Dip
Settle
Fall down
Drop
Sink
Slip
Dip
Recede diminish dwindle decline settle ..."
~ White Chalk
Twittering One
"Bone"...not "Phone" !I said "Bone"...not "Phone" !I said "Bone"...not
"Phone" !I said "Bone"...not "Phone" !I said "Bone"...not "Phone" !I
said "Bone"...not "Phone" !
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO la la ~ !"
~ Mer Loleil
Mark D Lew
<Rich...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Do you not think that Britten is new opera, and do you not think that Glass,
> at least, has written a few (I think Satyaghraha above all)?
1. Naturally, I exaggerated and distorted for the sake of making some
interesting but muddled observations look more like a proper thesis.
Of course it's not quite so simple as that.
2. No, Britten is not new opera. He is a late flowering of the old
form.
3. Glass is very much the separate strain of "contemporary opera". A
great many fans of opera despise Glass.
> Are you not
> being a little hard on the notion of what opera audiences want, since I
> think that same dilemma faces all classsical music audiences, which is the
> divergence between the sense of popular music and "classical" music.
Sure. Classical music is an antique art form, too.
> I think that for me the question is whether the "drama" of opera can any
> longer be conveyed through opera as such, and whether it's now conveyed in
> such forms as independent films, etc.
Funny you should mention film. I think that when one traces the
development of opera to see where it goes, it goes directly into film
some time around the early 1930s. (In some cases, explicitly: eg,
Korngold, Prokofiev.) It's no coincidence that opera ends right when
film starts.
> I am leaving aside the musical
> vocabulary issues, and saying that, however diluted and popular the
> message, opera did convey a message through mid century or so that people
> wanted to hear, or at least were responsive to - now,with the growth of new
> media, opera is "antiquated", maybe, because it's all about sound, and
> little about "substance". Something like Dr. Atomic may try to change that,
> but I am saying that the audience may no longer want to getit in that form -
> not because it's "old fashioned", but because it's much easier to get and
> absorb through other media.
Exactly. Opera satisfied a certain need. Today that need is satisfied
in other ways. Opera today satisfies a different need.
mdl
Mark D Lew
Silverman <ssil...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
> but I think you would agree that most people (or at
> least those who have an interest in whether or not the art form is stagnant)
> know what opera is, even if they cannot supply a watertight definition.
I think that for most people -- both opera fans and non-fans -- what
defines "opera" more than anything -- more even than the wedding of
music with drama -- is the style of vocal production.
Operatic vocal style developed from the needs of the genre. That is,
it was pretty much the only way to be heard. Technology changed that.
When voices (and later images) could be amplified electronically, then
stored or transmitted, the art form changed and the way was opened for
a wide variety of vocal styles, most of which strike us as
non-"operatic".
mdl
Mark D Lew
<"alanwa...@aol.com"> wrote:
> What is wrong with it is that it had to be, in my day, my original
> thoughts not my original thoughts shared with others. Just mine.
No man is an island. I question first whether there really is such a
thing as a purely original thought. Second, if there is such a thing,
does it have value? Do ideas depend on a context of other people's
thoughts to have meaning. Would a truly original thought just be
solipsistic nonsense?
> Has it changed? Off the lectures and the books. Just that.
Maybe it hasn't. I fled academia precisely because of the rigidity
you've reflected here. I find that sort of just-mine attitude contrary
to real education. When I want to learn something, I talk to others --
preferably others who know more than me.
mdl
Mark D Lew
Silverman <ssil...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
> I
> wonder if one even needs both hands to count the number of new operas that
> are presented to the public each year.
In the whole world? Sure you do.
I saw three premieres each in 2001 and 2002, and that was just in
California. If one made a point of seeking them out it would be easy
to find a dozen per year. Most new operas are produced by small
companies, not the big mainstream houses.
mdl
Mark D Lew
<"david...@aol.com"> wrote:
> Of course they did. The fact remains that opera comique, French grand
> opera, and Italian opera were strictly segregated in 19th century
> Paris, that performances of the three distinct genres were confined to
> what was considered the appropriate house. In short, management felt
> itself competent to mount and market a particular genre and not "opera"
> in general.
Not disagreeing with your general point, but with regard to Paris at
least I don't think it's so much what the management "felt itself
competent" to produce so much as what the management felt its target
audience would want to see. The regular clientele at the Comique
didn't want to see noble historical characters dying dramatically, just
as the regular clientele at the Opéra didn't want to see some clever
bourgeois girl outwit the bad guys and then settle down to get married.
> The Met and Covent
> Garden of today are not tied to the ongoing propagation of any living
> genre whatsoever.
I'm happy to take this opportunity to point out that one of my favorite
opera companies, Oakland Opera Theater, is indeed tied to the ongoing
propagation of a specific living genre.
mdl
aest...@hotmail.com
in presenting the operas of OTHER cultures?
Concerning the comment about different genres of European operas once
being presented in separate opera venues:
- The modern world seems to have no notion of preserving different
things side by side, of allowing its proper and proportionate place to
each, of saving the whole varied heritage of culture. It has no notion
except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly
everything.
G.K. Chesterton
aest...@hotmail.com
of topics when new posts appear?)
Don Caballero
<aest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128722139.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> (By the way, how come this topic doesn't return to the top of the list
> of topics when new posts appear?)
>
This is a question that has confounded some of our deepest thinkers for
hours if not minutes.
JLaB
I wasn't aware that one could "author" anything. It is not a verb.
Love,
Kettle
JLaB
Vince Quaresima wrote:
> nick....@ntlworld.com wrote:
> >
> > I'm preparing for my dissertation and was wondering if people could
> > give me there opinons so that I may use them for research.
> >
> > The title for it is , "Is opera a stagnant or an evolving art form?"
> >
> > What are peoples thoughts?
>
> My thought is that you are not ready to author a dissertation
> until/unless you can properly distinguish when to use THEIR as opposed
> to THERE...
>
> Perhaps you should revisit English 101 first...
JLaB
thought as such) has, to an extent, rescued traditional opera from the
post-war anarchists who did such damage to classical music as a whole
in their attempts to sever its links with the past. Unlike music
written for the concert hall, opera is just too expensive to be able to
survive healthily when a massive proportion of its potential public
hates the sound of it. There is a place for experimental work but
someone is going to have to dig deep indeed to fund a regular place for
it in an international opera house.
Lorin Maazel's "1984" may not have been a musical masterpiece - far
from it, in my view - but it more-or-less sold out at Covent Garden to
a far wider than usual public, keen to experience a new take on the
"Big Brother" phenomenon. This was, of course, because of its subject
but, had the music been composed by the illustrious Stockhausen, I
suspect that the house would have been half empty and the audience
profile quite horrifying. Of course, this too required someone to dig
deep...
The question of whether opera can continue to evolve, then, is linked
directly with the music that composers are writing. Certainly, there is
nothing preventing the continued creation of exhilerating
musicodramatic events (besides money, craft and talent) provided one is
attempting to do so at all. I think you (that is the person writing the
dissertation) should define your terms precisely. Opera is,
technically, a drama which is sung: "Orfeo", "Orfeo ed Euridice" and
"The Mask of Orpheus" are testament to the genre's vitality and
variety. Just as operetta is a sub-genre of opera, so is the modern,
West-End/Broadway musical. Whether you like all of these is a question
of taste; discounting any of them as "not opera" is, frankly, snobbery.
The idea that the operatic genre thrives on being archaic comes, I'm
afraid, from a mind that likes the idea of opera for all the wrong
reasons.
Soap Box
gerberk
again it has 4 centuries of full glory so it will survive Generations will
know Traviata and Boheme but as an art form it is dead.
It survives in popular music like david bowie
"JLaB" <ma...@johnlabouchardiere.com> schreef in bericht
news:1129654067.9...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
JLaB
music that touches your soul. Opera has to be both but the Beatles did
only one, as did Bowie. If he were to write an opera, though, it would
prove my point!
JLaB
Idiot house administrators, I'll give you, though.
Mark D Lew
JLaB <ma...@johnlabouchardiere.com> wrote:
> I wasn't aware that one could "author" anything. It is not a verb.
You lack awareness of the English language then.
Perhaps you were also unaware that one can question, support, sign,
note, voice, contact, dream, picture, light, frame, strap, brush, bag,
hammer or bandage things, too.
From your other post on this thread I see that you do at least
recognize that it's possible to fund or to link something, so there's
hope for you yet.
mdl
david...@aol.com
>Perhaps you were also unaware that one can question, support, sign,
note, voice, contact, dream, picture, light, frame, strap, brush, bag,
hammer or bandage things, too.
These nouns become verbs aren't quite analogous to "author." The
questioner may pose a question or question, the dreamer have a dream or
dream, and so forth. But can an author author? The baker may bake,
but does he baker? In all of these cases a more elaborate predicate
(e.g., to have a dream) is reduced to a single verb (to dream). But
there's already a perfectly good and less pretentious verb for what an
author does: to write. Or would you countenance a writer writering?
-david gable
Mark D Lew
<"david...@aol.com"> wrote:
> These nouns become verbs aren't quite analogous to "author." The
> questioner may pose a question or question, the dreamer have a dream or
> dream, and so forth. But can an author author? The baker may bake,
> but does he baker? In all of these cases a more elaborate predicate
> (e.g., to have a dream) is reduced to a single verb (to dream). But
> there's already a perfectly good and less pretentious verb for what an
> author does: to write. Or would you countenance a writer writering?
I would countenance using a verb which, according to Merriam-Webster,
has been in use in the English language for more than 400 years.
My examples are no less analogous than yours. As you note, baker and
writer each derive directly from their related noun. Author, even
though it has a similar sound, does not. Where is the more elaborate
predicate in this case? Does an author pose an auth, have an auth?
A better analogy would be father. A father can father something, but
he doesn't "fath" it. A broker can broker something, but he doesn't
"broke" it. A chauffeur chauffeurs, but he doesn't chauffe.
In these words, the final "er" sound has nothing to do with the suffix
in baker, writer, director, conductor, etc. It serves only to distract
from the real set of analogous cases. There are dozens of occupations
where the noun and the verb are the same. Just as an author authors,
so does a coach coach, a judge judge, a captain captain, and a cook
cook.
But this discussion, fascinating though it is, leads us away from the
real point: The reason "author" is a verb is not that any rule says it
can be, but simply that it is. The purpose of studying rules of
grammar is to better understand how our language does behave, not to
dictate how it should behave so that we might declare centuries of
established usage incorrect.
mdl
a pest who pesters
Little Jimmy Olsen
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote
> A broker can broker something, but he doesn't
> "broke" it. >
My shadowy youth was a penurious period when clones of Little Jimmy arrived
with alarming frequency. To keep the wolf from the door I worked for an
insurance brokerage named Marsh & McLennan Inc. One of the first things I
learned there was how to broke insurance. I also learned how to broker it,
but that was the same thing as broking it. The insurance business is full of
people who think they broke the stuff. But they hardly ever break it.
Footnote: "Lloyd's brokers - insurance business is generally brought to
Lloyd's by Lloyd's brokers who are insurance broking firms accredited by
Lloyd's to broke insurance business at Lloyd's." __ From a Lloyds website.
Little Jimmy Olsen . . . bowed but unbrokered.
david...@aol.com
>The reason "author" is a verb is not that any rule says it can be, but simply that it is.
In short, for the same reason that "ain't" is a verb. The use of
author as a verb is still ghastly, and if it becomes established usage
it will be because of the people who liked such a pretentious usage.
I'll stick with "to write."
-david gable
David Melnick
agree that "author" as a verb is correct English but means
something different from "write." As you, David, note, it
often appears pretentious, and one might add smarmy and
faux-trendy, usually used by blurb writers and gossip
columnists, so if its intention is to mark the writer as
superior it usually fails. That regular readers see it so
often and now interpret it to mean "write" without the added
wrinkle it carries is indicative of a transformation in the
language that is probably inevitable, but this is not
particularly a license to use it in the simple sense of
"write" without taking into account such associations.
In order to avoid unfortunate connotations, a newspaper copy
editor will typically change "authored" as a verb to "is the
author of" or to "wrote" or "has written," depending on the
context, assuming the copy is in the voice of a reporter, as
opposed to a gossip columnist, etc., or in a quotation.
dav
Mark D Lew
<"david...@aol.com"> wrote:
> In short, for the same reason that "ain't" is a verb. The use of
> author as a verb is still ghastly, and if it becomes established usage
> it will be because of the people who liked such a pretentious usage.
> I'll stick with "to write."
Fair enough. I don't object when people say one sort of usage is
*better* than another. I might even agree. What sets my alarm off is
when someone claims that a word doesn't exist when it clearly does.
mdl
Colin Reed
"JLaB" <ma...@johnlabouchardiere.com> wrote in message
news:1129651287.4...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
From www.dictionary.com
"
Usage Note: The verb author, which had been out of use for a long period,
has been rejuvenated in recent years with the sense "to assume
responsibility for the content of a published text." As such it is not quite
synonymous with the verb write; one can write, but not author, a love letter
or an unpublished manuscript, and the writer who ghostwrites a book for a
celebrity cannot be said to have "authored" the creation. The sentence He
has authored a dozen books on the subject was unacceptable to 74 percent of
the Usage Panel, probably because it implies that having a book published is
worthy of special lexical distinction, a notion that sits poorly with
conventional literary sensibilities and seems to smack of press agentry. The
sentence The Senator authored a bill limiting uses of desert lands in
California was similarly rejected by 64 percent of the Panel, though here
the usage is common journalistic practice and is perhaps justified by the
observation that we do not expect that legislators will actually write the
bills to which they attach their names. ·The use of author as a verb in
computer-related contexts is well established and unexceptionable."
Colin
Standard
nick....@ntlworld.com napisal(a):
> I'm preparing for my dissertation and was wondering if people could
> give me there opinons so that I may use them for research.
>
> The title for it is , "Is opera a stagnant or an evolving art form?"
>
> What are peoples thoughts?
It is a very simple - if not childish - dissertation theme. You may
consider from a very popular point of view asking people or compare
performances. There are very different opera productions all over the
world. Some of them are performed very naive, with old fashioned stage
settings and costumes like in thirties or sixties in 20th century, some
are performed very creatively. The same titles. Some stage directors do
ferer to modern life directing for instance "Orpheus and Euridice" by
Christoph Willibald Gluck in matrix computer virtual world - showing
modern inferno. On the other side of the globe some opera theatres
perform this same opera in pink dresses and false ustaches very
traditionally.
Id depens on a: performance, b: audience
One question: what people thoughts you are looking for?
producers? composers? audience often visiting opera?
New compositions and modern operas do appear almost every year on
different opera stages. Therefore it cannot be stagnant art for. On teh
other way - many (particularily provincial) opera houses do perform
operas very traditionally - as they did in Puccini times. This is
stagnant and not creative way.
Mark D Lew
<colin...@no-spam.lineone.net> wrote:
> From www.dictionary.com
>
> "
> Usage Note: The verb author, which had been out of use for a long period,
> has been rejuvenated in recent years [...]
For the record, that usage note is from American Heritage.
Dictionary.com is one of several dictionary sites that rebrands content
from other sources but doesn't author any material of its own.
Ameritage Heritage has adopted a policy of aggressively pushing its
dictionary to all the online sources, in contrast to Merriam-Webster,
OED, Random House, etc, which are seeking to preserve their brand name
and control their content. Any time you find a dictionary entry online
not identified with a publisher, it's probably American Heritage.
AH is a decent dictionary, but it has its idiosyncrasies. I've found
it to be fairly conservative with regard to foreign words and technical
terms, but it's very liberal with neologisms (like the notorious "za").
mdl
Pavel314
news:1129841489....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> nick....@ntlworld.com napisal(a):
>> I'm preparing for my dissertation and was wondering if people could
>> give me there opinons so that I may use them for research.
(their, not there. English is weird.)
>> The title for it is , "Is opera a stagnant or an evolving art form?"
>>
>> What are peoples thoughts?
I'm a people and my thought is that it is more than stagnant, it's dead.
I just logged on this evening after watching yet another version of "Barber
of Seville", which Rossini wrote in 1816, on DVD. Almost 200 years later, I
can get a DVD of this opera in many versions by many production companies;
it's still performed live in my local opera house. Millions of people, maybe
billions, have thrilled to this opera over the last 189 years. People will
go to see this particular opera over and over because it's really, really
good. They enjoy watching and listening to it.
Has there been any opera in the last 50-100 years that people really like?
An opera that they will go to see time and time again because they really
enjoy it? I don't know of any. Some modern opera may be a short-lived fad,
proclaimed as a breakthrough in human awareness by the all-knowing,
self-appointed experts in the field, but after a few seasons where people
force themselves to sit through it so that they can discuss it at their next
cocktail party, you never hear of it again.
Opera devolved into the musical in America; "Oklahoma!", "West Side Story",
"Guys and Dolls", etc. Some of these were excellent works of art in their
own form, very enjoyable and not written only for the critics and
intellectuals.
Opera, like symphonies, had an era where it was invented then developed to
its epitome. It was a product of its time and culture. Future attempts at
opera and the symphonic forms were doomed to failure as attempts to gild the
lily.
I fear that motion pictures are past their prime as well. It seems that most
of what we are offered today is remakes of or sequels to earlier movies.
Paul
David Melnick
za?
I just looked it up. Is that the low-calorie version?
:-)
dav, MDIMM
REG
which is designated as obsolete, relates to being the author of an action.
The second, which was apparently in good stead at the time of the OED's
publication, is "author" as we use it today as a verb, and references are
cited back to 1602 for such usage. I've not been following this part of the
thread closely, but don't see how there can be any doubt as to the
longstanding legitimacy of "to author".
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:201020051657018072%mark...@earthlink.net...
aest...@hotmail.com
repertoire?
grndp...@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.opera
From: aesthe...@hotmail.com - Find messages by this author
Date: 20 Oct 2005 22:56:26 -0700
Local: Fri, Oct 21 2005 12:56 am
Subject: Re: Is opera a stagnant or evolving art form?
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show
original | Report Abuse
Could BARBER OF S. be the oldest opera to have never left the
repertoire?
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text
~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, if restricted to operas written by an Italian composer.
No, if one considers the longer history of DON GIOVANNI.
==G/P Dave
Mark D Lew
<Rich...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I've not been following this part of the
> thread closely, but don't see how there can be any doubt as to the
> longstanding legitimacy of "to author".
Recap:
J la B sent a short, trollish note saying that "author" is not a verb.
I objected. David 7 Gable and I went back and forth about it a bit, at
the end of which is emerged that David's real objection is that he
feels it's poor style to use "author" as a verb. I agree that that's
true much of the time but not all of the time.
J la B hasn't been heard from again. I don't think anyone still
following disagrees about the verb's pedigree -- just reasonable
differences of opinions about how to best use it.
mdl
Mark D Lew
<Pave...@NOSPAM.comcast.net> wrote:
> Has there been any opera in the last 50-100 years that people really like?
> An opera that they will go to see time and time again because they really
> enjoy it? I don't know of any.
50 years, no. 100 years, yes, though not as many as there were a few
years ago -- not because they're becoming less popular, but because
they're passing the 100-year mark. Butterfly had its centenary just
last year, and Boheme a few years before that.
Still within the past 100 years is all the late Puccini (Schicchi,
Fanciulla, Turandot, etc) plus some Strauss and Janacek that still
thrives. Others might suggest Britten as well.
Your point is valid, though. I think it's just that you set the bar a
little too high with 100 years.
mdl
who would rather see Florencia en el Amazonas 10 times than Barbiere di
Siviglia
La Donna Mobile
Giulio Cesare on an aria album recorded in 1968. It hit me in the solar
plexus as being extraordinarily outdated (IMO). I'm not saying it was
unpleasant to listen to, but, to me, it sounded anachronistic, with the
orchestra sounding, to me, very 19th Century, with rich plush sounds.
This is not the Handel I am accustomed to; let's say I first discovered
Handel in the late '70s, and this recording, from the year I was born,
sounds entirely outdated.
I don't know whether this proves 'stagnation' or 'evolution' but I would
offer it as evidence that the opera-listening experience is different
for someone active today than it was for their grandparents. It would,
perhaps, be interesting to use Handel as a case study.
--
http://www.madmusingsof.me.uk/weblog/
http://www.geraldine-curtis.me.uk/photoblog/
REG
if author as a verb had been standard English four centuries ago, it would
be strange for it not to be considered so now.
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:211020051410260168%mark...@earthlink.net...
Mark D Lew
<Rich...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Did anyone make reference to any of the style manuals? I would imagine that
> if author as a verb had been standard English four centuries ago, it would
> be strange for it not to be considered so now.
I don't think I need to remind you that there are plenty of usages
which were standard 400 years ago that are frowned upon today. The AH
note is an abbreviated version of a slightly longer discussion in AH's
Book of English Usage. The latter specifies that although "author" as
a verb made its first appearance centuries ago, it then fell out of
fashion for 250 years before being rejuvenated in the mid 20th century.
I wouldn't be surprised if some style manuals would side with David,
especially terse, prescriptive ones. Others, I suspect, would caution
against using the word frivolously but still support it for contexts
when the subtle shade of meaning is appropriate, which is more or less
what AH does [*]. Of the ones I own, Bernstein makes no mention of it,
and my Fowler, alas, has mysteriously disappeared from the shelf.
mdl
La Donna Mobile
I'm surprised.
REG
How frequently do words stay in the common vocabulary but "usages" as basic
as a verb form become "frowned upon"? \
"Mark D Lew" <mark...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:221020051856451691%mark...@earthlink.net...
Mark D Lew
<Rich...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> How frequently do words stay in the common vocabulary but "usages" as basic
> as a verb form become "frowned upon"? \
Or to put it another way, how long before the wretched pedants
surrender? Have they given up on "impact" yet?
Now I'm really wishing I knew what happened to my misplaced Fowler,
because I seem to recall he has a little list of nouns which absolutely
should not be used as verbs, and about half of them seem perfectly
ordinary to us today (eg, contact, interview).
The Internet-ubiquitous American Heritage has another usage note on
this, at "contact". <http://www.bartleby.com/61/49/C0594900.html>
MDL
David Melnick
I'm efforting this topic. Really I am.
So, is English a richer language now that people use
"impact" figuratively all the time, be it as noun or verb?
I'm neutral on the subject.
Also, what are your thoughts about "thou" and "you" and
about "cock" and "rooster?"
Sincerely,
dav ("He words me, girls, he words me") meln
capa0...@aol.com
>
When I want to learn something, I talk to others --
> preferably others who know more than me.
>
> mdl
==================
Mark, as someone who almost invariably knows less about the subject in
question than you do, I'm delighted to point out that it's 'More than
I.'
;-)
Pat
Mark D Lew
<capa0...@aol.com> wrote:
> Mark, as someone who almost invariably knows less about the subject in
> question than you do, I'm delighted to point out that it's 'More than
> I.'
And I am equally delighted to be corrected!
mdl
JLaB
and my own delving into dusty tomes) that "author" must indeed have
been a verb in the distant past. I'm reluctant to accept that its
current usage can be sanctioned, however, since it reeks so vehemently
of the faux terms that have arisen in society's media-driven search for
'direct' communication. In its original appearance in this string
it was, at best, tautologous: at worst it was far more 'trollish'
than my initial response. After all, the poor chap was only asking
people for "there" [sic.] comments on a highly subjective matter
(which was by definition, therefore, a valid, if not wholly reliable,
means of research) and did not deserve to be dismissed from the outset
because of a careless stenographic slip.