Curtain, gong, steam: wagnerian technologies of nineteenth-century opera, hardcover/gundula kreuzer

In this innovative book, Gundula Kreuzer argues for the foundational role of technologies in the conception, production, and study of nineteenth-century opera.

She shows how composers increasingly incorporated novel audiovisual effects in their works and how the uses and meanings of the required apparatuses changed through the twentieth century, sometimes still resonating in stagings, performance art, and popular culture today.

Focusing on devices (which she dubs Wagnerian technologies) intended to amalgamate operas various media while veiling their mechanics, Kreuzer offers a practical counternarrative to Wagners idealist theories of total illusionism.

At the same time, Curtain, Gong, Steam s multifaceted exploration of the three titular technologies repositions Wagner as catalyst more than inventor in the history of operatic production.

With its broad chronological and geographical scope, this book deepens our understanding of the material and mechanical conditions of historical operatic practice as well as of individual works, both well known and obscure.

About the Author: Gundula Kreuzer is Associate Professor of Music at Yale University.

She is the author of the award-winning Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich and editor of Verdis instrumental chamber music for The Works of Giuseppe Verdi .