A01=Claire Seymour
Ambiguity
Author_Claire Seymour
Benjamin Britten
Category=AVLF
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
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eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Moral Resolution
Music
Music Analysis
Operas
Public Communication
Sexuality
Twentieth Century
Product details
- ISBN 9781843833147
- Weight: 548g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 17 May 2007
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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This controversial analysis of Britten's operatic works demonstrates how he used music to explore his most private concerns.
Claire Seymour examines ways in which Britten's operas explored and articulated the inherent ambiguity and latent sexuality of music, particularly song, and suggests that they may illustrate his search for a public "voice" which would embody, communicate, and perhaps resolve his private beliefs and anxieties. She demonstrates how the delicate balance between private and public communication, and the tension between art as self-expression and art as moral resolution were key concerns in Britten's music.
Analyses of Britten's operas from Paul Bunyan to Death in Venice, the three Church Parables, and several of the "children's operas" offer evidence that, for Britten, opera was the natural medium through which to explore, express and, paradoxically, repress his private concerns.
