Music in the Present Tense. Rossini's Italian Operas in Their Time

Rossini’s Italian operas enjoyed enormous success when they first appeared in early nineteenth-century Europe. Yet, these works have played a decidedly secondary role in twentieth- and twenty-first-century accounts of nineteenth-century music. One reason for this gap between early fame and later neglect is that the deep causes of these works’ success have not been properly examined: the call of history has not been answered precisely because Rossini’s operas have been kept out of history. _Music in the Present Tense_ sets out to think afresh about the motives behind the Rossinian furore by putting his works back into history: into the culture and society within which they were conceived, performed, seen, heard, and discussed, and to which they contributed in such exciting ways. The book’s central concern is the peculiar relationship between representation and reality posited in Rossini’s Italian operas, and the ideology behind this relationship. Rossini’s dramaturgy emerges as a radically new and specifically Italian reaction to the epoch-making changes in most spheres of human activity witnessed in Europe between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. The implications of this interpretation go well beyond specialist interest, opening up new ways to explore romantic music, and addressing crucial issues in the history of modernity such as trauma, repetition, and the healing power of theatricality.