Valuing Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera Fantasias for Woodwind Instruments

This book approaches opera fantasias - instrumental works that use themes from a single opera as the body of their virtuosic and flamboyant material - both historically and theoretically, concentrating on compositions for and by woodwind-instrument performers in Italy in the nineteenth century.

Rachel N. Becker is Assistant Professor of Musicology and Oboe at Boise State University, USA. She previously taught at the University of Cambridge, UK. Rachel's research focuses on issues of genre, virtuosity, and gender. She has published on musical ecphrasis and on gendering of woodwind instruments, and she remains active internationally as an oboist.

Introduction Chapter 1: The opera fantasia in musicological context Chapter 2: The Italian context Chapter 3: Genre theory and the opera fantasia Chapter 4: Gender implications of the opera fantasia Chapter 5: A return to musical narrative through the opera fantasia Chapter 6: Opera fantasias on Verdi's Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and Un ballo in maschera Conclusion