2024.09.2 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews
Paul Thom, Opera as Art: Philosophical Sketches, Lexington Books, 2023, 218pp., $39.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781666914252.
Reviewed by Nina Penner, Brock University
Paul Thom’s Opera as Art provides a sketch of a philosophy of opera informed by twelve case studies from Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) to Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (1925). Thom defines opera as a performing art involving “the human voice, language, movement, instrumental music, and visual display.” What differentiates opera from other performing arts that involve some of these ingredients is opera’s use of accompanied singing to represent “characters engaging in dramatic action” (2).
The ontology that underpins Thom’s account generally conforms to what David Davies (2011) refers to as the “classical paradigm.” Opera performances are performances of pre-existing works authored by composers and librettists. As such, the performers’ aim is to faithfully present these works to audiences and, ideally, do so in a way that also…
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