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The fragments of Alexis’ comedy Agonis or Hippiskos suggest a scenario based on a love intrigue: a young man is in love with a hetaira but is impeded by a foreigner; he therefore puts to practice a cunning scheme, which involves duping the obstructing character with a false display of wealth. The hippiskos, a kind of garment, probably functioned as a recognition token. The use of an item of clothing as a means of anagnorisis — instead of more standard objects, such as necklaces and jewels — was Alexis’ deliberate innovation, intended to breathe new life into the trite topos of recognition by tokens. Alexis drew attention to his innovation by naming his comedy after a garment, a virtually unique phenomenon in the Greek comic canon. A key scene of Agonis or Hippiskos may be illustrated on a calyx-krater of the Varrese Painter (Naples, 118333, ca. 340 b.c.), in which the main love triangle of Alexis’ scenario is shown on stage. No other South Italian vase showcases a piece of clothing offered in this way, and the uniqueness of the image matches the singularity of Alexis’ unconventional title. The elderly man’s figure in the vase-painting suggests that the foreigner of Alexis’ play was not a miles gloriosus but was either a pimp or a senex amator. The Agonis or Hippiskos must have been produced in Magna Graecia soon after its original performance in Athens in the 340s. The vase-painting provides an interesting testimonium for the evolution of comic costume and footwear in the later phases of Middle Comedy. In combination with the textual fragments, it indicates Alexis’ skill in the representation of dramatic characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second part of the twentieth century has been influenced by in-yer-face aesthetics exemplified by innovative and shocking tragedies of the representative playwrights such as Howard Brenton, Mark Ravenhill and Sarah Kane. In the beginning of the twenty first century verbal and political theatre have been defined by the plays of Martin Crimp, Tim Crouch and Simon Stephens within the context of 1999 Hans Thies Lehmann's ground-breaking study Postdramatic Theatre. Stephens latest play Nuclear War (2017) represents postdramaticity to its most extreme form. nameless woman character in the play, mourning the loss of a loved man on the seventh anniversary of his death, always staggers around the city and sometimes speaks by the help of a chorus of four actors-dancers and thoughts inside her head, searches connection, affection and sexual fulfilment. On the other hand, Simon Stephens's latest play Nuclear War can be analysed within the context of postdramatic traits. Hans Thies Lehmann's deconstructs traditions of pre-dramatic and dramatic theatre and especially his notion of postdramatic traits are well suited to describe postdramatic performance in Stephens's play. Applying postdramatic theory and traits, this paper will analyse postdramatic performance in Nuclear War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the rhetorical nature of "tangled" memories, what Marita Sturken describes as an intermeshing of sanctioned histories with personal and/or public narratives. To exemplify this phenomenon, the author examines the public memories of Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Belle Boyd. Greenhow and Boyd actively promoted slavery in their published accounts yet common "retellings" of their lives often elide these positions, and instead focus on their sensational work as Confederate spies. Such a reframing depicts them as progressive women, creating a tangled memory that uncritically lionizes them. Ultimately, the author argues, more complex "retellings" of historical figures are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents author thoughts on opera performance in the twenty first century. Topics include claims on identity between performers and audience within operatic, theatrical, and art historical contexts; several claims underwritten and foremost by the American and German racial identity; and ability of scholars to conduct public discourse considered the case of Brahms work and removal by artists and journalists.

The article focuses on the analysis of the incorporation of Robot K-456 animatronic doppelganger by performance artists Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik. Topics discussed include the first exposure of the robot at the Karlheinz Stockhausen's musical "Originale" which they co-produced, the development of their collaboration rooted from the avatar of failure and fear, and exploration of the first solo act of the robot on the opera titled "Robot Opera."

Throughout the history of music, the vision of the historicalstylistic perspective of the lyrical and dramatic musical genre has suffered many construction turns, due to various social and political contexts. Thus, opera music develops along with other arts (literature, painting), becoming a language accessible to the masses, and supporting the transposition of the surrounding reality in art. A new music is born, a living music with a substrate embedded in the ordinary, which will be reflected in the work of Georges Bizet and Giacomo Puccini and will serve as a basis for the evolution of opera vocals, giving rise to controversial opera characters, both from the point of view of the vocal score and from the point of view of the psychological and theatrical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia (L'Inutile Precauzione or Almaviva), written on Cesare Sterbini's libretto in 1816, originates in the play Le Barbier de Séville or Précaution inutile by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Stendhal states that it is "a masterpiece". About the Rosinian work, and Grigore Constantinescu defines it as "a model of concision and musical and theatrical logic whose freshness was not shadowed by nearly two centuries of existence. Although Rossini uses many fragments of his previous works, the way he has built his architecture impresses through the unity of expression and the coherence of solutions". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the play "A Trip to the Moon (An Opera for All Ages)," directed by Karen Gillingham and starring Robert Murray, Iwona Sobotka, and Sophia Burgos, performed at the Barbican Hall in London, England on July 9, 2017 is presented. It outlines the characters and explores their symbolic significance. It examines the libretto created by composer Andrew Norman, the challenges he faced, and how they shape his decision. An overview of the story is also given.

A literary criticism of the play "Love's Last Shift," by Colley Cibber is presented. The author states that the play has been successful at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in London, England, and it has entered the repertory. The author mentions that the play exposes the incompatibility between the moralistic reform movements of the 1690s and the inherited plotlines and character types.

Traditionally it has been considered that the change in the configuration of the character of Helen in Euripides does not take place until its tragedy Helen. This is, without doubt, the central work in which the redefinition and positivation of Helen will reach a full theatrical development. We think, with everything, that a more attentive reading of the motives used in previous tragedies gives us the key for the correct interpretation of the innovations that the author is introducing in the tragic characterization of this mythical figure. This process can be fixed in a convulsed period in the Athenian life, which goes from Nicias's Peace to Euripides' definitive march of Athens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the heretofore unexamined role of women characters as performing agents in Thomas Kilroy’s play, Talbot’s Box. Employing a close analysis of textual patterns, it argues that the first Priest Figure and the Woman represent a collaborative effort by two women to highlight and to resist their confinement into roles of symbolized motherhood. In this aim, they are ultimately unsuccessful. Their relationship is fractured, and its object thwarted by the actions of the play’s male characters. We see their suppression as shameful indictment of what it means to be a woman in the world Kilroy is showing us, and by drawing attention to their pain, we are better able to understand why Matt Talbot seeks a life of solitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the function of the dramatic score the first theater of Encina for creating a dramatic or fictional space that viewers will see on stage is analyzed; understood spectacular movements, gestures and dialogue of the characters score. These elements acquire an essential significant burden for the development of the story on stage, that although were part of the dramatic conventions of the time, will be Juan del Encina who explore complex theatrical strategies from them to solve a problem that began to appear: grant a space-time unity increasingly autonomous despite sharing the physical space (the court of the Dukes) with viewers, even integrating them into fiction, demonstrating the complexity and diversity of nuances that are configured on the conception of a total spectacle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper "Los significados de lo demoníaco: abstracciones del mal en la narrativa de Roberto el Diablo" ("The Meanings of the Demoniac: Abstractions of Evil in the Narrative of Roberto el Diablo"), the author identifies abstract concepts that are implicit in the concrete features that define the main character of Robert le Diable. These notions may be: subversion, deformity, disproportion or plurality. In this way, representations of evil in Western culture are registered and deconfigured thorough a popular and traditional character of European culture. Thus, it is a study of the forms and conceptualizations of the diabolical, and its application in a 16th century Spanish play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the aspects of theatrical actors performing animal characters reflecting on the adapted theatrical performance "Kafka's Monkey," scripted by Colin Teevan and narrative by Franz Kafka. Topics discussed include the feature of the performances performed by various artists such as Kathryn Hunter, the aspects of the performance's interaction with the audience members, and the influence of Kafka on practitioners and individuals who theorised theater.

This article, a continuation of “Orpheus and Pickleherring in the Kremlin: The ‘Ballet’ for the Tsar of February 1672” (Scando-Slavica59:2), focuses on the second performance given for Tsar Aleksej Michajlovič by foreign residents of Moscow. This encore production, in May 1672, expanded upon the programme of the February event: it was longer, featured more characters on stage, and even included some female characters (certainly portrayed by male performers). In addition to revealing this May entertainment, we discuss the identities of the performers (largely drawn from the merchant population of Moscow's Foreign Quarter), and we suggest that the author of the eyewitness account describing the February performance was Christoff Koch (ennobled von Kochen), a Swedish correspondent and commercial representative in Moscow. Almost simultaneously with the May performance, the Russian court began to make plans for a more permanent theatre; we trace the court's attempts to contact the important German acting troupe headed by the Paulsen and Velten families. Finally, we discuss the impacts these two performances may have had on the plays offered by the tsar's court theatre beginning in October 1672, with special focus on the character Pickleherring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the character of Gurnemanz in Richard Wagner's opera "Parsifal." It contends that Wagner's depiction of the character is a squire and not a knight as referred to in the 1865 sketch reproduced in his "The Brown Book." It contrasts the performance of René Pape as knight with those of Hans Hotter, John Tomlinson and Kwangchul Youn who sung the character as squire.

This paper explores the universe of the actor's dilemma from a psychological point of view; this famous dilemma illustrates the paradoxical connection between the actors' authentic emotions and the characters' emotions interpreted on stage. The actor has always been confronted with the phenomenon which has its starting point in Diderot's Paradox and which is summarized by the following question: Is the actor allowed to express his own emotions on stage? According to theatrologists, this question represents the essence of the actors' art. According to psychologists, the manner in which the actor lives his own emotions, as well as the character' s, is a fascinating subject which encompasses issues connected with empathy, the theory of mind, the processuality of emotions, emotional expressivity, emotional memory, imagination, creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giuseppe Verdi creates, in his opera "Rigoletto", a different type of Seducer, who is not punished for his deeds; he creates the Duke of Mantua. Verdi's Don Juan is the man of the ephemeral moment, of the futureless conquests, He characterizes himself in his ballad: "La donna è mobile." "The woman changes her mind, oftentimes, Insane is the one who believes in her." Giuseppe Verdi went even further than W.A. Mozart and opened other gates to the Seducer, where the moral does no longer exist or is no longer considered. Verdi, in contrast with Mozart, played with the real and the surreal, with the sublime and the grotesque, alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is intended to outline the multilateral and contradicting portrait of Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, presented as a musical character by the composer Gheorghe Mustea. He places the emphasis not on the historic episode, but on the human situations generated by the main character, Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, thus highlighting his psychological, theological, philosophical and moral profiles, as resulted from the hero's behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as 1844, Henry Fothergill Chorley, one of the most authoritative figures of Victorian journalism, drew attention to two young composers, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, whose recent success could not escape the critic's attention. However, while Verdi's operas made their regular appearance in London over the decades following Ernani's premier at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1845, it was not until 1870 (with L'Olandese Dannato, alias Der Fliegende Holländer) that the first full performance of a dramatic work by Wagner was given in the English capital city. Notwithstanding this disparity, a first glance at the reviews that appeared in The Times, The Musical World, The Athenaeum, The Sunday Times and The Spectator, and that were then reproduced in the columns of The Musical World, shows the extent to which, between 1845 and 1855, both composers became object of severe critical scrutiny. By the mid-1850s Wagner's figure was conceptualized on the basis of factors that only in part depended on the quality of his music; yet, the manner in which his controversial writings impinged on the Victorian musical milieu benefited Verdi's image, which came to be understood as a more reassuring popular composer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the representation of American native populations in European theatrical productions from the late 17th to the mid-18th centuries. The author comments on the operas produced by the Purcell brothers in 1695 and Carl Heinrich Graun in 1755. He also considers the characteristics of the Spanish comedias (comedies) at the time, including their representation of American Indians. The so-called Leyenda Negra (Black Legend), a type of writing that demonizes the Spanish empire, is also explored.

An essay is presented on the influence of the character of Ruzante, created and played by Paduan actor Angelo Beolco, on the threatrical work of English poet and playwright William Shakespeare such as the character of Launce e Launcelot. Topics include the similarities between the roles acted by actor William Kemp and the characters of Launce and Launcelot il Gobbo, the Venetian reception of Ruzante, and the link between the works of Ruzante and Shakespeare.

The article presents a study which examines the characterisation of suicide in western opera from 1607 to 2006. The study analyzes the synopses of all the operas listed in the monograph including the completed suicides, non-fatal suicidal acts, and suicidal thoughts to determine the relation of a mental disorder. Results show that suicide has been considered as an option when characters are faced with distressing event or situation.

The article explores the mystery of Wotan's missing eye in German composer Richard Wagner's epic opera "Ring." It examines the frequency with which the left eye is damaged, as well as the importance of the missing eye for the interpretation of Wotan's character. It also discusses the relationship between laterality and art, with an emphasis on Wagner's intentions for the staging of his operas.

The article explores the ontological status of operatic music and characters. The author argues that there is no reason to doubt the proposition that a given opera’s characters communicate through song and hear the music they and others make. The author refines and expands on the work of the music theorists Edward T. Cone and Peter Kivy, both of whom have argued that opera characters live in a world that is fundamentally different from that of everyday life, and where singing, rather than speech, is the normative mode of communication and expression. Operas discussed include "Le Nozze di Figaro" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and "Die Walküre" by Richard Wagner.

The article offers the author's insights regarding the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare and how the character of Hamlet should be played by actors in the stage. The author says that the play has begun with a tense opening scene on battlements and commercial playwright Shakespeare has incorporated a culture of the Elizabethan Age in the play. He mentions Jean Marsden's "The Appropriation of Shakespeare," which can be used in providing essay on Shakespeare after Restoration.

The article discusses the history of opera in France during the period of the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Reference is made to operas inspired by the events and political background of the Revolution. Topics discussed include the creation of operas centered on political propaganda of the Revolution, operas of the period focusing on heros of antiquity as symbols of Revolution heros, and the increased role of choirs and orchestras for opera works in France during the period of Revolution.

The article presents an analysis of the calculated dramaturgy of Gaetano Donizetti's opera "Maria Stuarda." How Donizetti worked through idiomatic conventions to define characters in detail is explored. The opera is chiefly characterized by the polarization of its characters' personalities. The article stressed the need to understand how the composer delineates the characters intended for Ronzi de Begnis and Del Sere in his score and explains how the first entrances of Elisabeth and Maria says much about their differing musical personalities.

Objective: To develop an analysis of the scenarios in the opera, are the staging of passion and eroticism, considering concepts from psychoanalysis and existential philosophy of Kierkegaard. Development: From stadiums in the way of life of Kierkegaard, examines the tensions between characters of different operas and raises points with Freudian psychoanalytic developments. Conclusions: The opera is staged by the passion and eroticism, where human conflicts are played and the different ways of expression that take the complexities of the relationship between narcissism and object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the depiction of the intellectually disabled character Lennie in the opera "Of Mice and Men," composed by Carlisle Floyd and based on the novel by John Steinbeck. The history of social conditions of mentally challenged people in the U.S., euthanasia, and U.S. civil rights for disabled people are discussed, as well as the influence of the films "Charly" and "The Rain People" on Floyd's characterization of Lennie.

The article focuses on the Three Boys that are part of the characters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflöte." The few existing illustrations of the Three Boys from early performances reportedly indicate that there was some discord over the intended gender and age of the characters. Nonetheless, the Three Boys are said to be a central presence in "Die Zauberflöte" libretto and score. They enjoy more stage and singing time, more intricate music, and more narrative importance than any other child characters in the professional Viennese theater to that date.

The article discusses the fortunes of bird catcher Papageno, a character in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, "Die Zauberflöte," in librettist Emanuel Schikaneder's own sequel, "Das Labyrinth" and the Gozzi-derived "Die Sylphen." It contends that Papageno's stuttering, repetitive speech patterns drawn on other figures of mimicry and echolalia that establish the comical sidekick as a totem for the Singspiel's openness to fruitful multiplication. It also argues that "Das Labyrinth" and "Die Sylphen" reimagine the afterlife of Papageno, elevating him to a status of a protagonist.

An introduction is presented in which discusses various articles within the issue on topics including the portrayal of Greek mythological figure Electra in ancient tragedy plays, Victorian art and opera music.

The Bengal Renaissance ushered in the process of multifaceted modernization resulting in the major reshaping of the theatrical space both in terms of convention and praxis. Abandoning the convention of cross-dressing (where the earlier male actors were dressed as women to represent female characters), this new theatrical space began to accommodate the women actors for the representation of female characters. Parallel with the emergence of the "New Woman" in the upper middle class society of the nineteenth century, the women actors also constituted a segregated sphere of the emancipated women. Although "free" to encounter the public sphere, they were denied the degree of social acceptability/status that was otherwise available to the then upper middle class "New Women." This paper tries to locate the experience of a female actor of nineteenth century: Binodini Dasi: as is rendered in her two short autobiographical writings and the re-imagination of that experience in the twentieth century play Tiner Taloar by Utpal Dutt. Dutt uses the historical material to explore the consolidation and redefinition of the feminine space in his contemporary theatre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence has a significant and varied role in the theater of Jean Rotrou. Discord and strife are natural to the stage and violence is one of the ways such conflict may be expressed. The inherently spectacular nature of violence makes it particularly theatrical. At the same time, violence pleasingly tantalizes audiences. In this examination of Rotrou's entire theatrical corpus, I first consider the use of 'real' violence, both on stage and off. More interesting and even more common is potential violence, which includes threats of all sorts, as well as fortuitous interruptions. Potential violence avoids the serious difficulties that staging 'real' violence entails; furthermore it opens the door to theatricality, as threats may be mere poses. Rotrou's most innovative use of violence is to make of it a conscious performance on the part of his characters. Violence is thus tied to the performance of insanity, to cross-dressing, and to his fanfarons, among other elements. Finally Rotrou's masterpiece, Le Véritable Saint Genest, reproduces the two levels of agency of violence-the playwright and his characters-while adding a third level, that of the violence represented, recounted, or threatened in the embedded play performed by Genest's troupe. From a basic building block of dramatic spectacle and plot, Rotrou constructs a reflection on the nature of theatrical illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reprint of the 1960 text "'Musiktheater'--Toward a Definition," by Götz Friedrich and Joachim Herz, which originally appeared in the journal "Theater der Zeit" in 1960. The article discusses the definition of the term "Musiktheater" in relation to the work of the Komische Oper opera in Berlin, Germany and its artistic director Walter Felsenstein. The authors offer criteria for characters and plots in music theater.

The concept of theatricality initiated in the theatre performance extended its influence over most different creations. Among these, there is the novel and, subsequently, Dostoevsky's work. In The Demons theatricality is deeply related to freedom, the way the human beings assert themselves using theatre-like means. The exposure, the exhibition, the public assumption of some major desiderates offer Dostoevsky's hero the opportunity to exercise the attributes of freedom. The present study is but an attempt to bring to light the "theatricality" in the reactions of Dostoevsky's characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with composer Jake Heggie is presented. He discusses his collaboration with librettist Gene Scheer in composing the opera "Moby-Dick". When asked about previous film adaptations of the novel, he says they were unsatisfactory because they interpreted the original text too literally. He comments on the relationships between the characters Ahab, Starbuck, Greenhorn and Queequeg and their importance in the opera.

The article discusses the operas "Four Saints in Three Acts" and "The Mother of Us All," written by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson. The music and themes are compared in the context of pageants based on American history. The discussion focuses on how the characteristics of historical figures such as suffragette Susan B. Anthony and Union Army military commander and 18th president of the United States Ulysses S. Grant are portrayed. The dramaturgical idea that plays are landscapes of relationships is mentioned.

According to popular belief, it was the limited vocal abilities of the Viennese Don Ottavio, Francesco Morella, that led to the replacement of his original aria »Il mio tesoro« by the newly composed »Dalla sua pace«. It seems questionable to seek the reasons for this change in the score purely in the figure of Morella, however, as it is quite conceivable that »Dalla sua pace« was written and placed to anticipate the altered balance between Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Act 2. It would, admittedly, be rash to draw conclusions about the significance of the aria from its supposed genesis. »Dalla sua pace« constitutes a rupture in the conception of the figure of Don Ottavio that cannot be avoided, even by removing »Il mio tesoro«. Nonetheless: to the extent that Don Ottavio falls apart as a consistent »figure«, he becomes a »medium«, testifying for a moment in »Dalla sua pace« to that transcendence which replaces the »forgiveness/mercy ending« (Nagel) of buffa and seria as a »fulfilled moment« (Kunze). With regard to the removal (or at least shortening) of the scena ultima in the Vienna version, the present article suggests understanding »Dalla sua pace« not as the result of Mozart rethinking merely Don Ottavio, but actually Don Giovanni as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents criticism of Conductor Emmanuelle Heim and Director Robert Carsen's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" on DVD, an opera by Claudio Monteverdi. The author looks at casting, orchestration, and interpretation of the meaning of the story, which involves the Roman Emperor Nero's affair with the courtesan Poppaea Sabina and the personification of Fortune and Love.

A literary criticism of the theater "Offending the Audience" by Peter Handke is presented. It outlines the characters and explores the symbolic significance of the characters. It examines the presentation of the radical theatrical reduction by associating it to the emptiness of the stage. The performer's statements have been viewed important in expressing the theatrical reduction.

A literary criticism of the theater "Rhinoceros" by Eugene Ionesco is presented. It outlines the characters and explores the symbolic significance of the characters. It examines the symbolic meaning of the rhinoceros which is being portrayed by the characters to represent the defiant behavior of humans. An overview of the story is given.

The article looks at the immolation of composer Richard Wagner's opera character Brünnhilde in relation to the Indian funeral practice of Satì. It examines why Brünnhilde died by burning, making her immolation scene to be one of the most difficult to stage in all opera. The article examines the presence of the music of rapturous love in Brünnhilde's self-immolation scene, and argues that the music can be accounted for if Brünnhilde's suicide is read as an act of Satì.

The article analyzes the music and the characters of the 19th-century opera "Tannhäser," by Richard Wagner, focusing on the main character who submits to spiritual authority and yet questions socially-accepted norms. It notes that expression of conflicting emotions or inclinations were also depicted in the opera "Der fliegende Holläder," also by Wagner. The author describes the music and scenes of every acts which underline the conflicts within the character of Tannhäser.

With a diverse and colourful cast of animals, birds, insects and human villagers, Příhody lišky Bystroušky (known in English as The Cunning Little Vixen), is one of Leoš Janáček's most popular, if peculiar, operas. Though nowadays Bystrouška is typically characterised as a charming portrayal of the continuous renewal of life in nature, this idea emerged only gradually from a tangle of competing and occasionally contradictory views in which, however, the complexity of the moral laws by which the opera's inhabitants live was frequently central. By tracing the history of the opera's stagings in the Czech Republic; drawing out themes that developed in the journalistic and critical discourse around those performances; and reading the opera's music and stage action closely, this article argues that the amoral codes of Bystrouška's world not only inhere in the story, its text, and even, perhaps, in the idea of nature's cycle of life itself, but that at certain times in the opera they are also given expression through particular correlations and disjunctions between the opera's music and the physical actions and gestures of the singers on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction to a series of articles about blondeness in opera is presented which discusses the perception of blondes in Western society, negative associations of blondeness, and the fact that few opera composers and librettists specifically dictate blondeness for certain characters.

The article discusses red hair color in opera and the lack of physical description provided by composers and librettists, who, unlike novelists, focus on musical cues rather than visual cues. The author suggests that redheaded characters in opera are indicated through metaphors associated with redness, such as fire, and discusses characterization through hair color and the criminal and sexual connotations of red hair. Discussions of redheaded characters in three operas are provided, including the character of Loge in Wilhelm Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold," the character of Fredigundis in Franz Schmidt's "Fredigundis," and that character of Lola in Franz Schreker's "Irrelohe."

The article discusses hair color and characterization in opera. The author suggests that tenors and characters considered to be good are usually blonde, while characters with darker personalities usually have dark hair. He also discusses race in opera and determination of the racial makeup and appearances of historical characters in dramatic productions, such as those in Wilhelm Richard Wagner's "The Valkyrie." The author examines several characters in "The Valkyrie" and how their physical appearances reflect their personalities. The author also discusses the associations of bearded and beardless characters and when he feels that beardlessness is appropriate. The author suggests that dramatic productions must follow the composer's or author's vision in developing characters' appearances.

The article discusses the characters of Blonde and Osmin in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Singspiel opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail." The author suggests that the character Blonde embodies Enlightenment ideals such as rationality and simplicity and that this is unusual for an eighteenth-century woman, as Enlightenment principles were typically taught to males. The article explores the interpretation of Blonde's character by librettists Christoph Bretzner and Gottlieb Stephanie, who wrote the text associated with the opera. Also provided is a discussion of Enlightenment gender roles and the character of Miss Flowr in the opera "Adelheit von Veltheim," by Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann.