Book contents
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Voices
- Part II Ears
- 5 Hearing in the Music of Hector Berlioz
- 6 From Distant Sounds to Aeolian Ears
- 7 Wagner, Hearing Loss and the Urban Soundscape of Late Nineteenth-Century Germany
- Part III Technologies
- Part IV Bodies
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - From Distant Sounds to Aeolian Ears
Ernst Kapp’s Auditory Prosthesis
from Part II - Ears
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2019
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Voices
- Part II Ears
- 5 Hearing in the Music of Hector Berlioz
- 6 From Distant Sounds to Aeolian Ears
- 7 Wagner, Hearing Loss and the Urban Soundscape of Late Nineteenth-Century Germany
- Part III Technologies
- Part IV Bodies
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A well-known depiction of collective listening on the operatic stage occurs in Act I of Wagner’s Lohengrin(1850): the Herald asks the assembled Brabantians whether there is a champion among them to defend Elsa against the accusation by her former suitor, Friedrich, that she murdered her younger brother Gottfried, the Duke of Brabant. These are uncomfortable moments for Elsa. There is an eerie silence after the first question (‘he is surely a long way off and could not hear’), and there appears – for a time at least – to be no reply to the second question either (Example 6.1).Wagner’s stage directions describe these as a ‘long silence’ and a ‘long, awkward silence’ respectively, implying that the growing tension of the second silence – with added tritone in the bass tuba – is akin to that moment after an awkward exchange in public, where the tumbleweed rolls, the wind blows.
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- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination , pp. 134 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019