Overview

Opera in the Tropics is an engaging exploration of theater with music in Brazil from the mid 1500s to the early 1820s. Author Rog�rio Budasz delves into the practices of the actors, singers, poets, and composers who created and performed Jesuit moral plays, Spanish comedias, and Portuguese vernacular operas and entremezes during the colonial period, as well as the Italian operas that celebrated the new independent nation in 1822. A Brazilian producer claimed in 1825 that the goal of music-theater was to instruct, entertain, and distract the population. Budasz argues that this threefold goal had in fact been present throughout the colonial period, in different combinations and with different purposes, at the hands of missionaries, intellectuals, bureaucrats, political leaders, and cultural producers. While Budasz demonstrates a continuity from Portuguese theatrical practices, primarily through the circulation of artists and repertory, he also examines a number of localized departures from the metropolitan model, particularly in the ethnic and gender profile of theatrical workers, in the modifications determined by local tastes, priorities, and materials, and in the political use of theater as an ideological and civilizing tool within the paradoxical context of a slave society. An eye-opening narrative of the transformations and uses of a colonial art form, Opera in the Tropics will be essential reading for all interested in the music and theater in Iberian and Latin American culture.

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9780190215859

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Reviews

With Opera in the Tropics, Rog rio Budasz provides a vivid panorama of the cultural contexts and local practicalities for the making of music-drama in colonial and newly independent Brazil. Based on meticulous research and the detailed analysis of rare and ephemeral sources, this book offers an enthralling narrative of a largely unsung area of global opera history. --David R. M. Irving, ICREA Research Professor, Instituci Mil i Fontanals, Barcelona A staggering, richly documented account of musical practices in the theatrical stages of Brazil--from late 16th-century Jesuit plays to early 19th-century opera--by a leading scholar in the field. Budasz's elegant narrative draws on different disciplines to challenge current, narrow definitions of both theatrical and Western music. --Manuel Pedro Ferreira, CESEM/NOVA University, Lisbon

Author Information

Rog�rio Budasz is a musicologist specialized on Luso-Brazilian musical theater, Afro-Iberian musical connections, and early plucked instruments. His research focuses on the Atlantic circulation of musicians and repertories and issues of ethnicity, power, and cultural reconfiguration. He has published three books, several book chapters, and many articles in international venues.

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