The Operatic Canon

Abstract

Abstract The operatic canon is not so much a list of favored repertory as a system of cultural upbringing for performers and opera-goers (and the public in general). Over the four centuries of operatic history, the canonizing process has shifted from remakes of dramatic subjects and texts (libretti) to the perpetuation of particular musical settings (and at times their original stagings), turning opera houses into repertory houses and prompting composers to write toward the canon. Canonizing systems of journalism and domestication in the first centuries of opera have more recently been amplified by scholarship and new media of transmission, both of which have extended and transformed the teaching and experience of opera as a canon, as well as fostering evolution in the canonic repertory.

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