The Sound of Politics

In this first-rate scholarly work that is made up of a series of interlinked explorations, Mitchell Cohen, Professor of Political Science at Baruch College and editor emeritus of Dissent, provides a study that is both instructive in itself and methodologically and conceptually valuable for other periods and, indeed, media. Far from treating either politics or opera as the essentially passive imprint of the other, which is an approach that it is all-too-easy to adopt, Cohen, instead, sees both as dynamic, and this provides a highly fruitful approach not least in considering the politics of opera, as opera as generally understood. Born in Cremona, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was in the employ of the Duke of Mantua from 1602 to 1612, and during that time developed a new type of entertainment, opera, with Orfeo (1607) and Arianna (1608). In Orfeo, Orpheus moved Pluto to pity with song. There had been significant precursors, notably interludes between the acts of plays, and verse dramas accompanied by music, with Italy important in both from the fifteenth century. Mantua, Ferrara, Florence, and Venice were all significant centres of musical innovation. Monteverdi, however, produced a musical unity, drafting his music on a large scale. From 1613, he lived in Venice, writing for the public theatres. The Coronation of Poppea (1642) is frequently seen as his masterpiece.