Joshua S. Walden's study of the genre of musical portraiture since 1945 focuses on significant composers of the period, including Pierre Boulez, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, and György Ligeti. Grounding his exploration in key works, Walden uncovers contemporary understandings of music's capacity to depict identity, and of intersections between music, literature, theater, film, and the visual arts.

The issues presented in this paper are a nexus of several concerns: feminist criticism concerning the history of the wives of Henry VIII; applying methodologies of acting to develop a framework or process for the preparation of art songs through an original template of five lenses; and using a song cycle by Libby Larsen that provides both a focus and an example. This study introduces an interpretive process or co-creative strategy--a five-part lens for the preparation and interpretation of the songs by the singing artist. This five-part lens is designed to help bring a personal and unique interpretation--to breathe life into song on a kinesthetic, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual level. This process includes: (1) The cultural, social, and historical context of the authors of the text. (2) The compositional style of the composer as well as her interpretation of the emotional content (subtext) of the words written by the authors of the texts. (3) The singing artist's function as the co-creator, with the composer, of the marriage of text and sound into an artistic interpretation that adds not only an audible but also a visual and kinesthetic dimension to the work. (4) The collaborative accompanist. (5) The personal and emotional response of the audience member. The purposes of this document include promoting the consideration of contemporary American art song, and specifically the art songs of Libby Larsen, as a means to enhance the process of art song interpretation. Such a study is predicated upon the belief that the art songs of Libby Larsen are a significant addition to the art song repertoire. This study has focused on this particular song cycle, Try Me, Good King, because it has characteristics singularly beneficial to this study: it uses English prose written by women and set by an American woman composer who strives for her music to connect on an emotional level with the text, the subtext, the performers, and the audience. These multiple connections will help a woman of the 21 st century connect with and develop a personal interpretation of women who lived centuries ago.

In Opera as Art: Philosophical Sketches, Paul Thom argues for opera as an art, standing alongside other artforms that employ visual and sonic media to embody the great themes of human life. Thom contends that in great operatic art, the narrative and expressive content collaborate with the work's aesthetic qualities towards achieving this aim. This argument can be extended to modern operatic productions. At their best, these stagings are works of art in themselves, whether they give faithful renditions of the operas they stage and whether their aims go beyond interpretation to commentary and critique. This book is a philosophical introduction to the key practices that comprise the world of opera: the making of the work; its interpretation by directors, critics, and spectators; and the making of an operatic production. Opera has always existed in a context of philosophical ideas, and this book is written for opera-lovers who would like to learn something about that philosophical context.