On his book The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon
Cover Interview of March 21, 2017
In a nutshell
The Singing Turk explores the huge cultural
phenomenon of European operas about Turks, flourishing especially during the
eighteenth century, in the European age of Enlightenment. Though most people interested
in opera are familiar with Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, this
was just one among hundreds of operas about Turks — most of them forgotten —
which were staged all over Europe from the 1680s to the 1820s. The Singing
Turk, first of all, attempts to recover the dimensions of this lost
repertory — including works by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart,
and Rossini, but also many other lesser known composers. While my research
ranges around the opera houses of Europe, particularly important foci for me were
the operatic centers of Venice, Milan, Vienna, and Paris.
The Ottoman empire was a great empire on three continents —
including North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeastern Europe — and operas
about Ottoman Turks in the eighteenth century were relevant to international
relations; they were not just works of theatrical fantasy and entertainment. I try
to place these operas in the context of European-Ottoman relations: relations
of intermittent military warfare, but also of ongoing cultural and commercial
exchange. I analyze how the figure of the singing Turk on the European stage
illuminated certain issues that seemed particularly interesting to the
enlightened European public — especially political issues concerning absolute
rule, in the monarchical state and in the patriarchal family (or harem), but
also issues concerning the control and display of extreme emotions in civilized
society. Singing Turks on stage were seen and heard as the vocal avatars of
absolute power and, at the same time, the emblematic voices of extreme emotion.
I’m interested in the ways that Ottoman Turkish
instrumentation — especially “Janissary” percussion — was adapted to European
orchestras for these operas, to mark their Turkishness, and I also study the
special significance of the basso voice in expressing a sort of Turkish
hyper-masculinity on stage. I explore how the singing Turk first came to the
stage in the 1680s, immediately following the defeat of the Turkish army at the
siege of Vienna in 1683. The Ottoman armies were then driven back into
southeastern Europe, and this was the moment at which Ottoman power no longer
seemed invincible, so that Turkish scenarios became plausibly entertaining on
stage. I spend a significant part of the book reflecting on Rossini, the last
great composer of “singing Turk” operas, and I’m especially interested in how
Rossini’s Turks intersect with the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic moment in
Europe. Rossini’s Maometto Secondo, his daring opera about Mohammed the
Conqueror, the Ottoman sultan who conquered Constantinople and toppled the
Byzantine empire, was certainly also a post-mortem musical reflection on the
Napoleonic project of continental conquest. Finally, I consider how the
phenomenon of the singing Turk vanished from the European operatic repertory
after the 1820s, such that the standard nineteenth-century repertory includes
no singing Turks at all.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
The Singing Turk explores the huge cultural phenomenon of European operas about Turks, flourishing especially during the eighteenth century, in the European age of Enlightenment. Though most people interested in opera are familiar with Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, this was just one among hundreds of operas about Turks — most of them forgotten — which were staged all over Europe from the 1680s to the 1820s. The Singing Turk, first of all, attempts to recover the dimensions of this lost repertory — including works by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, and Rossini, but also many other lesser known composers. While my research ranges around the opera houses of Europe, particularly important foci for me were the operatic centers of Venice, Milan, Vienna, and Paris.
The Ottoman empire was a great empire on three continents — including North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeastern Europe — and operas about Ottoman Turks in the eighteenth century were relevant to international relations; they were not just works of theatrical fantasy and entertainment. I try to place these operas in the context of European-Ottoman relations: relations of intermittent military warfare, but also of ongoing cultural and commercial exchange. I analyze how the figure of the singing Turk on the European stage illuminated certain issues that seemed particularly interesting to the enlightened European public — especially political issues concerning absolute rule, in the monarchical state and in the patriarchal family (or harem), but also issues concerning the control and display of extreme emotions in civilized society. Singing Turks on stage were seen and heard as the vocal avatars of absolute power and, at the same time, the emblematic voices of extreme emotion.
I’m interested in the ways that Ottoman Turkish instrumentation — especially “Janissary” percussion — was adapted to European orchestras for these operas, to mark their Turkishness, and I also study the special significance of the basso voice in expressing a sort of Turkish hyper-masculinity on stage. I explore how the singing Turk first came to the stage in the 1680s, immediately following the defeat of the Turkish army at the siege of Vienna in 1683. The Ottoman armies were then driven back into southeastern Europe, and this was the moment at which Ottoman power no longer seemed invincible, so that Turkish scenarios became plausibly entertaining on stage. I spend a significant part of the book reflecting on Rossini, the last great composer of “singing Turk” operas, and I’m especially interested in how Rossini’s Turks intersect with the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic moment in Europe. Rossini’s Maometto Secondo, his daring opera about Mohammed the Conqueror, the Ottoman sultan who conquered Constantinople and toppled the Byzantine empire, was certainly also a post-mortem musical reflection on the Napoleonic project of continental conquest. Finally, I consider how the phenomenon of the singing Turk vanished from the European operatic repertory after the 1820s, such that the standard nineteenth-century repertory includes no singing Turks at all.