Holde Kunst
 
Subscribe to Blog:
via Email | via RSS

Italian Opera Course

Italian Opera from The Barber of Seville to Turnadot (Winter 2008)

Discuss this Topoc
· Blog posts about this class
· Open Discussion Forum

 

For roughly a century, opera in Italy constituted an authentically popular yet highly sophisticated art form that evolved its own characteristic, organic nature and yet reflected a complex array of aesthetic, social, and political developments. The vocal glories of Bel Canto style as exemplified by Bellini, the dynamic and intensely human drama of Verdi, and the grandiloquent theatricality of Puccini will form the cornerstones of our analysis and discussion. DVDs (with English translations) will allow for full immersion in works that will include Norma, Lucia, Rigoletto, and Tosca, among others.

Syllabus
 Note: while every opera in this course has an Italian original title, some operas are referred to by their more recognizable English titles.

Week 1 - Rossini

  • The Barber of Seville (1816)
    La Cenerentola (Cinderella – 1817)
  • Italian opera customs in Rossini’s time

Week 2 - Rossini

Rossini and opera seria - Semiramide (1823)

  • Rossini and grand opera - William Tell (1829)

Week 3 - Donizetti

  • L’elisir d’amore (1832)
  • Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
  • the question of Lucia adaptations; Lucie de Lammermoor (Italian opera for the French stage)

Week 4 - Bellini

  • Norma (1831)
  • I puritani (1835)

Week 5 – Earlier Verdi

  • Selections drawn from Nabucco (1842), Macbeth (1847), Rigoletto (1851), La Traviatta (1853)

Week 6 – Mature Verdi

  • Selections drawn from Don Carlos (1867) Aida (1871), Otello (1887), Falstaff (1893)

Week 7 – Puccini, verismo and early modernism

  • Selections drawn from La Boheme (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904)
  • Plus a look at selected works from among Ponchielli, Montemezzi, Giordano, and Boito

Week 8 – Late Puccini

  • Il Tritico (1918)
  • Turandot (1926)
  • The end of a tradition?