Side by Side: Great Words Become Great Music

• Week 1: The importance in our lives of music and literature
  Literature and music in the Old World. Stravinsky adopts Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Roman comedies re-set to 20th-century music, with Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
• Week 2: The Bible is set to beautiful music
  Psalm 137: “By the Rivers of Babylon” set to contemporary calypso rhythm. Handel’s Messiah. Camille Saint-Saens’ operatic setting of the story of Samson and Delilah. Richard Strauss’ setting of the gospel story of Salome
• Week 3: Shakespeare is turned into opera
  Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Verdi’s Otello. Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, an adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV, “Batter My Heart,” set to operatic aria, from the contemporary opera Dr. Atomic.
• Week 4: 18th- and 19th-century literature into music (Part I)
  Beaumarchais’ Marriage of Figaro and Barber of Seville become the operatic masterpieces by Mozart and Rossini. Goethe’s Faust is adapted by Gounod for a splendid operatic version. Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” set to music in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
• Week 5: 18th- and 19th-century literature into music (Part II)
  Victor Hugo’s La Dame aux Camellias becomes the great favourite opera, La Traviata. Hugo’s Les Miserables becomes the Broadway hit. Merimée’s novelette Carmen as adapted by Bizet. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly receives an interesting reworking by the American playwright D. Hwang, M. Butterfly.
• Week 6: 20th-century words into music
  The great poem by Robert Frost, “Whose Words These Are” receives a beautiful choral setting by Randall Thompson. Garcia Lorca’s “Little Viennese Waltz” is adapted by Leonard Cohen to “Take This Waltz.” Thornton Wilder’s The Merchant of Yonkers becomes the wonderful musical Hello, Dolly! And, finally, George Bernard’s Pygmalion becomes My Fair Lady.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Reflect on the unique qualities of literature that make them amendable for transformation into music
• Describe how music and literature, when combined, can give body and substance to our deepest thought and emotions
• Consider how individual works of literature and music reflect the historical context from which they have emerged
• Identify how the needs of musical presentation lead composers and librettists to make material changes to their scripts (e.g. adding or changing characters to enhance voice mix)

• Lectures
• Participation in discussions
  
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

No textbook is required. We will provide all course materials online.