High Notes and Heartbreak: A History of Western Opera

• Week 1: The beginnings
  Meaning of “baroque.” In Renaissance Italy, composers strive to recover the idea of sung tragedy from the Greek ancients. The Florentine Camerata, and musical adaptations of stories from classical mythology. For listening, we will choose from arias by Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel and Vivaldi.
• Week 2: Mozart
  Opera spreads across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries and flourishes in the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, where stock characters become very human and music complements the drama instead of merely offering a vehicle for vocal acrobatics. For listening, we will choose ensembles and arias from The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and Cosi Fan Tutte.
  
• Week 3: Verdi
  Drama heightens powerfully with Giuseppi Verdi: music and drama become virtually intensified, humanized. In Verdi, the chorus takes a dramatic role, as with the great “Va Pensiero” from Nabucco, the famous “Brindisi” from La Traviata and the Triumphal March from Aida. We will also see how Verdi uses ensembles to reveal conflicting emotions, while also listening to some of the greatest arias ever written.
• Week 4: Wagner
  The immense musical genius Richard Wagner revolutionized classical opera, introducing such musical innovations as the leitmotif, the concept of the “total work of art” (combining poetry, visual art, staging and music), and the innovation of “endless melody” (the music flow and does not stop for arias). We will listen to excerpts from the “Ring Cycle,” from Tristan and Isolde and Lohengrin.
• Week 5: Puccini
  Now to the later 18th century and Giacomo Puccini—in many ways the exact opposite of Wagner. His work brings us powerful “verismo”—that is, “realism,” and displays very romantic emotional intensity in the lives of ordinary people while introducing the theme of female suffering. To illustrate, we will hear excerpts from La Bohême, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot.
• Week 6: Modern opera
  The turbulent 20th century brings us composers who abandon the great romantic melodies of Verdi and Puccini and the enormous canvases of Wagner and substitute dissonant harmonies, thematic irony and erratic rhythms. To illustrate, we will hear excerpts from operas by Poulenc, Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Gershwin and John Adams (Nixon in China: “I am the Wife of Mao Tse-tung”).

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

• Identify key composers in Western opera
• Recognize different styles of opera and themes that each composer brings to their work
• Appreciate the human voice as a musical instrument

• Lectures
• Participation in class discussions
  
• Listening to opera excerpts and watching video performances
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

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