Transcript Opera: Ch.17,18

Introduction to Music
Ch 17, 18
Puccini, La Bohéme
Wagner, Die Walkürie
La Bohéme study guide
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Read a La Boheme synopsis.
What is “bohemianism”?
Cite elements of Romanticism in La Bohéme.
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Consider:
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Setting and environment
Characters’ occupations, attitudes, and thinking
Mimi’s illness. (Is it common or uncommon in 19th C Europe?)
Story line and conclusion
Explain irony’s role in La Bohéme.
La Bohéme study guide
USE Connect Kamien for the following:
 0:59 into the excerpt Mimi sings, “I’m out of breath.”
Here’s the music:
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Mimi faints as she concludes that melody. At 1:04 the
solo oboe plays a similar two-note pattern. Actually,
these two descending tones hark back to the very
beginnings of opera (1600), and they are meaningful. We
first met them in Dido and Aeneas. (see next slide) What
is this two-note pattern called and what does it signify?
Slide taken from Dido’s Lament study guide
4. Text expression: 17thC listeners associated certain
melodies or melodic patterns with specific emotions. Two
commonly used ones express the text of Dido’s Lament:
 A chromatically descending melody portrays grief or
sorrow. It happens that Dido’s ground bass IS a
chromatically descending melody. Th/f its 11
repetitions powerfully express the sorrowful text.
 The “sighing” gesture, a pattern of 2 or 3 tones that
descend by step, portray sadness or a dejected spirit.
They say, “All is NOT well.” The gesture, which sounds
like a sigh, is everywhere in Dido—in both the singer’s
line and orchestra accomp.
2 sighing gesture
examples
La Bohéme study guide
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Is this opera an expression of
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Give details to defend
your answer.
Does La Bohéme include
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nationalism?
exoticism?
recitatives?
arias?
ensembles?
Explain how Puccini makes La Bohéme’s story-telling
more continuous than that of earlier operas?
Summary
Puccini
Excerpt from La Bohéme
opera
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Use preceding synopsis and study
guide to create LOG information.
Connect Kamien
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
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19th to 20th C transition composer !!!
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Innovative & Influential
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Thinking about music, drama & relationship of
arts
Orchestration—new timbres
Modern harmony
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Dissonant & unconventional
pushes toward atonality
Wagner
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Musician/Philosopher/Writer
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Writes his own librettos
Writes many essays on art & music
Gesamkunstwerk = VIMP! Suggests that
all of the art forms working together act
synergistically on the onlooker’s senses
and emotions. (Is this a progenitor of
IMAX?)
Wagner
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Contributions to opera
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eliminates arias and recitatives;
writes “unending melody” instead
Leitmotifs
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powerful unifiers
story-telling devices
changes atmosphere of opera house
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theater interior focused toward stage
darkened hall
acoustics produce (kind-of) surround sound
audience must be quiet
Summary
Wagner
Act I love scene from Die Walkürie
music drama
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German mythology--Teutonic gods and goddesses
Orchestration often MIMP than voices!
Leitmotifs
“unending melody” replaces arias & recitatives
Die Walküre
Leitmotifs:
Valhalla
Love
Sword
Common people (folk)
combined w/ sword leitmotif
Connect Kamien