Transcript Chapter 13: Romantic Opera - MUS 231: Music in Western Civ

Chapter 24:
Romantic Opera: Germany
Germany
• Looked back to the Middle Ages for inspiration
– Medieval sagas and epic poems
– Tales of dark castles, fair maidens, heroic princes, and
fire-breathing dragons
• Rediscovery and publication of “lost” epics
– German Song of the Nibelungs (1820)
– Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (1815)
– Finnish Kalevala
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
• Poet, philosopher, politician, propagandist, visionary
who believe his operas would revolutionize society
• Controversial composer
– Inspired extreme reactions
– Exerted enormous influence
– A determined, ruthless visionary
INSERT FIG 24-1
from LM7e
• Largely self-taught
• First big success with the opera Rienzi (1842)
• Der fliegende Holländer (1844), Tannhäuser (1845),
Lohengrin (1848)
• Forced to leave Germany in 1848 for political reasons
• Spent exile on Switzerland
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(The Ring of the Nibelungens)
• Wagner’s magnum opus
• Cycle of four operas: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre,
Siegfried, Götterdämmerung
• Found a patron in King Ludwig II of Bavaria
• Special theatre built in Bayreuth, Germany, for his
operas
• First Bayreuth Festival in 1876 with the entire Ring
cycle
Wagner’s Music Dramas
• Wagner intended his operas to be radically different
• Gesamtkunstwerk: “Total Art Work;” Artistic union of all
the arts
• “Endless Melody” - Seamless flow of undifferentiated
solo singing and declamation
• Removed ensemble singing
• Avoids melodic repetition, symmetry, and regular
cadences
• Greater importance of the orchestra
• Leitmotif: A distinctive unit of music designed to
represent a character, object, or idea
Wagner’s Ring and Die Walküre
(1856, first performed 1870)
• Ring cycle a timeless fantasy adventure and a timely
allegory for 19th-century German society
• Explores power, greed, heroism, race
• Germany rapidly industrializing and striving to become a
unified nation
• “The Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre
– Most famous music from the Ring
Important Leitmotifs from Die Walküre
• Slumber
• Magic Fire
• Renunciation of love