Musicology Commons^™

How About Some Borsch With Cherries? Musorgsky’S The Marriage And The Wagnerian Leitmotif, Martin Nedbal

Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal

This article explores the treatment of recurring motives in Modest Musorgsky’s experimental operatic fragment, The Marriage (1868). Previous commentators (Richard Taruskin and Márta Papp) have understated the significance of these motives. However, a closer examination at the musical score shows that they provide the opera with a certain degree of dramaturgical and musical coherence. Musorgsky’s motives also frequently comment on the dramatic procedures onstage. Furthermore, Musorgsky’s motivic work in this opera prefigures what he will do in the two versions of Boris Godunov. Therefore, The Marriage can be compared to the work of other opera composers of the time who …

A “Free Artist Of Color” In Late-Eighteenth-Century Saint-Domingue: The Life And Times Of Minette, Bernard Camier

Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal

This article sets forth, for the first time in detail, the life and career of Minette, who was the main female opera singer in Port-au-Prince at the end of the eighteenth century. The city was the capital of the thriving and wealthy French colony of Saint-Domingue (which, upon gaining independence in 1804, took the name Haïti). Theatrical activity in Port-au-Prince was comparable to what one could find in any large provincial city, and the success that Minette gained was all the more remarkable for her being categorized as colored (mestive). The details of Minette’s origins, life, and career …

A Profile Of Placido Domingo, Carolyn M. Totaro, Jadyn Case

SPARK Symposium Presentations

A Profile of Placido Domingo covering his education, operatic career, and legacy.

A Study Of The Opera Trouble In Tahiti By Leonard Bernstein, Carolyn M. Totaro, Skyler Orr-Depner

SPARK Symposium Presentations

A Study of the opera Trouble in Tahiti by Leonard Bernstein discussing the libretto, roles, and music.

A Study Of The Opera Tosca By Giacomo Puccini, Carolyn M. Totaro, Natalia Hernandez

SPARK Symposium Presentations

A Study of the opera Tosca by Giacomo Puccini covering its libretto, music, and significance.

A Study Of The Opera Tales Of Hoffman By Jacques Offenbach, Carolyn M. Totaro, Ellie Sawyer

SPARK Symposium Presentations

A Study of the opera Tales of Hoffman by Jacques Offenbach discussing the unique libretto, roles, and music.

Reassessing Haydn’S Orfeo In The Theatre, Dorian Bandy, Caryl Clark

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Haydn’s last opera, L’anima del filosofo (The Soul of the Philosopher), is a highly unusual retelling of the Orpheus myth. Written for London in 1791 to a libretto by C. F. Badini, the opera was never staged during the composer’s lifetime. Shut down in rehearsal and banned from performance, the opera never reached the stage because many of its themes—including the apocalyptic storm at the end—piqued British anxieties towards events unfolding in revolutionary France. The opera finally premiered in 1951, with Maria Callas singing the role of Euridice. Universal Edition prepared the performing material from sources photographed behind …

The Effects Of Operatic Voice Type On Singer Identity, Adelaide J. Mcdonald

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Within Western art music, voices are typically classified using the Fach system, which is based upon vocal characteristics and separates singers into the categories of soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, counter tenor, tenor, bass, and baritone. Over time, these categories have become embedded with social and cultural meaning within the operatic world, leading to the development of stereotypes and expectations surrounding singers, as well as social categories and identities, referred to in this study as “sociocultural vocal categories” and “sociocultural vocal identity,” respectively. Currently, there are limited explorations of the sociocultural vocal categories and their associated stereotypes, with research on singer …

Musical Semiotics In Kate Soper’S Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016), Scott A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the six parts of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016). While individual parts have received some music theoretical attention, this is the first analysis of the entire Pulitzer Prize-nominated work. Ambiguity and contingency are major themes of Ipsa Dixit, and by treating each part independently and in combination, I hope to honor Ipsa’s contingent status as a unified work comprised of six complete works. Soper’s libretto unifies an assemblage of texts with adaptations of Aristotle to investigate the intersections of language and music with authority, veracity, and (un)intelligibility.

I theorize that Soper’s “philosophy-opera” dramatizes the formation of …

A Friendship Of Two Prima Donnas: The Letters Of Adelina Patti To Giulia Valda, Jacquelyn Ancelet

LSU Master's Theses

Of the many prima donnas of the nineteenth century, Adelina Patti (1843–1919) stands out as one of the most successful, with a fifty-year international concertizing career. Biographers across multiple languages have covered her career in great depth, but devote little attention to her close friendships. Herman Klein (in The Reign of Patti [1920]) and John Cone (in Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts [1993]), for instance, claim that Patti was known by many, but understood by few. One who does seem to have understood her and developed a close relationship with her was Giulia Valda (1850–1925), herself a professional singer, if …

Comparing Erwartung And Die Glückliche Hand Through The Female Gaze, Angela Tinio

University Honors Theses

During the early 20^th century, the rise of psychoanalysis impacted society by offering a revolutionary approach to the mind. This rise occurred due to the work of the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who believed many mental disorders were rooted in the subconscious. Psychoanalysis revolutionized how we approach the brain and offered a new perspective on patient treatment. Artists in the early 20^th century also explored and insisted on new ways to view society through art. Schoenberg and Freud were both pioneers in their field of work, and Freud even inspired Schoenberg's early atonal music. Freud may have …

Unveiling Iolanta: Blindness In Nineteenth-Century Opera, Nafset Chenib

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the main tropes of representing and narrating blindness in nineteenth-century opera and fictional literature with a particular emphasis on Tchaikovsky’s 1892 one-act opera Iolanta, with its blind protagonist. Examination of the production history of Iolanta reveals that misrepresentations and misconceptions ingrained within Tchaikovsky's libretto and music have governed directorial choices, consequently giving rise to a homogeneous, predominantly unfavorable portrayal of blindness on the stage. I suggest an approach to the opera that is more consonant with the lived experience of blindness.

Breaking The Wall Separating Western-Classical And Musical Theater Belt Vocal Techniques, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This paper will serve as a dialogue aimed to keep breaking down the tangible wall between opera and musical theater techniques and practices. The two fields offer a plethora of ideas and possibilities for growth of the arts as a whole. Included will be examples of techniques in both fields and how they can be compared and practiced consequently. The topic of belt versus legitimate singing is prominent in the vocal arts and will be discussed further as well. There are many academics that subscribe to the “my way or the highway” ideal and refuse that which varies from classical …

Mozart’S Da Ponte Operas And The Bel Canto, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

One of the most prominent composers of opera since the latter half of the 18th century is the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Lauded for his catchy melodies, notoriously difficult passages, and his structural brilliance, his operas remain as popular today as they were when they first premiered. At the same time as these operas were being composed, another movement was occurring within Italianate vocal music, that of “bel canto” or beautiful song. This movement, although highly disputed over its exact definition and origin appears to refer to a style of singing popularized in Italy within the 17th and 18th centuries …

Making Malice Musical: Verdi’S Compositional Journey Through The Eyes Of Six Villains, Michael Chadwick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Giuseppe Verdi is a pillar of the operatic world and had a profound impact on the evolution of the art form. From a rudimentary beginning, he developed over time from a popular creator of operas in the solita forma style of 19^th century Italy into a master craftsman of combining music, text, and theatrical drama. Verdi utilized the popular compositional formal convention of solita forma to begin his career. Over time he evolved beyond its boundaries and shifted his focus to the holistic theatrical presentation of the drama. Much has been written about this evolution through analysis of Verdi’s …

Making American Opera After Einstein, Ryan Ebright Dr.

ICS Fellow Lectures

In the wake of the avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, opera in the United States experienced a renaissance, one which has continued to the present. My book project, Making American Opera after Einstein, centers on contemporary attempts to remake opera in an American image. In it, I detail how American opera—as a genre, a sphere of cultural institutions, an expression of national identity—has transformed significantly over the past four decades. Whereas many composers embrace operatic convention, tailoring their operas to audiences through adaptations of cherished American stories, others attempt to test the genre’s aesthetic boundaries. By exploring …

The Evolution Of The Bel Canto Technique Through The 20th And 21st Century: Annotated Bibliography, Claudia Diaz

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The Bel canto technique is the quintessential technique of opera performance. Throughout history, it has adapted itself and survived through pedagogies, composers, influential artists, and scientific specialists from the field. Although the bel canto technique has a wide range of sources and complete history, this will focus more on the evolution occurring through the 20^th and 21^st centuries. How the bel canto technique has managed to survive is key to understanding its future.

The Music Of Sylvano Bussotti And Its Interpretation: Biopolitics, Intersubjectivity, And Modernist Canon Formation, Charles A. Rudig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti (1931–2021) presents intentional challenges to interpretation and canonization. These particular challenges and Bussotti’s reasoning for implementing them are interrogated in this dissertation by reading the score to Bussotti’s La Passion selon Sade (1966) through contemporaneous European social theory, philosophy, and political developments. La Passion selon Sade is a theatre piece for a chamber ensemble, with a primary vocal and dramatic role written for mezzo-soprano Catherine Berberian, with whom Bussotti frequently collaborated. Like much of Bussotti’s music from the 1950s and 1960s, the discourse surrounding the piece and its reception largely relates to its …

Listen To The River: Dolores, Ophelia, And Female Resistance In Opera, Daniel Aaron Barnidge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The music of female characters in the great masterpieces of opera often demonstrates resistance to and undermines the abuse they have historically received in opera plots. The Mexican folktale that my opera, The Tragedy of La Llorona, draws inspiration from plays on many of the same tropes historically found in female characters in opera including madness, sexuality, and lack of agency. This led to research into the portrayal of women in opera as part of my pre-compositional process and my desire to access this tale free from the traditional 'marianismo' and 'machismo' narratives it is associated with and which …

X Marks Nothing: Chiasmus And Kenosis In Kaija Saariaho's La Passion De Simone, Desiree Scarambone

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Composer Kaija Saariaho’s 2006 work La Passion de Simone often leaves audiences and critics at a loss to understand what they have witnessed. The title, subject, and sparse libretto only complicate this confusion. The genre of the work is ambiguous to many; some critics call it an opera, some an oratorio. Because the subject of the work, French philosopher Simone Weil, is widely unknown to the public, her placement within the framework of a Passion is often met with confusion if not criticism.

By fusing Weil’s life and philosophical ideas in this work, Saariaho explores how the awareness of the …

The Evaluative Rubric Of 19th Century Parisian Operagoers: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

My research seeks to identify the rubric used by 19th century Parisians to evaluate the quality of a given “Grand Opéra.” The works listed below shed light on that rubric. They particularly emphasize the importance of formal adherence, cultural relevance, totality, and sexual gratification to the Parisian operagoer.

The Evolving Philosophical Stance Of Richard Wagner And The Effects On His Female Characters From Senta To Kundry, Aoife Shanley

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This bibliography analyzes the multiple effects of the philosophers Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche on the works of Richard Wagner. By analyzing the contradictions of these philosophers and the different manifestations of their ideas in the different works of Wagner, it is easy to see which philosopher held the greatest hold on Wagner at a certain time. Wagner marries the philosophies of Hegel and Schopenhauer despite the fact they considered themselves to be on polar opposites of the philosophical spectrum. However, asceticism and a quest for purity ultimately seem to be the driving forces behind Wagner’s operas and depictions of women …

Voiced Gender Signifiers Within ‘As One’ A Chamber Opera: Annotated Bibliography, Samuel Sherman

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

‘As One’, a popular modern chamber opera by composer Laura Kaminsky, presents the transition of transgender woman, Hannah. Hannah, however, is casted and composed as two separate voices, a baritone and mezzo-soprano, thus creating “Hannah before” and “Hannah after”. In doing so, a dichotomy of thought surrounding the attributes of a binary based practice of vocalization and character representation is created. Through the analysis of gender theory, voiced gender theory, and the ‘As One’ chamber opera, storytelling of complex gender-based characters may be solidified within biased gender compositional and musical tools. In discovering these repetitive actions through socially constructed stereotypes …

Same Old Song: An Analysis Of Adaptation And The Orpheus Myth In Musical Theatre, Aaron J. Wulf

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This bibliography is a brief examination of various adaptations of the myth of Orpheus and Euridice throughout the history of musical theatre and opera, specifically through comparative textual analysis of the scripts and libretti. In this examination, additions to or retractions from the original story, whether common to several adaptations or unique to a single source, will be analyzed. From these findings it will be possible to speculate on historical and contextual reasons for the unique shape taken by each adaptation, and to add to the conversation about the nature and purpose of adaptation in general as well as the …

Hearing Ourselves Speak: Finding The Trans Sound In The Ohio River Valley, Gwendolyn Patricia Saporito-Emler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis discusses at length the experiences of four interviewees, selected for being both musicians as well as transgender people. From the author’s shared perspective as a trans woman, this work addresses the issues and boons of being trans musicians. It reflects their experiences, both positive and negative, as well as provides conjectural analyses of the respondents’ shared stories. It identifies common themes, issues regularly experienced by trans people, and offers arguments on why ending this hate is so vitally essential.

“In Hysterics”, Examining The Mad Scene In Italian Opera: Annotated Bibliography, Lillian Ridout

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Declining Opera Audiences: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

To The Question Of Studying The Interpretation Of The Image Of Amir Temur In The Western European Opera, Ravshanoy Tursunova

Eurasian music science journal

Introduction. The role and significance of our great ancestors in world history is indisputable. Their vital activity, priceless works and deeds require a truthful, adequate assessment and in-depth research in various fields of modern science. The works of the great commander, patron of science, culture and art Amir Temur are at the center of many-sided fundamental research. For centuries, the personality of Amir Temur aroused great interest in the world community, whose image formed the basis of numerous literary, musical and stage works created by leading playwrights and writers, librettists and composers of different centuries.

The purpose of the research …

Cyber-Narrative In Opera: Three Case Studies, Naomi Barrettara

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at three newly composed operas that feature what I call cyber-narratives: a work in which the story itself is inextricably linked with digital technologies, such that the characters utilize, interact with, or are affected by digital technologies to such a pervasive extent that the impact of said technologies is thematized within the work. Through an analysis of chat rooms and real-time text communication in Nico Muhly’s Two Boys (2011), artificial intelligence in Søren Nils Eichberg’s Glare (2014), and mind uploading and digital immortality in Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers (2010), a nexus of ideologies surrounding voice, …

The Gonzagas: Artistic Patronage In The Mantua Region During The Italian Renaissance, Ariane Omerza, Curtis Marek, Zachary Myatt

2019 Festscrift: Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo

The Mantua region of Italy is one that was controlled by the Gonzaga family for centuries. They dominated political and cultural aspects of life. This paper displays evidence that illustrates the power and structure behind Italian patronage during the Renaissance era. It showcases the Gonzaga family’s power in the Mantua region as well as their reaching influences on the greater Italian society. Specific examples of the family patronage are explored in depth, along with the ways that their patronage affected others. Overall, this paper serves as an array of information that ties in with the overarching themes of patronage both …