Forum and intensive lectures at Nanjing University

" opera as history" /
CHOKI Seiji (Musicology and Contemporary Music, University of Tokyo)

This class analyzes the opera from the later half of 18th century to 20th century from the perspective of cultural representation theory. The problems of performing operas today will be discussed by analyzing the special musical nature of the “work” as such, dramaturgy of the opera, theatricality, and the spacial and temporal structure and looking at the same time at the history of how these aspects have been realized in actual performances (i.e. the lecture considers both work history and performance history). What both have in common are issues such as the disassembling and the reconstruction of the opera, the interpretation and reinterpretation of sexuality or the impossibility and possibility of performance (representation).

＊are references
1. The assimilation and change of “foreign” things: Mozart’s “Flight from the Serail”
＊Peter Kivy, Osmin's Rage. Philosophical Reflections on Opera, Drama, and Text. (Princeton University Press, 1988)

2. Women meant to go mad and die: Donizetti’s “Luzia of Ranmelmour”
＊Catherine Clement, Opera: the Undoing of Women. (University of Minnesota Press, 1989)

3. Men pulling together: Wagner’s “Lohengrin”
＊Celia Applegate & Pamela Potter, Music and German National Identity. (University of Chicago Press, 2002)

4. The orient as a substitute of desire: Pucchini’s “Madame Butterfly” and “Turandot”
＊Jonathan Wisenthal (ed.), A Vision of the Orient. Texts, Intertexts and Contexts of Madame Butterfly.
(University of Toronto Press, 2006), Kii-Ming Lo, Turandot auf der Opernbühne. (Peter Lang, 1996)

5. The inside and outside of opera: Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne of Naxos”
＊Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Richard Strauss. (Da Capo, 1988)

6. The disassembling of stories/ the story of disassembling: B.A. Zimmermann’s “Soldaten”
＊Dörte Schmidt, Lenz im zeitgenössischen Musiktheater : Literaturoper als kompositorisches Projekt bei Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Friedrich Goldmann, Wolfgang Rihm und Michèle Reverdy. (Metzler, 1993)

Other references
＊Donald Jay Grout & Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music. 4th ed.
    (J.M. Dent, 1988)
＊Donald Jay Grout & Hermine Weigel Williams, A Short History of Opera. 4th ed.
    (Columbia University Press, 2003)
Sanko Nagaharu, Eruza no yume kaizohan – atarashii wagnerzo wo motomete
    (Hosei daigaku shuppankyoku, 1996)
Nagaki Seiji, zenei ongaku no hyouryushatachi – mo hitotsu no ongakuteki kindai
    (Chikuma shobo, 1993)