Forum and intensive lectures at Nanjing University

"Opera and narrative" /
CHOKI Seiji (Musicology, Contemporary music, University of Tokyo)

This class asks what transformations opera underwent in the 17th to 19th century with regards to their narrative structure and what meaning this has had historically. At first, if there is an original work, how has this work been transferred to the opera, and what kind of relation do the aspects of opera and the music (voice and instrumental music, and form and emotional functions) have in forming the opera’s unique narrative, these questions as they are will lead to a point of view of what is interesting about opera works.

1) The birth of opera and lamento – Cavalli “La Callista”

2) Seria and the intricacy of relations - Handel “Alcina”

3) Buffa and mix-ups - Mozart “The Marriage of Figaro”

4) Comedia and Fate – Wagner “The Flying Dutchman”

5) 5) Works that do not look like opera / Sounds that cannot be heard – R. Strauss ”Salome”

References
＊Donald Jay Grout & Hermine Weigel Williams, A Short History of Opera. 4th ed.
    (Columbia University Press, New York, 2003)
＊Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century.
    (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1991)
＊Jane Glover, Cavalli. (Batsford, London, 1978)
＊Winton Dean, Handel and the Opera Seria. (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969)
＊Rudolph Angermuller (preface and translation by Stewart Spencer),
     Mozart's Operas. (Rizzoli, New York, 1988),
     (Japanese translation by Yoshida Taisuke published by Ongaku no tomo sha, Tokyo,1991)
＊Lawrence Kramer, Opera and Modern Culture: Wagner and Strauss.
     (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004)