Notes
from Wednesday, February 20 class session:
Preparation For Wed. Feb 20:
1. Complete the
online eWorkbook assessment Quiz #7 (Pre-Classic/Classic Vocal) in
WebCT/Vista/Blackboard by 3PM Monday. Feb 18
(click here for instructions on how
to log onto WebCT).
2. Read textbook Chapter
6
(Classic)--pages 45, 46, 53, 59, 60 and 61 (focus on Mozart's vocal examples).
3. Read Lecture Notes from Feb 18/20.
4. Listen to "Classical Music Online" examples for Classical
Vocal Music/Mozart (all examples for this class are now in a separate
"MUS1700" folder).
5. Continue preparing for
Listening Quiz #1 and the Midterm Exam.
-----
Mozart's
Operas
Opera is of
central importance to his style development, and his most important operas were
COMIC operas (be sure you know the difference between the comic opera types
below)
His most
important operas are:
- The
Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro; 1786--Italian opera buffa)
- Don
Giovanni
(1787, Prague--Italian "dramma giocoso" blending comic
and tragic traits)
- The
Magic Flute
(1791, Singspiel--sung
in German; spoken dialogue): In
this amazing work, Mozart raised the usually low-level Singspiel tradition to rival
the normally high standards of opera seria.
The two major
operas we discussed are:
Le nozze di
Figaro [The
Marriage of Figaro]--opera buffa in 4 acts!!!
- Based on a
libretto by revolutionary French poet Beaumarchais
- This is
the sequel to the famous play The Barber of Seville
- This
play was banned by Emperor of Austria (could not even possess it)
- Mozart
spent a year writing the work
THE MARRIAGE OF
FIGARO:
The Marriage of
Figaro is based on a French play by Beaumarchais (this politically subversive
comic play was banned by the Austrian Emperor, but Mozart not only possessed it
illegally--he spent an entire year setting it into a 4-act opera buffa.)
Remember that Beaumarchais used the proceeds from this play to fund the
American colonists vs. the British in 1775 before we established our own
Continental Congress.
Main
characters:
- Count
Almaviva
- Countess
(Rosina)
- Susanna
(Countess's chamber maid)
- Figaro (a
former barber, now the Count's head servant)
- Cherubino
(an adolescent/ pubescent aristocratic boy
(there are
also several other secondary characters that are given special musical
interest)
See diagram of main characters:
Brief Synopsis:
On Figaro & Susanna's wedding day, Figaro discovers that the Count has been
trying
to
seduce Susanna for quite a while. Together, Figaro & Susanna tell the
Countess, and the three
concoct a
scheme to entrap/embarrass the Count so he will stop his advances. At first,
the scheme has
Susanna
inviting the Count to meet her in the garden at dusk during the wedding
reception--except
actually
Cherubino will dress up like Susanna, and thus the Count will be discovered
trying to seduce
a 12-year
old boy in a dress! Unfortunately, Cherubino gets in trouble earlier in the
day, and is
dismissed
from the court, so the Countess has to dress up like Susanna (so the Count is
actually trying
to seduce
his own wife thinking she is someone else). In all the confusion at the end of
the opera, the
Count is so
humiliated that he gets on his knees and begs forgiveness in front of the
entire court.
(Note:
Commoners outwitting aristocrats was a very subversive idea at this point in
history).
--
DON GIOVANNI:
Don Giovanni [Don Juan]—this is a
dramma giocoso (blend of serious & comic elements) in 2 acts
- Based on a
legendary literary figure of an abusive/out-of-control aristocrat
- Mozart
spent a year writing the work
- Mozart's
father, Leopold, died in Salzburg while Mozart was writing this opera
(Wolfgang
had not spoken to his father for the past several years)
Main
characters:
- Don
Giovanni
- Leporello
(his servant--dislike working for Giovanni but has no choice),
- Donna
Elvira (Giovanni's ex-lover/she still loves him)
- Commendatore
(a beloved/retired military commander)
- Donna
Anna (Commendatore's 18 year old daughter--Giovanni rapes her at start of
opera),
See diagram of main characters:
Brief Synopsis:
Giovanni is an extremely abusive/power-hungry nobleman who tries to control
everyone he
encounters (He is not a ladies’ man--he is a womanizer, a rapist, etc.). After
raping Donna
Anna, he
murders her aged father--the Commendatore (who is unarmed and in his
nightclothes). The
Commander
is buried in the cemetery, in an honored grave marked by a full-sized marble
likeness.
Later,
while hiding from the authorities in that cemetary, Don Giovanni mocks the
Commander's
grave--which
disturbs the dead man's spirit so intensely that it possesses the statue and at
the end of
the opera
(Giovanni's dinner scene) the stone statue drags the unrepentant/unchangeable
Giovanni into
the flames
of Hell.
Examples from
Don Giovanni shown on video:
[NAWM 107a]
"Ah, chi mi dice mai" (Donna Elvira cursing Giovanni)--sonata form
aria
[NAWM 107b]
"Madamina" (Leporello's catalog aria, tries to warn Elvira of
Giovanni's
unfaithfulness)
Requiem Mass: (Mass for the dead)
- Mozart's last
work (unfinished)
-
Commissioned by an unidentified nobleman (Count Walsegg who wanted to claim the
composition as his own work in honor of his late wife (who died at 20 years
old)
- Mozart's
music clearly depicts his own personal turmoil and ultimate hope for
redemption.
- Mozart
completed the first movement ("Requiem Aeternam") in full score
- Also
drafted relatively complete sketches for seven other movements
- After
Mozart's death on Dec. 5, 1791, the work was first completed by his student
Sussmayer
- Movements
played in class:
1. Requiem
aeternam ("Lord Grant them eternal rest" . . . but very little is
peaceful in this mvt.)
3. Dies
irae (the soul fleeing from the final judgment of God)
7.
Confutatis maledictis ("As the damned are consigned forever to the flames
of woe")
8.
Lacrimosa (depicts one weeping tears of deep sorrow/repenitence)
See translations of selected movements
