Music Appreciation: Romantic Period Opera

Study Notes

Music and Art Song

A song written to be sung in recital, typically with piano accompaniment and often set to a poem, is known as an art song.
The Kundiman is the art song of the Philippines with folk-music influence set to texts, often referred to as classical love songs.

Opera Composers of the Romantic Period

Franz Peter Schubert

Developed "Lieder", a German word that means song, setting poetry to music, performed by a single vocalist and piano.
Famous compositions include: Ave Maria, Swan Song, and Unfinished Symphony.

Giuseppe Verdi

Wrote operas with political overtones for a middle-class audience.
Characters are ordinary people, not from the royal family like those found in German operas.
First opera "Oberto" was performed in La Scala, the most important opera house at the time.
Famous compositions include: La Traviata, Rigoletto, Falstaff, Otello, and Aida.

Giacomo Puccini

Belonged to a group of composers who stressed realism, drawing material from everyday life.
Rejected heroic themes from mythology and history.
Performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida convinced him that his true vocation was opera.
Famous compositions include: La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, and Turandot.

Richard Wagner

Introduced new ideas in harmony and form, including extremes of chromaticism.
Developed leitmotif, a repeating melodic phrase in music that represents a character, setting, emotion, or theme.
Famous compositions include: Tristan and Isolde, The Valkyrie, The Master-Singers of Nuremberg, Parsifal, and The Flying Dutchman.

Georges Bizet

Most famous opera is "Carmen", although it initially received poor reviews and attendance.

Theatrical Elements of an Opera

Opera is a theatrical work consisting of a dramatic text that has been set to music and staged with scenery, costumes, and movement.

Elements of an Opera

Libretto: the text of an opera.
Librettist: a person who writes the text of an opera or other long vocal work.
Score: has all the musical notes, words, and ideas to help the performers tell the story.
Orchestra: an ensemble that is comprised of string, woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments.
Recitative: a type of singing in which the soloist adopts the rhythm and delivery of ordinary speech to move the plot forward.
Aria: an air or solo singing part sung by a principal character.
Ensemble: a piece that is sung by two or more characters at the same time.
Chorus: a group of singers with more than one person singing each part, like a choir, often representing groups such as soldiers, priests, peasants, etc.

Description

Test your knowledge of opera composers from the Romantic Period, including Franz Peter Schubert, and learn about the Kundiman, a traditional Filipino art song. Explore the world of classical music and opera!