Mozart's Operas Research Articles

On "Soldier Boy, Soldier": The Development of an Opera

Music, Indiana University in 1979 offering a commission for a new opera, I was very surprised. Opera has not been a major involvement for composers of my generation. I remembered that two of the greatest composers of our century each wrote only one opera-Bela Bartok, Bluebeard's Castle, and Igor Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress. Although both composed a significant body of works for voice, the dramatic forum had seemingly not been of importance to them. I had observed the resemblance of style between Gounod, Meyerbeer, and Bizet. What musician has not heard Wagner's Ring cycle? Who has not been impressed by Berg's opera, Wozzeck, with its rich organic dramatic ideas; read books on the operas of Mozart; seen Boris Goldovsky's traveling production of Rigoletto; listened to arias by Luciano Pavarotti; or admired the divas Price, Home, Caballe, Scotto, and von Stade? It was not my familiarity with the scope of operatic history that was of major concern, but the fact that I had not contemplated opera as an outlet for my compositional skills. In his letter, Dean Webb suggested that perhaps the opera might be based on works such as Black Thunder by Ama Bontemps, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, or Brian's Song, a popular TV show about the personal friendship of the late Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, two professional football players. He also suggested that I might build the opera around such historic figures as Crispus Attucks, Cinque, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson, Harriet Tubman, or others. These ideas were not without appeal. In fact, in 1966 I had been commissioned by Fisk University to write a work in celebration of its 100th anniversary. The result was Personals, a cantata for chorus, brass septet, and narrator based on a text by Arna Bontemps. Therefore, Bontemps's Black Thunder was indeed tempting. Also, since I have always had a picture of Paul Robeson in my home, the idea of this noble man as the subject of

Goethe's Faust (review)

Goethe Yearbook 349 2. So observes Johann Friedrich Schink in a review of Mozart's opera, Dramaturgische Fragmente (Graz, 1782) 4:1002. 3. Goethe's 'lphigenie auf Tauris' als Drama der Autonomie (Munich, 1979) 4. Wilson has published a concise English summary of many of his arguments: "Turks on the Eighteenth-Century Operatic Stage and European Political, Military, and Cultural History," Eighteenth Century Life n. s., vol. 9 (1985): 79-92. Williams, John R., Goethe's Faust. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987 (Unwin Critical Library). This series aims to provide "scholarly introductions" that will be "reliable and stimulating works of reference and guidance, embodying the present state of knowledge and opinion in a conveniently accessible form." To create an essential secondary text on Faust that is still accessible to non-specialists is a challenge not fully met here. The book is in two parts. The first, "History, Composition and Reception" begins with a fairly detailed history of the Faust legend from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Williams acknowledges that much of this tradition was unknown to Goethe; other sources for Goethe's text are not discussed, except for brief references to the Book of Job and to Calderón. The second chapter offers a brief biography of Goethe, describes the stages of composition of Faust, and discusses the relation of the parts to each other. This section concludes with a clear survey oÃ- Faust's reception and description of the dominant issues in the .FßiMi-scholarship: the genre of the play, the perfectibilist and unitarian controversies . The rest of the book is divided into a chapter of commentary for the prologues, one for Part I and one for Part II. The commentary describes the action, offers interpretive speculation about details of action and motivation, and discusses selected issues raised by the scholarship. The book ends with a chapter describing the meters oiFaust. Williams's Faust is essentially the Urfaust. He describes the shift in position for Wald und Höhle in Part I as a "further odd, and not entirely happy, change [...]" (33)· The diction leaves unclear whether the same adjectives apply to what filled the "große Lücke" as well. The Walpurgisnachtstraum is a "feeble satirical intermezzo," the Walpurgisnacht takes second place to Schöne's recent reconstruction (on p. 146 the latter is referred to as if it were the canonical text), and the final version of Kerker is "less starkly economical in expression than the Urfaust scene" (34). It is, following Eudo Mason and Albrecht Schöne, a Mephisto-centered reading of a Sturm and Drang Faust, even in Part II. As a result the book minimizes the significance of most of the text as published. On other issues Williams tends to be neutral. In Chapter Two we are told that Parts I and II are related but not unified by a common idea, that Part I is in the tbeatrum mundi tradition but is mimetic and naturalist (and that all drama is 350 Book Reviews naturalist), that Part I has a unique form but is Shakespearean, that Part II is fundamentally different from Part I because it is Calderonian (compounding the confusion as to what is meant by tbeatrum mundi tradition). Sometimes several paragraphs of material are offered and then declared only marginally relevant: after a full page on the history of Mistra, for example, we are told that such information has little bearing on Act III, and that Goethe probably did not have access to the main book on it (168). At a more significant level, there is not only a fundamental split between the two parts of the play, but Part I separates into the tragedies of the scholar and that of Gretchen, and Part II into aesthetic concerns (Acts II and III) and political concerns (Acts I and IV). These are all aspects of a pervasive insecurity about the quality of the play. This book is a genuine commentary: passages are rarely quoted, the discussion proceeds scene by scene, often speech by speech. Since Williams only occasionally draws connections from one scene to the next, the details of scholarly discussion on the play are communicated more successfully than the main issues...

Osmin's rage: philosophical reflections on opera, drama, and text

While at work on The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart posed for himself the great aesthetic conundrum of opera: how does drama become music? Reflecting, in a letter to his father, on the angry outburst of his operatic villain Osmin, he wrote, Just as a man in such a towering rage oversteps all the bounds of order, moderation and propriety and completely forgets himself, so the too forget itself. And yet, as Mozart went on to say, unpleasant emotions not be expressed in unpleasant Even in depicting anger, must never offend the ear, but please the hearer, or in other words never cease to be music. In Peter Kivy's view, Mozart has here summarized the problem of opera: the transmutation of into drama while remaining within the bounds of pure musical form. For to transgress these bounds would be to give up the game--to represent, perhaps, but not to represent in In pursuit of an understanding of such limits, Professor Kivy focuses on three crucial stages in operatic history--the invention of opera, Handelian opera seria, and the comic operas of Mozart. From the confrontation of philosophical theory and musical practice, he extracts an operatic essence that is characterized as drama-made-music, as contrasted with drama. In conclusion, he compares the concept of drama-made music with other concepts of opera, especially Joseph Kerman's, and provides a philosophical rationale for its unique character.

Mozart's operas

Mozart's operas

To Understand Verdi and Wagner We Must Understand Mozart

scheme, but to the free and flexible interaction of all the aspects of a number or series of numbers.) The following discussions are in some respects detailed, while in others they barely scratch the surface; I hope at least to suggest some relevant methods-and rewards-of close analysis of Mozart's operas. '7Kerman, Opera as Drama (New York, 1956), chs. 3-4; Rosen, The Classical Style (New York, 1971), pp. 288-325; Noske, The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi (The Hague, 1977), part I; Heartz, Tonality and Motif in Idomeneo, Musical Times 115 (1974), 382-86; Levarie, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (Chicago, 1952); Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart (Chicago, 1983). 8In this she follows Ratner; see his Classic Music (New York, 1980).

Leporello is on his Knees. In Search of Relevance in South African Psychology

By making use of a metaphor derived from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, the author indicates that there are many opportunities for psychologists in South Africa to become involved in some of the burning issues of the day, and that there is a great need for research investment in appropriate areas related to the societal problems that exist in the country. He expresses his concern about the possibility that psychology may become trivialized if the approach adopted becomes excessively academic. The issue of relevance in psychology is addressed in some detail, and he illustrates his concern and draws attention to priorities by means of examples related to policy, peace and international issues, the psychological impact of new technology, crime and violence, disability, and health delivery.

Mozart et les spectacles de cour

Francis Claudon : Mozart and court entertainment. Mozart is often seen as the symbol of an old-fashioned court art, but in many respects he can be considered to have revitalised and transformed court entertainment, as can be seen from examples concerning mainly Germany and Italy. Court theatre (Hofoper ) was not necessarily Italianising or Francophile, as Mozart showed with Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, immediately performed throughout Germany. More generally, the fashion for Mozart operas, including his serious ones, shows that people wanted to ' understand ' what was happening even when they preferred lighter works. Above all we see from Mozart's performances that court theatre wanted to become more national and Germanic. That is why certain works which were not originally court commissions, such as The Magic Flute or Don Giovanni became great successes at the beginning of the 19th Century in court theatres throughout Europe.

On the Structure of International Disdain

A binary relation R is a collection of ordered pairs (x,y). The relation R of international disdain is defined operationally by means of the joking relationship which occurs frequently among primitive tribes studied by anthropologists (1). For example the ordered pair (USA, Poland) is in R since i n America, one frequently hears the derogatory joke, Q1: How many Poles does it cake ro change a light bulb? A l : Three. One holds the light bulb and the other two lift him by the legs and walk round and round. During a visit to Poland, one may hear the identical response to the modified question in which Poles are replaced by policemen. In England, the replacement is Irishmen; in France, Belgians; in Germany, Prussians; in Canada, Newfier (meaning people from Newfoundland, and these people also tell Newfie jokes as verified by the first author during extensive field work to gather reliable data). This relation can be modeled by a directed graph ( 4 ) , just as the story of Mozart's opera 'Cosi fan Tutte' was structured by Harary ( 2 ) ; additional examples are given by Harary ( 3 ) . Four other variations of this joke follow: 4 2 HOW many Californians are needed to change a light bulb? A2 Elcven. One actually changes che bulb and the other ten share the experience. Q3. How many psychiatrists, etc.? A3: Jusr one, but the bulb must really want to be changed.

The Signifier and the Signified. Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

The Signifier and the Signified. Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

The Magic Flute and the Quatrain

M ozart's Magic Flute displays dazzling variety of musical types, in Grout's words, a diversity corresponding to the diversity of characters and scenes in the story. 1 Reinforcing this variety of types is variety of structural designs unmatched in any other mature Mozart opera. Clearly, sonata is not the norm here, as it had been in the earlier Abduction from the Seraglio. Instead, shorter, simpler designs are operative, both as numbers complete in themselves and as components of more extended complexes. One design in particular, the quatrain, distinguishes itself by its frequent appearance, its structural flexibility, and its adaptability to an astonishing range of dramatic situation and textual nuance. The quatrain-also labelled three-phrase binary form (Rosen) and small two-reprise form (Ratner)2-has received considerable attention in an important series of articles by Denes Bartha published between 1967 and 1975.3 Working with series of contredanse-inspired rondo finales in Haydn's symphonies and quartets, Bartha was struck by the similarity between their initial phrase and period arrangements and the typical four-line stanza of Central European popular song and dance. Such stanza poets and musicians had adapted into thousands of folklore-inspired songs (Lieder im Volkston). In instrumental art music, as in popular song, stanza of four lines is involved, the relationship of which is customarily aaba, aabb, or aabc. Closer inspection confirms the seminal importance of the quatrain in the outputs of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and at the same time illustrates graphically the differing accents with which these masters spoke the common language of their time. Inspired by Bartha's accounts of the quatrain, its structure and its style in the instrumental art music of the Viennese,4 I propose to proceed full circle to consideration of the

Mozart's Early Operas

Mozart's Early Operas

Kiri Te Kanawa Mozart Opera Arias

Journal Article Kiri Te Kanawa Mozart Opera Arias Get access Robert Chauls Robert Chauls Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Opera Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue 4, Winter 1983, Pages 144–145, https://doi.org/10.1093/oq/1.4.144 Published: 01 January 1983

The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

Tirso's Don Juan and the Opposing Self

TIRSO'S DON JUAN AND TUE OPPOSING SELF EVERETT W. HESSE San Diego State University Some years ago Otto Rank studied the psychological interdependence of master and servant in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. 'He views the Don and his servant Leporello as a single psychological entity. In his role as confidant, companion and servant, Leporello makes all kinds of admonitions which Don Giovanni permits because he has need of him. What Rank has done for an understanding of the relationship between Don Giovanni and Leporello has prompted me to investigate whether a similar relationship exists between Don Juan and Catalinón in Tirso's El burlador de Sevilla. Don Juan and Catalinón may be regarded as characters completely distinct one from the other as separate individuals (like Don Quijote and Sancho ), or they may be considered from a psychoanalytic perspective as complementary parts of a unified whole. That is, they resemble two projections of the same human personage seen as two because they are out of focus, much like what happens when one looks through the lens of a camera and sees two images, images that have not been brought into focus as one. This concept is not made explicit by the author but is implied in the way each character reacts on the other. This reduction of two characters into one is therefore to be considered latent rather than manifest. Don Juan represents the id, the instinctual, appetitive nature of man. Catalinón stands for the superego in both of its principal capacities, that of a censoring conscience dictating abstinence and the idealistic ego which imposes honorable duties and noble standards of conduct.2 Don Juan and Catalinón thus may and do quarrel; in fact Don Juan strikes his servant across the mouth for his moralizing but nothing can undo the tie that binds them together. The burlador as protagonist, or as agonist, thus has his double in the person of the play's gracioso. As is conventional in the comedia, the gracioso is a subordinate character in some way attached to the protagonist as friend or attendant , one whose function it is, as a kind of double, to play a portion of the 4 Bulletin ofthe Comediantes composite role of the protagonist. This role as double is, during the more serious conflicts, that of an ironical buffoon. It is recalled that an oft-observed phenomenon of literature is its depiction of endopsychic conflict as of an interpersonal nature; the seemingly separate characters represent psychological forces at odds. There is apparent a kind of defense mechanism by which an individual separates a part of the self from that which he wishes to escape. Don Juan's refusal to accept an indivisible oneness of his personality may be a part of his attempt to flee that aspect of it that fears the consequences of his being caught and thereby of terminating his pleasure. This is part of the self in Don Juan which he finds detestable in Catalinón and which he tries to exclude from his own personality. As Gerald E. Wade has pointed out in his edition of the play, the exact meaning of the name Catalinón has eluded commentators.5 It seems to connote a person lacking in courage, a fearful individual, a timid soul. It is an attribute which Don Juan detests, especially when Catalinón's warnings and advice would interfere with the master's pleasure. This gives rise to Don Juan's well-known response, «¡Qué largo me lo fiáis!» (905). Don Juan implies that he has no fear of carrying out his plan to seduce women because of his «condici ón,» and concludes that «Catalinón con razón/ te llaman» (906-7). Catalinón timidly consents to his master's profligacy, but as for himself,«...en burlar mujeres/ quiero ser Catalinón» (908-9). Throughout El burlador de Sevilla one gets an impression of Don Juan's valor. Don Gonzalo too notices it, «valiente estás« (2709), at a point near the crisis. But a closer scrutiny reveals that Don Juan's valor is merely a façade behind which lurks an inner fear common to all...

Social and Philosophical Outlook in Mozart's Operas

Social and Philosophical Outlook in Mozart's Operas Get access CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Musical Quarterly, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, October 1981, Pages 507–526, https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/LXVII.4.507 Published: 01 October 1981

Key Relations in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera

Research Article| November 01 1978 Key Relations in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera Siegmund Levarie Siegmund Levarie Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar 19th-Century Music (1978) 2 (2): 143–147. https://doi.org/10.2307/746309 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Siegmund Levarie; Key Relations in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. 19th-Century Music 1 November 1978; 2 (2): 143–147. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/746309 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Content19th-Century Music Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1978 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Journal Article REVIEWS OF BOOKS Get access The Signifier and the Signified: Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi. By Frits Noske. pp. xii + 418. ( Nijhoff, The Hague, 1977, $38.00.) JULIAN BUDDEN JULIAN BUDDEN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 59, Issue 3, July 1978, Pages 333–334, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/59.3.333 Published: 01 July 1978

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Journal Article REVIEWS OF BOOKS Get access The Operas of Mozart. By William Mann. pp. 656. ( Cassell, London, 1977, £15.00.) WINTON DEAN WINTON DEAN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 59, Issue 3, July 1978, Pages 334–338, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/59.3.334 Published: 01 July 1978

Folklore and Enlightenment in the Libretto of Mozart's Magic Flute

IT HAS BEEN NOTED many times that the libretto of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute is not text of high literary distinction. It may, in fact, be safe to assume that the two-act play, written for the occasion by the German librettist, actor-singer, and entrepreneur, Emanuel Schikaneder,' would long be forgotten had not Mozart's music kept it alive. Yet it appears equally evident that the libretto has, over the years, exercised an intense fascination and has elicited even from the soberest critics and musicians extreme statements of praise and condemnation, remarks ranging from there is no better opera text in existence2 to a mere conglomeration of absurdities.3 Stendhal, the French novelist, offers in this kaleidoscope of views sensible