Opera, Ballet and Music Theater Genres

This course considers the relationship between music and the disciplines of drama, dance, and related theatrical expressions. Operas by Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini; operettas by Strauss, Lehar, and Bernstein; and ballets by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev will be considered, as will be more recent hybrid theater forms ranging from the Phillip Glass to the 1960s avant-garde to postmodern examples. Works will be critically analyzed using DVDs, CDs, and piano illustrations.

3/23/2010 - 5/18/2010
Tuesday 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Tuition: $365.00
Early Registration Rate: $335.00 before 3/16/2010

Click here to register for Opera, Ballet and Music Theater Genres

Weeks 1 - 2: Opera / Ballet Synthesis

• Lully at the court of Louis IV; Lully’s Atys
• Rimsky-Korsakov: Mlada
• Roussel: Padmavati
• Puccini: Le Villy

Week 3:

• Mozart & da Ponte operas
• Verdi: Shakespearean operas
• Puccini: Fannciulla del West

Week 4: Operetta, the Art of Escapism

• Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus, Zigeunerbaron,
• Lehar: A Merry Widow
• The Great Crash and escapism (1873 stock market crash)

Week 5: American Musical Theater

• Kern: Showboat
• Bernstein: West Side Story, Candide
• Bock: Fiddler on the Roof
• Soundheim:TBA

Week 6: Modernist Ballet

• Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet
• Debussy: Jeux
• Falla: Three-Cornered-Hat
• Ravel: TBD

Week 7: Stravinsky and the Reinvention of the Classical

• Apollon Musagète
• Oedipus Rex and Agon

Week 8: American Avant-garde

• Crumb: Voice of the Whale
• Glass: Satyagraha
• Adams, Reich etc. Works TBD