Experiencing these 2 operas, I was able to comprehend the incredible talents of the Auburn University’s Department of Music Opera Workshop performers. Each performance allowed the performers to showcase their vocal talents greatly; as well as showing their strict practicing by knowing the vocal queues with the music as well as with each other to never sound off or un-synced with each other.…
2007 -- a modernized play, Re: Woyzeck by Jeremy Gable premiered in Fullerton, California. In this play Georg Büchner becomes a character himself. The play was received favorably and was considered for Pulitzer…
While opera had been thriving in Europe since its beginnings in the 16th century, 19th century America was still a relatively young, focusing its growth elsewhere. Musically, opera did not appeal to the common American, who was much more interested in simpler tastes. Interest in opera was mostly shared among the upper class elite, and due to the lack of a middle class, wasn’t largely established in the general public until the turn of the 20th century. Socioeconomic limitations reinforced the exclusivity of opera, with the wealthy, cultured, and political classes primarily in attendance. It wasn’t until 1825 that the first fully staged opera was performed in New York City. Ironically, though America being the self proclaimed most egalitarian…
Last Monday, I got to experience a sensational performance by the University Symphony, composed by Dr. Jonathan Pasternack, that enhanced my knowledge and emotional state through the uniqueness of both the symphony and opera act. Having only experienced a symphony once during the course of my life, I was ecstatic to attend such a soothing and joyful concert. The concert was fairly short, it last two hours, and consisted of 2 symphony songs and 1 opera act. The first two were symphony, which were played in a very unpredictable manner. The melody (violins) started off very slow and quickly increased their tempo. The orchestra performed many instances of crescendo and decrescendos; this kept the audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation. The second part consisted of an opera in one act entitled “L’Enfant Ee Les Sortileges by Murice Ravel, which was sung like an act, and played by the orchestra. Both parts of the performance were very unique in there own ways, however, what intrigued me the most, was the ability of the performers to create an emotional connection with the audience.…
The music and art of the Renaissance are related because a lot of the artists were inspired by the music of the time period. Some of the paintings also had instruments that were played in Renaissance. Yes I think music greatly affected the artwork of the renaissance because music was played outside of the church. People were allowed to express different opinions through art and music.…
The environment in the Bing theater was very classical. There was people constantly coming in which surprised me because I thought that people stopped liking classical music. My first impression of the Bing Theater was that it was very organized because there were people to greet you and hand you a program at the door. The people attending was people of all ages, but I did notice that there was a fairly large group sitting together near the front of the stage. The people that attended were dressed casually. The young musicians on stage were dressed formally compared to the audience. The acoustics were natural sound there wasn’t any amplifier. My sight line wasn’t so great which it usually is because I’m fairly short, but it good enough to see the musicians play their pieces. You could notice…
Music has developed a lot over the years. Classical music has evolved in a more gradual manner with a number of smaller revolutionary steps along the way. In the 9th to 14th centuries the development of music was documented in a physical form. This was where music could now be communicated efficiently, and succeeding generations would know something about the music of their ancestors. There where demands of the church that required a musical notation, and so the earliest written music was largely in Church music called Hymns. The plainsong of this time was still singlehanded, but that’s when the new developments were starting to appear.…
In every way Baroque music is like a teen-ager. Ok, maybe not in the pimply-faced-criticize-everything-even-though-you-don't-pay-for-it kind of way we have come to expect from our modern teen-agers. But what is a teen-ager anyway? Simply put; a teen-ager is no longer a child and not yet an adult. It is that awkward in-between stage when all the rules get broken, nothing ever seems to fit, and emotions fluctuate wildly. This is exactly how it was with the Baroque Era of Music.…
During the end of the sixteenth century to the mid eighteenth century, the Baroque Era prospered in Europe and its provinces. This section studies the Baroque expressions and the political setting against which they created. The writing of this period incorporated various subjects and structures, some recognizable yet numerous new and inventive. As the government developed progressively absolutist the theater entered into a golden age in France. Three playwrights written by Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and the comedic satirist Jean-Baptiste Poquelin also known by his stage name Moliere transformed French dramatic literature. In England, Stuart…
to pick and choose what he wanted to set to music. Verdi wished for himself to find a more…
Some were holding champagne glass or a whiskey glass. The bell rung and every person knew that it was time to go to their seats. The performance I attended was called La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, and it was played for the last time of this opera season, so the place was sold out. The cast was made up of some of the most known opera singers, Carmen Giannattasio, James Courtney, Atalla Ayan, and many others.…
The common people on the other hand wanted something with more bright colors, pizzazz, loud music, comedic, and simple, and easy to follow along. For them shows and operas were more of a form of entertainment. A distractions from their mundane daily life. This was clearly shown in the film when Mozart’s friend had asked him to right something for the his theatre, and Mozart’s wife objected saying that Mozart was of a higher standing than that. There was a big difference in the people of different classes in the way they defined entertainment and…
All but one of Guiseppe Verdi's masterworks are operas. This poses a problem for those of us who aren't opera buffs. Fortunately, though, that one exception is his stunning Requiem, into which he poured the same vibrant emotion that thrills opera fans, but without the trite plots, simplistic characters and dull narrative stretches that tend to alienate others. Indeed, more than a few critics have hailed the Requiem as Verdi's finest opera.…
2. Discuss the relationship between words and music in the operas of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.…
Actors are opening themselves up to be completely and utterly vulnerable for a crowd of people to watch. They are letting strangers by the hundreds view them at their weakest moments, and then forcing themselves to wipe away the tears and take a bow. They are connecting to a story with emotions that are so overwhelming, they have to sing about it, and when those emotions intensify even further, they have to dance about it, too. Everything about the theatre is just so stunningly relatable for those onstage and off, I have a hard time imagining how different my life would have been if I had never been a part of…