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Journal articles on the topic 'Opera arias'
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1
Chuilon, J., and E. T. Glasow. "Bryn Terfel: Opera Arias." Opera Quarterly 13, no. 4 (January 1, 1997): 211–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/13.4.211.
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Regalado, Jacinto. "Edita Gruberová Opera Arias." Opera Quarterly 8, no. 2 (1991): 171–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/8.2.171.
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Kimball, C. "Natalie Dessay: French Opera Arias." Opera Quarterly 15, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 166–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/15.1.166.
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Harris, Kenn. "June Anderson Bellini Opera Arias." Opera Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1989): 131–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/6.4.131.
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Ashbrook, W. "Phyllis Curtin: Opera Arias (1960--1968)." Opera Quarterly 16, no. 2 (January 1, 2000): 294–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/16.2.294.
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Greeen, London. "Claudia Muzio Opera Arias and Songs." Opera Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1990): 192–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/7.3.192.
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Law, Joe K. "Selma Kurz Opera Arias and Songs." Opera Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1990): 197–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/7.3.197.
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McKee, David. "Kiri Te Kanawa Italian Opera Arias." Opera Quarterly 8, no. 2 (1991): 174–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/8.2.174.
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Willier, Stephen A. "Dame Eva Turner Opera Arias and Songs." Opera Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1990): 188–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/7.3.188.
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Green, London. "Tito Schipa Opera Arias, Duets, and Songs." Opera Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1990): 193–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/7.3.193.
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Kuzmenko, A. O., and V. E. Railianova. "Lingvuistic features of the English language opera aria." Bulletin of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, no. 3 (341) (2021): 76–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.12958/2227-2844-2021-3(341)-76-85.
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The article deals with the relationship between discourse and text, as well as song discourse and song text. The place and role of the style of the opera aria in the world culture (musical culture) has been determined. The object of the study is the English-language song texts of opera arias, and the subject is their stylistic arrangement. The signs of dialogism in the English-language song texts of opera arias are clarified: the use of interjections, the first and second person of pronouns and verbs, imperative constructions and addresses. It has been proven that stylistic means of addition and substitution play a significant role in style. The stylistic addition is aimed at depicting the magical and mystical with a breath of the imaginary. On the other hand, vernacular using interjections, imperatives, abbreviated forms reinforce the ordinariness of life. All stylistic techniques of addition are aimed at more emotional saturation of the realities of human existence in the English-language song texts of opera arias. Personification is perhaps the main technique of opera arias, because everything that is sung about the feeling of love is filled with human skills and capabilities. Stylistic figures of addition and substitution in the English-language opera arias emphasize the emphatic nature of thought and the acuteness of the speaker's perception of the world around him.
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Пастушкова, Анна Сергеевна. "Opera-Based Instrumental Parodies in Antonio Vivaldi's Concertos." Музыкальная академия, no. 4(772) (December 21, 2020): 46–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.34690/112.
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В статье рассмотрена проблема композиционных параллелизмов между инструментальными концертами и оперными ариями Антонио Вивальди. Введены термины для описания типов «театрализованной» ритурнельной формы и композиционного устройства концертов. Показано влияние признаков оперной арии на форму и жанровую специфику частей инструментального концерта. Предложена новая классификация примеров протяженного цитирования оперных арий в инструментальных концертах, среди которых - неизвестные ранее цитаты, обнаруженные автором статьи в концертах RV 139, RV 159 и RV 189. The article deals with thematic concordances between instrumental concertos and operatic arias by Antonio Vivaldi. New terms are proposed in order to describe the types of ‘operatic' ritornello form and sections of musical compositions. Comparative analysis of the music material of arias and corresponding concertos shows the influence of operatic aria's features to musical form and genre of concerto's movements. Based on various types of such influence, new classification of all presently known cases of the operatic arias reworked by Vivaldi for his instrumental concertos and vice versa is delivered. Proposed classification includes previously unknown cases of self-borrowing discovered by the author of this article in the instrumental concertos RV 139, RV 159 and RV 189.
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Pearce, J. "Richard Crooks, Tenor Opera Arias and Songs, 1918-19." Opera Quarterly 14, no. 4 (January 1, 1998): 130–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/14.4.130.
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Platoff, John. "Sarti's Fra i due litiganti and Opera in Vienna." Journal of the American Musicological Society 73, no. 3 (2020): 535–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jams.2020.73.3.535.
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Abstract Giuseppe Sarti's opera Fra i due litiganti, premiered in Milan in 1782, was the first great success of the reconstituted Italian opera company in Vienna in 1783. The opera sustained its enormous Viennese popularity for years, while also being performed in over one hundred other European cities by 1800. Mozart's quotation of the work in Don Giovanni testifies to its continuing appeal. But the version of the opera that was so successful in many parts of Europe differed substantially from the Milanese original. The surviving manuscript scores and printed librettos reveal that a standardized Viennese version of Fra i due litiganti, in which more than a third of the original arias were replaced, became the basis for productions across much of Europe. This unexpected standardization may reflect the prestige of Vienna and its role as a distribution point for opera scores, especially since many of the manuscripts were produced by Wenzel Sukowaty, the copyist for the Viennese court theaters. The Viennese changes surprisingly include arias for Nancy Storace and Francesco Benucci—later Mozart's Susanna and Figaro—who had themselves created the same roles in Milan. (Normally arias would be substituted to suit the preferences of new singers.) These alterations not only changed the profiles of the characters, but allowed Storace and Benucci to define themselves for the Viennese public, establishing the musical and dramatic personae that quickly made them the beloved favorites of Viennese audiences.
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Maklygin, Alexander L. "Untaken Peaks of “National Musical Construction”." Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts 10, no. 4 (2020): 539–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/spbu15.2020.401.
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The article is devoted to the process of the establishment of national professional musical practices in the national culture of the 1920–1940s on the example of creating the first operas. Initiated by state policy, the accelerated rise of academic art in the new Soviet republics brought about different artistic results, where, alongside the successful solution of the tasks set, the phenomenon of creative failure was adjacent. This was especially manifested in the work on the opera as the most complex and highest genre of European music. As a result of this work, the problematic aspects of the accelerated conquest of academic artistic tasks in the national republics were distinctly expressed: lack of the necessary socio-cultural infrastructure, a weak level of musical and performing personnel and the creative unprepared pioneer composers to solve opera dramaturgical problems. The “folklore thinking” of the first opera authors encountered a number of genre problems, the overcoming of which was expressed in all kinds of national interpretations aimed at combining strict European canons (for example, the phenomenon of the so-called “Turkic opera”). The most common event in the national republics was the phenomenon of “unfinished operas”, which demonstrated a certain antagonism of the composer’s folklore thinking and the necessary genre standards. The surviving sketches of many failed opera “firstborns” are mainly exposition areas of the form — arias and choirs based on folk song material. The development sections of the form, as well as orchestration, turned out to be an insurmountable obstacle. By the end of the 1940s, a whole group of “failed operas” had already developed in Soviet music, each of which in its own way presents dramatic pages of the history of Soviet music as multinational art. Without attention to this “invincible” and often latent part of the artistic heritage, the completeness of the true conquests of Soviet national musical “construction” cannot be revealed.
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Dill, Charles. "Eighteenth-Century Models of French Recitative." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 120, no. 2 (1995): 232–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jrma/120.2.232.
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As a repertory where recitative and air were not always delineated and where lyrical, mellifluous recitative was the most essential element, eighteenth-century French opera confronts historians and critics with a situation rather different from that of other operatic repertories. Whereas we can delve with relative confidence into questions about the style, shape and content of da capo arias, for example, we are confronted in French opera with a host of nagging details that make even the simplest assertions problematic. How did composers and audiences think about recitative and air? How and to what extent did the distinction between the two matter to them? Given that purely musical values, the kind informing Italian arias, resided elsewhere in French opera – primarily in its divertissements – how did one judge the musical content of recitative and to what end?
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Parr, Sean M. "Dance and the Female Singer in Second Empire Opera." 19th-Century Music 36, no. 2 (2012): 101–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ncm.2012.36.2.101.
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Abstract A vogue for coloratura dance arias began in the 1850s. This emerging genre combined melismatic singing with two hugely popular social dance genres: the bolero and the waltz. Scholars have observed an association between these social dances and a certain euphoric feminine sensuality, but the connection between this youthful ebullience in dance and virtuosic female vocality has been largely ignored. Dancing was notorious in the nineteenth century because of its dangerously arousing and vertiginous effects. As dances increased in speed and difficulty, so too did the singing of sopranos in midcentury Paris. In exploring relationships between dance, femininity, and singing, this article situates coloratura dance arias in the Paris of Napoléon III's Second Empire, a city sometimes condemned for its decadent materialism or dismissed because of its political impotence, in spite of its cultural, architectural, and technological importance. I argue for a connection between coloratura and the female body in precisely the era when the venerable singing style became the almost exclusive domain of the female singer and, simultaneously, reached its apogee in a Paris devoted to all the joy and glamour it could afford. Specific performers such as Marie Cabel and Caroline Carvalho were key to the success and even creation of these dance arias. These sopranos were certainly objectified in a problematic manner, but they were also “envoiced” (Carolyn Abbate's term) as wielders of a compelling musical power: coloratura. In providing virtuosic and luxurious expressions of femininity, these coloratura dance arias established a new sense of female vocality in the aural imagination of the Second Empire.
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Summers, Tim. "Opera Scenes in Video Games: Hitmen, Divas and Wagner’s Werewolves." Cambridge Opera Journal 29, no. 3 (November 2017): 253–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586718000046.
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AbstractThis article aims to illuminate the meanings and aesthetic effects generated by scenes of staged opera in video games. It also explores the images of opera transmitted to the huge audiences that games address. Three dimensions of the opera-game encounter are discussed. First,ToscainHitman: Blood MoneyandThe Beggar’s OperainAssassin’s Creed IIIare used to examine the treatment of violence and the discourse of popular appeal in games and opera. Second, the arias sung by women inFinal Fantasy VIandParasite Eveillustrate how a melodramatic mode of expression represents a confluence of the aesthetic priorities of the two media. Finally,The Beast Within’s meditation on Wagner reveals how opera sequences aim to engage players by conjuring phantasmagorias through a unifying and enrapturing spectacle.
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Hohaizel, Olha. "THE IMAGE OF ANNA IN THE OPERA “STOLEN HAPPINESS” BY Y. MEYTUS: INTERPRETATIVE ANALYSIS." Problems of Interaction Between Arts, Pedagogy and the Theory and Practice of Education 58, no. 58 (March 10, 2021): 112–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum1-58.07.
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The article analyzes the musical material of the two arias of Anna – as the key characteristics of her image in the opera Y. Meytus “Stolen Happiness” (based on the experience of analysis, since the arias are in the work and repertoire of the author of the study). Consideration of the image from the point of view of performance and interpretation of the understanding of the interactions of words and music, the composer logic of emotional experiences, taking into account a complex of components such as the nature of the musical fabric and the historical aspect, is proposed. operas. Statement of the problem. The creativity of Y. Meytus as a composer, who stood at the origins of the formation of the Ukrainian composing school of the twentieth century, is still relevant and, in particular, his rarely performed opera «Stolen Happiness», which in the true opinion of Y. Malyshev, is a «significant contribution» in the development of realistic opera art. There are still an undeserved number of records of this opera, and accordingly a small number of variants of interpretations of images, semantic texts and subtexts, and this work in this sense is of practical importance from the performer’s point of view. Since Anna’s arias are in the work and repertoire of the author of the study, the relevance of this topic is also related to the direct presentation of this music on stage. The purpose of the study –to determine the specificity of the interpretation of the image of Anna from the opera “Stolen Happiness” by Y. Maytus. Analysis of publications on the topic of the study. Regarding the works of Y. Meytus, there are researches and publications by Y. Malyshev, L. Archimovich, I. Mamchur, L. Bas, where the composer’s creativity is covered. There are few sources for the opera «Stolen Happiness», and there is no comprehensive and in-depth interpretative performance analysis.Presentation of the main research material. Widely utilizing the opera-harmonic basis of the features of Western Ukrainian folklore in the opera «Stolen Happiness», Y. Meytus emphasizes the national identity and color of the characters, including the main heroine, by means of the symphonic development of the musical material creates a dramatically and intelligently developed development of the multifaceted and multifaceted. The task of vocal performance is to consciously read the “score of feelings” of the performed character, which is contained primarily in the musical texture, which much and fully conveys the dynamics of character image development. The vocal part, the melody, being a part of harmony, is the condensate, the quintessence of the harmonious thought of the composer, which demands from the performer imagination, intuition, attention, sensory perception, emotional sensitivity. Conclusions of the study. Having performed a performative analysis of the image of Anna in the opera «Stolen Happiness» by Y. Meytus. 1. Because, first and foremost, it is an aria-melodic musical drama, close in style to verisim (the melody in Y. Meytus does not lose the properties of the length and cantilenes) therefore performance requires good long vocal breathing, cantilever, legato, flexibility of voice and timbral equality with simultaneous force of sound in climaxes, long thought of phrases, fullness of each vowel, clear diction, that is, awareness of the relationship between words and music, the smoothness of the language line. Good intonation hearing and good coordination of vocal apparatus are required not only from the point of view of breathing, but also from the point of view of difficult intonational musical language. 2. Performing arias requires from the singer a deep emotional responsiveness, great mental strength and physical endurance, as well as an actor’s understanding of the image-role. This image does not tolerate excessive passion for expressiveness, unnecessary emotions and hysterics, it will penetrate the depth of the tragedy of the heroine. The nuances from pianissimo, not transient to whispering, but voiced, to the filled fortissimo, not transitional to cry. The choice of tempo, especially given their frequent change, should be consistent with the natural sound of the vocal language. 3. The texture of the music material determines the role of the voice. The party is suitable for a solid lyric, lyric-dramatic (spinto) or dramatic soprano, that is, for voice, has the flight to “cut through” the orchestra and be sounded part of its rich texture.
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Goose, Benjamin. "Opera for Sale: Folksong, Sentimentality and the Market." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 133, no. 2 (2008): 189–219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02690400809480702.
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The Lautenlied from Korngold's Die tote Stadt and the Schlummerlied from Schreker's Die Schatzgräber flaunt their ‘folksong’ style in ways that are clearly similar. Contemporary criticism reveals the significance of this stylization. Folksong symbolized genuineness, but also, in its supposedly degenerate form, emotional manipulation of the masses. Both topics informed critics' reaction to diese two arias. Alongside analysis of the many recordings of Korngold's aria up to 1933, the article suggests how folksong characterization contributed to the opera's plot.
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Hunter, Mary. "Text, Music, and Drama in Haydn's Italian Opera Arias: Four Case Studies." Journal of Musicology 7, no. 1 (January 1, 1989): 29–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/763619.
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Hunter, Mary. "Text, Music, and Drama in Haydn's Italian Opera Arias: Four Case Studies." Journal of Musicology 7, no. 1 (January 1989): 29–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jm.1989.7.1.03a00030.
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Schneider, Herbert. "Entwicklung des Air mit Da capo von Lully bis Rameau und seinen französischen Zeitgenossen." Die Musikforschung 74, no. 1 (September 22, 2021): 26–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.52412/mf.2021.h1.2992.
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The starting-point is the rudimentary Italian aria with da capo, respectively with a frame, which surrounds a much longer central part. This type widely spread in the 17th century gets the main form of Quinault’s and Lully’s monologue (the other one is through-composed). It remains present in the Italian opera in a small quantity when the classical aria da capo has already been the main type of aria, whereas in France its number decreases much slower and gets rare in the 1750th. The French cantata imported from Italy blazes the trail for the classical da capo aria firstly in the opera-ballet, then in the divertissements of the tragédie lyrique in Italian, soon also in French and slowly also in arias with dramatic content and expression in all types of French music theatre. The aria with da capo and the classical da capo aria are examined in detail in operas of Rameau and his contemporaries, especially their individual solutions of text, musical forms and expression. Finally J.-J. Rousseau’s typology of the da capo aria is examined, verified and criticized. (Autor)
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Simionescu, Cristina. "Arias, Recitatives, Duets and Vocal Ensembles in The Opera Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti." Review of Artistic Education 17, no. 1 (March 1, 2019): 77–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/rae-2019-0009.
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Abstract A musical inspiration, Don Pasqule by Gaetano Donizetti offers a wealth of examples of how to capitalize on the vocal and musical potential offered by the opera show. We aim to analyze vocal scores - areas, duets, recitatives and vocal ensembles and to emphasize their musical achievement.
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Silva, Melissa Castello Branco e., and Sonia Maria Dozzi Brucki. "Multiple hallucinations due to brainstem injury: A case report." Dementia & Neuropsychologia 4, no. 4 (December 2010): 353–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1980-57642010dn40400016.
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Abstract We report a case of a 43-year-old woman with brainstem encephalitis in the third trimester of pregnancy. She presented complex visual and auditory hallucinations in the acute disease phase (hearing opera arias and seeing room furniture upside-down). Hallucinations resolved with antiviral treatment.
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Over, Berthold. "How to Impress the Public: Farinelli's Venetian Debut in 1728–1729." Musicology Today 17, no. 1 (December 1, 2020): 14–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/muso-2020-0002.
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Abstract Farinelli came to Venice only when his career was already well advanced. In 1728/29 he performed there in two operas, Catone in Utica by Leonardo Leo and Semiramide riconosciuta by Nicola Porpora. These operas needed to become a financial success because of the high remuneration the star singer earned. The composition and adaptation of the operas to the stage uncover the strategies by the impresarios of the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, the Grimani brothers, and by Farinelli himself to secure income and renown. Catone in Utica underwent a highly unusual procedure at its very premiere because the opera was “impasticciata”, i.e. merged with pre-existing or newly-composed music by other composers. The substitutions reveal Farinelli's aim to stun the audience in his very first aria on stage. His brother's (Riccardo Broschi's) “Mi lusinga il cor d’affetto” Farinelli had sang earlier in 1728 presents his entire vocal profile in a single aria. In subsequent arias, Farinelli adds some features not present in this aria or concretizes several aspects of it. In the second opera, Porpora's Semiramide riconosciuta, Farinelli concentrates on another feature of his vocal style: small, fast, quasi-improvisational motives. Although they are also found in operas by other composers and were also sung by other singers, Semiramide riconosciuta is a special case because of their high frequency in Farinelli's role. All in all, the two operas of his first appearance in Venice seem to follow the intention to present his entire vocal spectrum to the audience.
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Pankina, Eleva V., and Anastasia S. Privalova. "INTERPRETATION OF THE LIBRETTO BY PIETRO METASTASIO IN “ARTAXERXES” BY THOMAS AUGUSTINE ARNE." Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Kul'turologiya i iskusstvovedenie, no. 40 (2020): 156–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/22220836/40/13.
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Among the dramatic works of Pietro Metastasio libretto “Artaserse” (1730) occupies a leading position in the number of operas created on its basis. Among them is also the first opera-seria in English by Thomas Augustine Arne “Artaxerxes” (1762). The libretto of Metastasio was adapted for the English stage, probably by the composer himself. In the process of working on the libretto, Arne, preserving all the key points, made significant changes in the piece of Metastasio. Obviously a significant reduction of the text of Metastasio, is associated primarily with the exception of Megabise character and all his scenes, which entails underlining non-contentious lyrical plan, and strengthening another character – Rimenes, has incorporated function and part of the party Megabise. The total number of arias almost the same libretto by Metastasio with the change of their distribution characters: cut the Aria of the main character of Artaxerxes, of the secondary of Artabanes and Semira, added arias lyric couple Mandane and Arbaces. As a result, the plot is re – centered in the direction of the drama of lovers, which distinguishes the play of Arne from the original Metastasio-drama of feeling and duty, fully revealed in each character. In this case, arias are differentiated into those close to the original in semantic and textual relations, close in meaning, but inaccurate in text, and those whose content only remotely resembles the original. Arne in most of the arias kept the exact or close to the original text, five arias were removed, three arias were created by the composer. The number of ensembles in the processing of Arne has increased, and principally in the main lyrical pair; a significant innovation is the Quartet, which replaced the complex compositional scene of the judgment. Recitatives and recitative scenes are solved much more concisely, concentrated and restrained in comparison with the text of Metastasio. The changes in the libretto are intensifying as we approach the finale of the Opera – we should talk about the growing dynamization of the action. As a result of the revision of the libretto in the version of Arne, it became much more compact than the original Metastasio, while maintaining all the most significant plot twists. The shift of semantic and functional accents is also carried out by changing the number of solo numbers of the characters. The volume and quality of changes in the source of the libretto suggests that the composer did not plan to write the “next” Italian “Artaserse”, but worked deeply on its text with the aim of the most organic adaptation for the English stage.
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Radu-Ţaga, Consuela. "Dragobete Stories." Theatrical Colloquia 10, no. 1 (May 1, 2020): 204–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/tco-2020-0015.
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AbstractMonday on February 24th 2020, in the Auditorium of Mihai Eminescu Central University Library in Iaşi the show-recital entitled Dragobete Stories took place. Having the love theme, 4 teachers and 9 singer-actors from George Enescu National University of Arts present to the public arias and duets from the national and international repertoire, pages extracted from the genre of opera and operetta. The excursion on a route that included opera seria, comedy, historical opera, lyrical-dramatic legend, Viennese operetta, Romanian operetta, Russian operetta was coordinated by the presentation of Lecturer PhD Mrs. Consuela Radu-Ţaga. The interdisciplinary team set out to remove the boundaries between music and theater, among the subjects of canto, piano accompaniament, acting, scenic movement, opera class, and singer-actors proposed a scenic language dominated by lyrical-dramatic coordinates. The staging benefited from the fruitful collaboration with Lecturer PhD Mrs. Dumitriana Condurache (stage director), and the piano accompaniament was made by assistant professor PhD Raluca Ehupov and assistant professor PhD Laura Turtă-Timofte.
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Bruder, H. "Richard Bonelli, Baritone Opera Arias and Encores, 1934-1946 Town Hall Recital, 1947." Opera Quarterly 14, no. 4 (January 1, 1998): 134–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oq/14.4.134.
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Feldman, Martha. "Magic Mirrors and the Seria Stage: Thoughts toward a Ritual View." Journal of the American Musicological Society 48, no. 3 (1995): 423–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3519834.
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This essay proposes a performative model of opera seria founded in ritual to argue that opera seria is better understood as a variety of spectacle than as drama in the modern sense. In this view, opera seria relies for its effectiveness on compositional, dramaturgical, and institutional forms that counteract representational congruities in plots, stage designs, and singers' genders. As both genre and institution, opera seria is rendered unintelligible in models of stageworks upheld by music critics like Tovey and Kerman or anthropologists of theater like Victor Turner. Extending instead the work of anthropologist Stanley Tambiah, the performative model of opera seria presented here sees the ritual mechanics of opera seria as both highly fixed and highly unfixed, ranging from the interactions of singers and audiences to the structuring and delivery of arias and norms of acting. At the base of this ritual process was the archetypal seria story, which delivered an unquestionable set of absolutist propositions that distanced viewers from states of continuous absorption. Attention to the stage was instead relegated mainly to the intersubjective play between viewer and singer in aria ritornello forms. Such interplay and many other seria practices were embedded in the larger rituals of Carnival, masking, and other forms of festivity. By replacing closed with open forms and raising the status of opera seria's authors above that of singers and audiences, efforts at reform attempted to eradicate the ritual and festive dimensions of opera seria.
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Garzonio, Stefano. "Механизмы переложения "на наши (русские) нравы" итальянских оперных либретто [Mechanisms of adaptation “to our (Russian) customs” of Italian opera librettos]." Sign Systems Studies 30, no. 2 (December 31, 2002): 629–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/sss.2002.30.2.16.
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Mechanisms of adaptation “to our (Russian) customs” of Italian opera librettos. The paper deals with the history of poetical translation of Italian musical poetry in the 18th century Russia. In particular, it is focused on the question of pereloženie na russkie nravy, the adaptation to national Russian customs, of Italian opera librettos, cantatas, arias, songs and so on. The author points out three different phases of this process. The first phase, in the 1730s, coincides with the reign of Anna Ioannovna and it is linked to Trediakovsky’s translations of Italian intermezzos, comedies and to the first opera seria, La forza dell’amore e dell’odio (‘The force of love and hate’, 1736) by F. Araja and F. Prata; the second phase, in the period 1740–1770s, is characterized by a very varied production of translations and imitations, which undoubtedly influenced the general developing of Russian musical and dramatic poetry. It is during this period that pereloženie na russkie nravy is introduced into dramatic genres and sometimes it is findable in musical poetry as well. The third phase, in the 1780–1790s, is linked with the activity of such poets-translators as Ivan Dmitrevskij, Michail Popov, Vasilij Levšin and is characterized by the new practice of performing operas in Russian translations. In the paper the different forms of pereloženie na russkie nravy are pointed out, starting from the formal niveau of metrics and stylistics up to the adaptation of themes, places and realia.
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Stenzl, Jürg. "York Höller's ‘The Master and Margarita’: A German Opera." Tempo, no. 179 (December 1991): 8–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040298200061337.
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1 ‘Literaturoper’: Literary Opera and the ‘problem of opera’Right up to the end of the 19th century, an opera libretto was conceived differently from a stage play. This was because, from the outset, the libretto was thought out and constructed with a view to being set to music and sung. The librettist, whether he was writing in Italian or French, had to respect the conventions of this particular literary genre, conventions that were derived from a specific type of musical drama comprised of an alternation between recitatives (action) and arias or ensembles (tableaux). The use of specific lines and rhymes made the libretto into a ‘pre-composition’, and gave the composer an architectural plan to follow.
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Verba, Cynthia. "What recitatives owe to the airs: a look at the dialogue scene, Act I scene 2 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie – version with airs." Cambridge Opera Journal 11, no. 2 (July 1999): 103–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586700004973.
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The oft-cited observations of Italian librettist Carlo Goldoni as he described his first visit to the Académie Royale de Musique in 1763 are usually presented with an emphasis on what Goldoni missed. Accustomed as he was to eighteenth-century Italian opera, he could not hear a single aria in the French opera: “I waited for the aria … The dancers appeared: I thought the act was over, not an aria. I spoke of this to my neighbor who scoffed at me and assured me that there had been six arias in the different scenes which I had just heard. How could this be? I am not deaf; the voice was always accompanied by instruments … but I assumed it was all recitative.”
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Jiang, Qin. "The image of Oksana in the opera by N. Rimsky Korsakov “Christmas Eve”: a composer plan and a performing embodiment." Aspects of Historical Musicology 18, no. 18 (December 28, 2019): 57–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum2-18.04.
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Background. The modern science reconsiders various conceptions, which were influencing the theory and practice of musical art over the centuries. Particularly, there is much talk today about the fact that marking of female opera roles as “coloratura” according to the principle of their technical complexity and diapason wideness is quite nominal and not connected directly with singing voices’ gradation. Gradually entrenched tendency of denial of the female voice’s definition as “coloratura” has developed, and it is based on the argument that this characteristic reflects parameters of composer’s objectives rather than the voice’s nature. Probably, that’s why there are works in repertoire of certain female vocalists (for instance, Maria Callas and contemporary Canadian singer Natalie Choquette), which are usually performed by owners of “different” voices. However one cannot deny the fact that certain opera roles are composed specifically for coloratura soprano, despite the fact that indications of it are missing in manuscripts. N. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera heritage is exponential in this connection; the destination of particular female roles for coloratura soprano is unquestionable – Snow Maiden, Marfa, Volkhova, Tsaritsa of Shemakha, etc. And though this roles are performed by female vocalists of various voices in today’s theatrical practice, it seems to us that voice’s characteristics have principal significant for appropriate implementation of author’s conception. Objectives. Thus, the purpose of the study is to identify the significance of the voice’s particularity factor as a carrier of a certain imagery in the composer’s conception and in the performer embodiments of opera parts (separated opera arias). Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the unity of scientific approaches, among which the most important is a functional one, associated with the analysis of the genre as a typical structure. Results. The Gogol’s plot became the basis of several operas, the most famous of which are “Cherevichki” (“The Little Shoes”) by P. Tchaikovsky and “Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom” (“Christmas Eve”) by N. Rimsky Korsakov. The comparison of this two works clearly shows the fundamental difference in composers’ conceptions. In P. Tchaikovsky’s interpretation the lyrical line is extracted from the literary primary source. But for N. Rimsky Korsakov the comparison of the real and fantastic world becomes the main thing in this opera. Therefore the role of Vakula is written quite schematically, but Oksana’s image is interesting developed, it is presented in progress – from carefree girl to loving woman. This progress is obvious when comparing Oksana’s Arias from Act I and Act IV. The Aria from Act I is a peculiar synthesis of national and Italian singing traditions, a prime example of entrance aria (di sortita), which presents the character’s portrayal and comprises such basic components as slow introduction and episodes demonstrating technical possibilities of the voice. Oriental intonations, which are specific for composer’s vocal works, coupled with coloraturas, give the impression that Oksana is “not from this world”. According to lots of researchers, the whole N. Rimsky Korsakov’s opera “metacycle” is an artistic integrity united by a generic idea that defined the unity of approach to implementing of “type” (including female) characters. The intonational canvas of every particular role (the choice of so-called intonational complexes – “a cold” or “a warm”) is determined by character’s affiliation with natural or fairy-tale locus. Oksana’s portrayal for N. Rimsky Korsakov has been ambivalent. On the one hand, she doesn’t relate to “another world” like Snow Maiden or Volkhova; on the other hand – Oksana is a fairy-tale character. Therefore composer uses partly the same strokes in the development of the portrayal as for female fairy-tale characters. However, the formation of this character’s personality is revealed through the transformation of “cold” (fairy-tail) intonational complex to “warm” (“alive”). Two performances of the first Oksana’s Aria are briefly reviewed as an example: the concert performance by Gohar Gasparyan, an Armenian lyrical coloratura soprano (1924–2007), and a recording from the Inessa Prosalovskaya’s CD “Arias from operas”, the Russian lyrical dramatic soprano (born in 1947). G. Gasparyan’s idea was to present the portrayal of a young girl of the people. Therefore the singer levels virtuosic components of music material as much as possible, and a coloring of her voice, for which it was easy to sing the second A sharp above middle C, emphasizes lyrical hints of Oksana’s Aria. Also the significant textual cuts becomes one of important parameters of creation of a “gentle” young girl’s portrayal; they not only transform the expanded aria into the form, which is close to a song in scale, but also significantly reduce specifically those snippets, in which technical difficulties are concentrated. Version by I. Prosalovskaya presents another interpretation, original sound of which is largely due to the singer’s timbre of voice. Its deepness, expressivity and completion absolutely modify personal characteristics of the N. Rimsky-Korsakov’s character. Therefore we observe not a young girl already, but a woman – passionate and confident. Thus, it could be concluded that timbre color’s specificity of the voice of female opera singer has a significant impact on features of the character that she embodies. It is obvious that this specificity determines all the parameters of the performer’s version of the composer’s work (both a separate aria and the opera as a whole). A more detailed study of the relationship between the voice timbre and the semantic and compositional decisions characterizing an individual performer style seems to us a promising direction for further research.
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Nazarov, Ilham. "Interpretation Peculiarities of Opera Arias of Azerbaijani and Western European Composers Performed by Muslim Magomayev." Bulletin of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts. Series in Musical Art 3, no. 2 (December 18, 2020): 204–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.31866/2616-7581.3.2.2020.219170.
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PRYER, ANTHONY. "MOZART’S OPERATIC AUDITION. THE MILAN CONCERT, 12 MARCH 1770: A REAPPRAISAL AND REVISION." Eighteenth Century Music 1, no. 2 (September 2004): 265–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570604000156.
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Mozart’s Milan concert on 12 March 1770 secured for him his first commission to write an opera seria for Italy. The works usually thought to have been performed on this occasion are Fra cento affanni, k88, Misero tu, k73A, and Misero me . . . misero pargoletto, k77. This article offers new evidence for redating Fra cento affanni and argues that neither it nor Misero tu was performed at the event. Instead, the case is made for a programme consisting solely of concert arias with texts from the libretto of Metastasio’s Demofoönte, presented together as a kind of truncated ‘opera in aria’. In support of this hypothesis, the compositional circumstances surrounding Se tutti i mali miei, k83, and Ah più tremar, k71, are reassessed and possible performances by the singers Giuseppe Aprile, Antonia Bernasconi, Guglielmo d’Ettore, Lucrezia Agujari and Carlo Niccolini discussed.
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Goldman, Leah. "Negotiating “Historical Truth”." Journal of Musicology 33, no. 3 (2016): 277–331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jm.2016.33.3.277.
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In 1925, when Soviet composer Iurii Shaporin began writing his first opera, Polina Gebl’, about the Decembrist Ivan Annenkov and the French emigrée shopgirl who followed him into exile, he had no idea how tumultuous its journey would be. It took twenty-eight years and countless revisions for the opera to gain official approval. When it finally premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in 1953, with the title The Decembrists, the love story had been backgrounded and the historical plot line vastly expanded; scenes, characters, and arias had been added, dropped, or altered; and Polina herself had been written out entirely. The negotiated process by which Polina became The Decembrists reveals much about the evolving relationship between music and power in the Soviet Union, especially in the high-stakes realm of Socialist Realist opera, in which a suitable exemplar had yet to be produced. Amidst the pressures of the late-Stalinist state’s assault on the creative intelligentsia, and in the wake of major opera scandals in the 1930s and 1940s, the Bolshoi Theater saw in Shaporin’s work an ideal candidate to fill this void: a historical opera with an unimpeachable subject, the Decembrist Revolution, understood as the foundation point of the revolutionary legacy to which the Bolsheviks laid claim. This article analyzes the intense negotiations among Shaporin, the Bolshoi and its consultants, and official censors to ensure The Decembrists’ historical accuracy, which they believed would guarantee its acceptance. Yet, as the article demonstrates, while Soviet musical authorities upheld “historical truth” as their standard, in the end the Socialist Realist ideal of “artistic truth” was far more important for The Decembrists’ success.
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Shin, Del La, and You-Ho Shin. "Research on Classical Crossover Arrangement Methods of Arias in Operas - Focused on Una Furtiva Lagrima, an Aria of an Opera called L’Elisir d’Amore -." Journal of the Korea Entertainment Industry Association 14, no. 6 (August 31, 2020): 151–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.21184/jkeia.2020.8.14.6.151.
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Bermejo Gregorio, Jordi. "La experimentación poético-musical en Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (1698): diálogo aglutinante entre tradición y modernidad." Diablotexto Digital 7 (June 30, 2020): 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.7203/diablotexto.7.16690.
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El estudio pormenorizado de la dimensión poético-musical de Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (1698), de Antonio de Zamora y Francesco di Russi, revela esta opera como paradigma inicial de la experimentación de las formas tradicionales hispanas con el lenguaje operístico italiano. En ella se observan piezas herederas de la práctica estrófica calderoniana como soportes textuales de recitativos y arias musicales. Esta apertura poético-musical partirá de la tradición como signo de identidad para engrandecerla a los parámetros culturales europeos, en la que tuvo mucho que ver la reina Mariana de Neoburgo.
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Kosin, Kelci. "Mastering the Aria through Song: Daron Hagen’s Amelia, “Apostrophe to the Stars,” and Selected Hagen Art Songs." journal of Singing 78, no. 1 (August 24, 2021): 47–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.53830/sluk8789.
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Contemporary arias in English are too often excluded from student repertoire because they are perceived as being overly complex atonal works that are too challenging for the student. In order to counter this misconception, voice teachers should foster curiosity within students to seek repertoire with an open mind. Exploring music of living composers such as Daron Hagen can ignite student interest in contemporary art song and opera literature that expands the realms of what is thought to be traditional or appropriate vocal repertoire for students seeking a professional singing career.
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Cauthen, Paul. "Sources: Opera: An Encyclopedia of World Premieres and Significant Performances, Singers, Composers, Librettists, Arias, and Conductors, 1597–2000." Reference & User Services Quarterly 47, no. 1 (September 1, 2007): 87. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/rusq.47n1.87.2.
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BURDEN, MICHAEL, and CHRISTOPHER CHOWRIMOOTOO. "A MOVABLE FEAST: THE ARIA IN THE ITALIAN LIBRETTO IN LONDON BEFORE 1800." Eighteenth Century Music 4, no. 2 (September 2007): 285–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570607000954.
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The purpose of this short essay is to announce a new research project, ‘The Aria in the Italian Libretto in London before 1800’, the aim of which is to list the incipits of all the arias included in Italian-language opera and oratorio librettos printed in London before the turn of the nineteenth century. The notion that an opera libretto may not be the stable text it appears on the page to be is no news to scholars working on opera and musical theatre, who understand perfectly well the possible nature and origins of the sources they use, especially the libretto. At least one hopes they do; but in the case of the last, do they? The seductive lure of the printed page is strong, a lure which has an almost irresistible pull for scholars when there is a score to ‘match’; it becomes even stronger when those working on canonic composers stray out of their chosen territory to look for ‘contemporaneous examples’ from the works of ‘minor composers’, or when there is no thematic catalogue to provide even a basic chart with which to navigate the treacherous waters of the output of even some major eighteenth-century ones. A libretto is, after all, not ‘music’, they say – ‘that’s all very well, but why aren’t you talking about the music?’ – so why worry? Just hurry on to the matching score to identify the ‘composer’s intentions’, and all will be well.
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Pesic, Andrei. "The Flighty Coquette Sings on Easter Sunday." French Historical Studies 42, no. 4 (October 1, 2019): 563–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00161071-7689170.
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Abstract French colonists in Saint-Domingue brought a variety of entertainments from the metropole to the island's theaters during the later eighteenth century. This included the Parisian Concert Spirituel, which replaced theatrical entertainments with performances of religious and instrumental music during religious holidays. Yet these concerts never caught on in earnest and began to diverge significantly from the metropolitan institution: the Easter concert in Port-au-Prince entirely composed of opera arias would have been unthinkable in the metropole. Linking developments in the colony's entertainments with the understudied subject of religious practices among France's Caribbean colonists, this article argues that strong market pressures overrode weaker religious constraints in Saint-Domingue, making opera arias acceptable for Eastertide. It presents a new fine-grained approach for studying how cultural practices are transformed when traveling within an empire, with implications beyond the history of the arts. Les colons français ont importé une grande variété de divertissements de la métropole à Saint-Domingue durant la deuxième moitié du dix-huitième siècle. Le Concert spirituel de Paris, qui remplaçait les spectacles profanes pendant les fêtes religieuses, a été l'une de ces institutions. Néanmoins ces concerts n'ont jamais entièrement pris dans le contexte colonial et ont peu à peu divergé de leurs homologues métropolitains : un concert de Pâques à Port-au-Prince entièrement constitué d'airs d'opéra aurait été inimaginable dans l'Hexagone à cette époque. Liant l'histoire des divertissements coloniaux et le sujet peu étudié des pratiques religieuses des colons, cet article développe l'idée que de fortes pressions commerciales ont primé sur de faibles contraintes religieuses à Saint-Domingue, rendant des airs d'opéra acceptables au moment des fêtes de Pâques. L'analyse souligne la façon dont les pratiques culturelles évoluent lorsqu'elles voyagent au sein d'un empire colonial, tirant des implications qui vont au-delà de l'histoire des arts.
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Brown, Jennifer Williams. "On the road with the “suitcase aria”: The transmission of borrowed arias in late seventeenth‐century Italian opera revivals." Journal of Musicological Research 15, no. 1 (January 1995): 3–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411899508574711.
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Wagner, Undine. "From dramma per musica to church music practice – sacred Latin contrafacta of Italian opera arias in Moravian monasteries and churches." Musicologica Brunensia 49, no. 2 (2014): 139–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/mb2014-2-10.
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Lyan, Tszitao. "The image of Andrea from the opera “Andrea Chenier” by U. Giordano: the history of vocal interpretations." Problems of Interaction Between Arts, Pedagogy and the Theory and Practice of Education 50, no. 50 (October 3, 2018): 29–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.34064/khnum1-50.03.
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Formulation of the problem. U. Giordano is a bright representative of the late romantic tradition of the Italian opera of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Among the brightest stage versions of his most famous opera “Andrea Chenier”, within this study we have selected a number of the key implementations of Andrea Chenier’s part, which show the constant and mobile signs of the interpretation of this famous opera image. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of interpreting the image of Andrea Chenier from the opera of the same name by the performers of various schools in the aspect of the interaction of historical traditions and modern tendencies from viewpoint of comparative interpretation science. Analysis of recent publications on the topic of the article. The Italian opera of the XIX century is the object of many fundamental researches. The monograph of O. Stakhevych [7] demonstrates a multifaceted approach to the problems of becoming and development the bel canto style; in the study by M. Cherkashina [9], the music theatre of Bellini and Donizetti is presented as an independent phenomenon of Italian operatic history in its first period. I. Drach [2] points to debatable and sometimes subjectivity of interpretation of the concept “bel canto”. The evolution of the Italian opera already at the beginning of the XX century is considered in the study of L. Kirillina [3]; reference information about the Italian opera can be found in English-language articles from Grove’s dictionary [17]. An interesting concept is the book of A. Mallach [14] – the author traces the very fast path of the Italian opera from verismo to modernism. As for U. Giordano’s creativity directly, beside the small articles of encyclopaedic character [12; 13], the publication of M. Morini [15] is the most fundamental and complete. It collected not only researches of the composer’s creativity, but also reviews by contemporaries U. Giordano, his correspondence, registers of his performances and music recordings. The study of C. Ruizzo [16] contains arguments about the components of verismo in the work of U. Giordano, in particular, analyzes the finale of the III pictures of the opera “Andre Chenier”. Regarding this opera, we will separate the mini-guide by Burton D. Fisher [11], the articles of I. Sorokina [8], G. Marquezi [5], H. W. Simon [6], C. Duault [10]. The authors discuss not only the dramatic features of this opera masterpiece, the figure of the main character, but also the influences that this opera made, for example, on “Tosca” by J. Puccini. Statement of the main content of the article. The opera “Andrea Chenier” is a sign composition of the verismo era, despite the fact that its main character is the well-known politician, French poet and journalist. After composing (1895) and the premiere (1896, Milan), the opera was staged in Genoa, Mantua, Parma, Turin, New York (1896), Kharkov, Moscow; Budapest, Buenos-Aires, Florence, Naples, Prague, Santiago (1897), Antwerp, Barcelona, Berlin, Cairo, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro (1898); in 1907, in the production of Covent Garden, E. Caruso played the title role. The composer and librettist brought to the stage as the protagonist of opera bright, courageous and ambitious person, so it is not surprising that both separate arias and the party of Shenier still belong to the repertoire of many prominent tenors of the planet – F. Tamagno, J. Martinelli, E. Caruso, B. Gigly, G. Lauri-Volpi, A. Cortis, F. Corelli, M. Del Monaco, P. Domingo, L. Pavarotti, M. Alvarez. The opera “Andre Chenier” is a model of the golden age of verismo, and it is endowed with all the main features of this direction of Italian art. However, the protagonist, in addition to being a poet, is also a revolutionary, that is, an uneasy person, a hero, and it is the fact that deduces this work for the stylistic limits of verismo by demonstration of a strong, extraordinary character. These features are embodied in the musical characteristics of Chenier. The main thing in interpreting his famous Improvisation “Un di al’azzurro spazio” (the 1 act of the opera) by E. Caruso is the very elaboration, exact construction of the melodic line and the bright climax, that is, combination the features both a lyrical and a dramatic role specializations that E. Caruso was possessed in equal measure. B. Gigli’s singing (which we consider an example of a dramatic embodiment of the image) is characterized by the refinement of the mezzo voce and the richness, when he sings in full voice, therefore his performance of the Improvisation, in general, is more emotional (a high-profile register, a rhythmic emphasizing that gives a distinct organization the image). M. Del Monaco performs the Improvisation not so much playing by the shades of his strong voice as leading the almost continuous melodic line, which gives mostly lyrical colours to the Chenier’s image. The aria “Come un bel di Maggio” from the 4 act performed by F. Corelli is a model of the exalted lyrics, the lyrical culmination of the opera. F. Corelli performs the aria legato that is tellingly to the bel canto tradition, with a full sound, as if the sound hovers and penetrates everywhere through the skilful addition of dramatic notes (the last sounds of the upper tenor range – si, la of the first octave). P. Domingo interprets Andrea’s image as a whole more dramatically, but in a fairly wide range – from the pathetic (Act 1), the sublime, lyrical (recognition in love in the Act 2) to the tragic (monologue “Yes, I was a soldier” of the Act 3) and the dramatic (Act 4). His striking rubato, aimed at acutely emotional expression, is impressive, P. Domingo has literally speaking in the some parts of the recitatives and even the arias, and that, in conjunction with accelerando, fills the musical language by the speech expression. The interpretation by P. Domingo corresponds to Chenier’s status as a revolutionary hero. Conclusions. Composing the opera, U. Giordano counted on the Italian tenor in the main role, according to the traditions of the bel canto era (strong upper notes, wide range, and equal voice sounding in different registers). The tradition of interpreting the image of Chenier, laid by the first performer J. Borgatti, generally is preserved. The analysis of the most famous interpretations of the Chenier’s part (performed by E. Caruso, B. Gigli, M. Del Monaco, F. Corelli, P. Domingo, J. Carreras, and L. Pavarotti) demonstrated the leading role of the Italian bel canto school. This applies to the principle of canto è riflesso, singing without forcing the sound, the role of breathing, which transforms into the singing sound, the predomination of the head register (la voce di testa), and the integrity of the cantilena. For instance, M. Del Monaco and F. Corelli are lyrical tenors; they sing brightly, with a shine light decoration of high notes. In the performance of B. Gigli, there is a constant movement forward; L. Pavarotti, F. Corelli, J. Carreras, being within the limits of the lyric and dramatic role specifications, transmit in music the power of deep feelings. Instead, B. Gigli and, P. Domingo especially demonstrate the power of drama in the role specification of the Italian tenor, thereby enhancing the heroic side of the image of Shenier. The prospect of further study of the topic is associated with the emergence of new interpretations of the image of A. Chenier in the 21st century, which opens up new dimensions of the science about art interpretation.
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Cicovacki, Borislav. "Zora D. by Isidora Zebeljan: Towards the new opera." Muzikologija, no. 4 (2004): 223–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/muz0404223c.
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Opera Zora D., composed by Isidora Zebeljan during 2002 and 2003, and which was premiered in Amsterdam in June 2003, is the first Serbian opera that had a world premiere abroad. It is also the first Serbian opera that has been staged outside Serbia since 1935, after being acclaimed at a competition organized by the Genesis Foundation from London. Isidora Zebeljan was commissioned (granted financial backing) to compose a complete opera with a secured stage realization. The Dutch Chamber Opera (Opera studio Nederland) and the Viennese Chamber Opera (Wiener Kammeroper) were the co-producers of the first production. The opera was directed by David Pountney, the renowned opera director, while an international team of young singers and celebrated artists assisted the co-production. The opera was played three times in Amsterdam. Winfried Maczewski conducted the Amsterdam Nieuw Ensemble whereas Daniel Hoyem Cavazza conducted the Wiener Kammeroper on twelve performances. The Viennese premier of Zora D. opened the season of celebrations, thus marking the 50th anniversary of the Wiener Kammeroper. The libretto, based on the script for a TV film by Dusan Ristic, was co-written by Isidora Zebeljan, Milica Zebeljan and Borislav Cicovacki. Speaking of genre, the libretto represents a m?lange of thriller, melodrama and mystery, with elements of fiction. The opera consists of the prologue and seven scenes. The story, set in the present-day Belgrade, also goes back to the 1930?s and the periods interweave. The opera was written for four vocalists: the soprano, the baritone, and two mezzo-sopranos. The chamber orchestra has fifteen musicians. The story: One summer day in 1935, Belgrade poetess Zora Dulijan mysteriously disappears. Sixty years later, Mina, an ordinary girl from Belgrade, quite unexpectedly becomes part of an incredible story, which gradually unravels as time goes by. Led by a dream (recurring night after night, with some vague verses about poplar trees and contours of a mysterious woman with a silver scarf being all that Mina remembers) she sets out to solve the mystery that seems to haunt her for no apparent reason. Part of the secret is also an invisible force, which Mina uses to gradually piece together the story of a great love that was brutally brought to an end 60 years ago and now seeks fulfillment. At the same time, Vida, a woman in her 80s, who has just returned to Belgrade from a long exile, begins to feel tortured and haunted by ghouls from the past, the very same she has been trying to escape all those years. Mina, desperate to solve the mystery, and Vida, in search of final rest and redemption, meet to disclose to us the answer and tell us what really happened to Zora D. The leading characters of the opera, whose main attribute is illusiveness, undergo transformation that is something rarely found in opera literature. This quality of the characters and the story, as well as the absence of a real drama in the libretto, matches the specific idea of a contemporary opera. Unlike composers who insist on giving characters psychological quality, thus reducing their emotions to clich?s for reasons of clarity, Isidora Zebeljan demonstrates a need for a completely different type of opera. Her idea is to have an opera which focuses on the sensual exploits of music itself. This is the very type of opera sought after by Isidora Zebeljan. The first and most striking feature of her music is a very unique melodic invention. Opera Zora D. could be described as a necklace of thickly threaded music pearls. Microelements of the traditional music from Serbia (Vojvodina), Romania and the south of the Balkans give her melodies a very special quality. Those elements, however, have not been taken over in their entirety, nor do they exist in the form that would link this music to any particular type of folk music. Music elements of the traditional music, incorporated in the music expression of Isidora Zebeljan, provide additional distinctiveness and the colour, while being experienced as an integral part of Zebeljan?s creative being which carries within itself the awareness of the composer?s musical roots. Melodic elements of the opera expressed in such a manner give form to vocal parts, which require of performers great musicality and perfect technique without compromising the nature of their vocal expression. Specific chords with a diminished fifth, resulting from the use of folk music scales with augmented second, give the opera a distinct harmonic quality. The rhythmic and metric components of music are complex, naturally stemming from the melody and are characterized by a mixture of rhythms and changeable metrics. The rhythmic patterns of percussion are incorporated in the whole by parallel lining up of melodic and rhythmic layers, so that they produce sonorous multiplicity. Very often the rhythmic elements have characteristics of a dance. The chamber orchestra consists of flute (piccolo and alto), clarinet and bass-clarinet, saxophone (soprano and alto) bassoon, French horn, trumpet, harp, piano, percussion, and string quintet. By providing specific orchestration and coloring, Isidora Zebeljan manages to completely shift the real dramatic suspense from words to music particularly the orchestra, thus causing various emotional states to quickly change. Speaking of structure, the opera represents an infinite sequence of melodies. Although rarely, melodic entities have, in some places, the form of arias. There are no real recitatives in the entire opera. Each segment of the opera belongs to a corresponding melodic section of the stage that they are part of. The extraordinary quality of the music in Zora D. lies in the music surprise that it provides, which is an element of the composer?s language and style rarely seen in the music literature but is a symbol of a special talent. Emotional states are not merely evoked through particular musical clich?s, the unusual origin of which may be found in the exceptional parallel quality of states stemming from the very music. The listener, in his or her initial encounter with the music of the opera, will never hear dark and disconsolate music when tragic and dramatic happenings are taking place. Listening to the music will, however, help them feel the sound layer of the tragedy that is present in the offered sound. They will not follow it consciously but, instead, they will be leaded to the exact emotional stimulus that they will not be able to defy rationally. Such a music expression we call a music fiction. Artistic team involved in the first production of Zora D. has discovered a HVS technique, which helps shifting elements of scenography, from one set into the next, very efficiently and effectively. Isidora Zebeljan?s opera Zora D. represents a great success of Serbian music on the international scene, and undoubtedly the greatest success of Serbian opera. Her music liberates listeners from the compulsion of reflecting upon the content they are listening to. Instead, her music compels them to feel.
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Cabrini, Michele. "Breaking Form through Sound: Instrumental Aesthetics, Tempêête, and Temporality in the French Baroque Cantata." Journal of Musicology 26, no. 3 (2009): 327–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jm.2009.26.3.327.
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Abstract Between Lully's death (1687) and Rameau's operatic debut (1733), composers of the tragéédie en musique experimented with instrumental effects, greatly expanding the dramatic role of the orchestra. The profusion of these effects coincides with a new aesthetic reappraisal of instrumental music in France, as can be observed in the writings of Du Bos. The tempêête constitutes one of the most remarkable examples. Its sonic violence was too strong to end with the instrumental movement that depicted it; indeed, composers often prolonged the storm scene into a series of movements all connected by thematic material and key to produce a verisimilar effect of the storm's momentum, thereby creating what I term ““the domino effect.”” By the early eighteenth century, the tempêête had become such a well established and popular topos that it began migrating to non-staged genres like the cantata. The transference of the tempest topos from the tragéédie lyrique to the French baroque cantata entailed the breaking of formal frames. Unlike the supple dramatic structure of French opera, the cantata adopted the more rigid mold of the Italian opera seria——the recitative-aria unit——which separated the flow of time into active and static moments. Three case studies——Bernier's Hipolite et Aricie (1703), Jacquet de la Guerre's Jonas (1708), and Morin's Le naufrage d'Ulisse (1712)——demonstrate how composers manipulated this mold to satisfy a French aesthetic that valued temporal continuity for the sake of verisimilitude. All three composers employ key and instrumental music to portray the storm's forward momentum across recitatives and arias, relying primarily on rhythmic energy and melodic activity to create continuity. Although each composer's musical response varies according to personal style, what emerges is a shared aesthetic and compositional strategy employed to portray an event whose relentless power transcends the temporal boundaries between recitative and aria. This aesthetic of continuity and linearity shown by French baroque composers influenced the treatment of the tempest topos in the later eighteenth-century repertory, vocal and instrumental alike, including opera, the concerto, the overture-suite, and the characteristic symphony.
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Cross, E. "Boccherini's concert arias: Luigi Boccherini, Opera omnia, vol.1: Arie da concerto, G544-559, ed. Christian Speck (Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2005), 190." Early Music 34, no. 3 (August 1, 2006): 504–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/em/cal053.
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RATHEY, MARKUS. "MOZART, KIRNBERGER AND THE IDEA OF MUSICAL PURITY: REVISITING TWO SKETCHES FROM 1782." Eighteenth Century Music 13, no. 2 (August 16, 2016): 235–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570616000063.
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ABSTRACTWhen Beethoven praised Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, he emphasized the multitude of musical styles and genres to be found in the opera, ranging from folk tunes to arias to hymn-like textures. The most extraordinary stylistic and generic allusions occur during the ‘Song of the Armoured Men’ in Act 2. This movement owes its extraordinary character to a ‘baroque’ accompaniment and a Lutheran-hymn quotation, the source and meaning of which continue to be discussed in Mozart research. While scholars have often suggested that Mozart took the hymn melody from Johann Philipp Kirnberger's Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (where it is quoted without its text), Reinhold Hammerstein argues that because the composer also appears to have known the hymn's text, he must have encountered the melody elsewhere. This article, based on a study of Mozart's sketches for Die Zauberflöte and a close reading of Kirnberger's writings, supports the thesis that Mozart borrowed the hymn melody – and significant details of his setting of it in the ‘Song of the Armoured Men’ – from Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik.