Dissertations / Theses: 'Music; Opera'

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Keith, Mathieu. "Collaboration in Opera Composition : Writing an opera with three composers." Thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för konst, kommunikation och lärande, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-79129.

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Music is full of collaboration, between composers and musicians, musicians with each other, or composers with directors, to name a few. Not as commonly found are collaborations between multiple composers. Some works, such as Hexameron, (Liszt, 1839) were written as variations on a theme by several composers, but even rarer are single works written collaboratively by multiple composers. How would one set out to create a work with multiple composers? Can a group of composers collaborate to create a single, unified vision with a similar voice? What obstacles would arise from such a project? This thesis sets to answer these questions and more, and details the process in which myself and two composers created an operetta in three acts. We will walk through every step of our journey, from the first meeting to the writing process to the final product and concert. The aim of this thesis is to explore how a collaboration of composers can work, the problems that may arise and how to potentially avoid them. If these aims are achieved, this thesis may serve as guidelines for other composers wishing to collaborate on similar projects.

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Sairanen, Anna Pauliina. "Mental training in opera." Thesis, Stockholms konstnärliga högskola, Operahögskolan, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uniarts:diva-623.

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I started thinking about mental training in singing quite late in my studies. I had many problems with my nerves when I was at the beginningof my professional studies. I remember having a course for three months that was called ”Performancetraining”. When I look back the only thing I remember from that course is what not to do and getting even more nervous when walking on the stage. I remember thinking that I cannotdo this, I will never be a good singer. I have luckily had good singing teachers who have had a lot of time, understanding, commitment and compassion towards me. I have managed to control my nerves and learned to love to perform.What happens if a singingteacher cannotsolve these problems? I myself have studied to be a singing teacher and during my studies I have never faced the challenge to solve these kinds of difficulties. It requires a good understanding in the human psyche to train people to reach their very best and to overcome traumas that prevents us to perform on our best. It takes a whole village to raise a child, as the saying goes. So why should the training of the voice, becoming a great individual performer and artist, rely on the shoulder of the singing teacher? When I think about the singing lessons, shouldn ́t most of the time be spend on training the voice, exercising the muscles that help us to sing? Have you ever heard a football player going to the practise and spending 50% of that timein solving problems they have faced? Probablynot. I’m notsaying that football players don’t have problems they feel are holding them back in playing football and performing at their best. They just have another time and place to fix these problems. Thiswork happens with the mental trainer.

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Cutileiro, Tiago. "Opera and non-narrative music." Doctoral thesis, Universidade de Évora, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10174/12013.

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Nos últimos vinte-cinco anos, o termo narrativa tem sido um ponto preponderante de discussão musicológica. Os musicólogos que preferem evitar o termo definem narrativa como uma impossibilidade musical ou então consideram-na presente, como refere Carolyn Abbate, em todas as músicas composta por sequências de eventos sonoros (1989, p. 227) e, por esta razão, uma inútil máquina para definir toda e qualquer música (1991, p. xi). Mesmo aceitando a ideia de Abbate, o conceito de música narrativa torna-se, ainda assim, essencial para compreender um modelo musical muito menos comum e bastante recente que propositadamente evita todos os elementos musicais que possam induzir uma sensação de narrativa musical. Esta música pode ser denominada de não-narrativa. A música não-narrativa é assim definida por oposição à música narrativa. 0 que é problemático na música não-narrativa, para além da necessária adopção de uma atitude de escuta adequada, é a sua conjugação com elementos que preservam laços narrativos --i.e., o texto cantado e a encenação dramática. A composição de uma ópera exclusivamente alicerçada em música não-narrativa é, por conseguinte, um exercício estilístico e um desafio de composição para preservar quer o movimento linear do texto quer a essência de temporalidade estática da música não-narrativa; Abstract: In the last twenty-five years, the term narrative has been na importante point of discussion in musicology. Scholars who prefer to avoid the term consider narrative either impossible in music or, as Carolyn Abbate remarques, na elemento that can be found in "any music with sequences of events" 1989, p.227) and, for this reason, a useless "machine for naming any and all music" (1991, p. XI). Even ifagreeing with Abbate's claim, the concept of narrative music becomes nevertheless essential to understand a much less common and very recente music that purposelyu avoids any elemento that could induce narrativity in music. This music can be classified as non-narrative.Non-narrative music is, thus, defined through the opposing concept of narrative music. What is problematic in non-narrative music, besides the adoption of na adequate listening stance, is its use with elements that themselves preserve narrative threads - i.e., sung texto and/or staged drama. The composition of na opera exclusively grounded on non-narrative music is therefore a stylistic exercice and a compositional challenge to preserve both the verbal text´s ongoing motion and non-narrative music's essence of temporal stasis.

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Sauer, Vincent Philip. "Short Opera for Five Voices." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1490715372901732.

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Clem, Paul. "The composition, a chamber opera." FIU Digital Commons, 2005. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2384.

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The Composition is a chamber opera for nine musicians and from four to eight actors. The work is approximately thirty-five minutes long and consists of seven short pieces of music separated by dialogue. The subject of the libretto is a composer with writer's block. During the course of the piece, seven figures make appearances to the composer who personify various philosophies of musical aesthetics. An argument for a particular viewpoint is presented to the composer through dialogue, and the composer then attempts to write a piece of music using that philosophy as a guide. The audience then hears this music being played by the ensemble. This process is repeated until all seven aesthetics have been presented. In conjunction with the composed music, an attached research paper analyzes the techniques used in writing the music and gives examples of prominent composers associated with each of the seven schools of thought.

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Segura, Antonio. "Opera i Stockholm, Frihamnen." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-34151.

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Projektets ide är främst att göra byggnaden till en spektakulär och funktionell upplevelse förbesökarna. Varför är detta förslag den bästaför den här platsen? För att den är intressant och blir som ett märke och symbol för Stockholm som Sydneyoperan är för Australien. Dessutom kopplar den till omgivningen med sitt reflekterande fasad och den skapar en ny och spännande inre miljö för besökarna. När man har ett så stort program som detta projekt har bör man ta chansen att skapa att skapa monumentala rum och intresseväckande former. Speciellt om operan ska kunna konkurrera med resten i Norden.

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Golden, Carol Anne. "Venerable Doe. [Original opera]." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185390.

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This work is a setting of "Venerable 'Doe,' " and original story and libretto by the composer. "Venerable 'Doe' " is the temporary appellation of Javanese music spirit whose true name is not known. It is also the name of the gamelan over which the spirit reigns and in whose pusaka gong he resides. The work combines traditional Western dance, instruments, orchestration, notation and theory and traditional Javanese court dance, instrument, instrumentation, performance practice and theory with the composer's innovations created to facilitate the combining of two divergent worlds of music. The language of the libretto and the selection of pitch material have been determined by an original, extended, soggetto cavato technique. This technique accommodates all letters of the English alphabet and all pitch classes of both the Western and Javanese scales used in the work. While the soggetto cavato technique expands upon techniques used in the works of J. S. Bach, Venerable Doe's continuous rather than sectional deportment, devotion to symbolism and personification of specific sound patterns as 'motives' continue innovations of Richard Strauss. Venerable Doe is an opera containing two major formal divisions, a fantasy-ballet "Overture," the score of which constitutes the "original composition" portion of this dissertation, followed by four acts of the opera's main body. The "Overture" is designed to be performed with the main body of the opera or as an independent composition. The programmatic content of the "Overture" is drawn from the first half of the story, "Venerable 'Doe,' " while the program of the four acts is from the second half. The work is set in English, and uses Javanese terminology, as well as Swedish, German and Latin translations of Psalm 23. It is scored for full Western orchestra, Javanese gamelan, chorus, soloists, Western and Javanese dancers. Lighting, costuming, dance, stage and visual projection directions appear on the score and in preliminary pages.

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Peat, Richard. "Representing children in opera." Thesis, City, University of London, 2007. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/17966/.

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This study is a survey of how composers have represented children in opera from the late nineteenth century onwards. Operatic roles for children are analysed from a primarily technical perspective, with those written specifically for children's voices presented alongside those intended for adults playing children; then the relative merits of each approach is considered. A chronological list of child roles can be found in the introduction. Chapter 1 evaluates the ways in which opera composers have approached writing for children's voices; extracts from monologues, dialogues, ensembles and solos with instrumental accompaniment are analysed. Chapter 2 explores methods by which composers have evoked notions of childhood; examples of songs, nursery rhymes, lessons, learning, scale, fantasy, and tantrums are discussed. Chapter 3 treats the musical representation of the notions of innocence and experience in children's roles. Chapter 4 offers the author's recent opera, I'm the King of the Castle. as a case study in its use of many of the notions explored in the preceding chapters.

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Carlile, Solfa. "Characterisation in contemporary opera and music theatre." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:dd3468ba-dba6-49c2-88d4-82c2bb23af5c.

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This doctoral research comprises a practitioner-based reflective enquiry to bridge the gap between theory and practice and enhance my compositional output. In tandem with the composition of my chamber opera, The Exile, I have undertaken research into characterisation within the context of opera and musical theatre, with a focus on both the delineation of individual characters and the context in which they appear. Parameters of the work are discussed in comparison with canonic works of both opera and music theatre. Contemporary uses of leitmotif, representation of speech and folk music within operatic works are acknowledged and their influence on the composition is presented along with musical examples. The conventional composer-librettist partnership is discussed, along with suggestions for how respective roles for composer and librettist have evolved in recent times. An insight into the collaborative compositional process is presented in the final chapter, as my work with librettist Gillian Pencavel is discussed. The Exile is an original work informed by this research and is a contribution to the repertoire as well as an investigation into many compositional techniques presented in this thesis.

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Venables, Philip. "'4.48 Psychosis' : opera as music and text." Thesis, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2016. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/19415/.

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This is a practice-based research project about a new operatic adaptation of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (Methuen, 2000). The opera was written and the research conducted during a three-year Doctoral Composer-in-Residence scheme with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) and the Royal Opera House (ROH). This commentary, together with the score and supporting materials, outlines various compositional approaches to working with non-sung text in opera. This research expands the composer’s previous practice of working with spoken text in concert music, and places this opera in the context of that previous work and the work of other composers, theatre-makers and electronic music artists. Five specific approaches to non-sung text are discussed in detail, always with reference to the dramaturgy of Kane’s text and drawing on examples from the opera: four concerned with spoken text (the ‘Opera Thought-Bubble’, Voiceover, Mid-phrase Switching, Tape-cutting) and one concerned with visually-presented text (Percussion Dialogues). The five approaches are evaluated in context of the premiere performances of the opera in May 2016, and the potential for further practice-based research on this topic is discussed.

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Dumigan, Darryl Jacqueline. "Nicola Porpora's operas for the 'opera of the nobility' : the poetry and the music." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2014. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/24693/.

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Studies of Italian opera in London during the first half of the eighteenth century have focussed on George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). As the most prolific composer of this genre in the English capital, this is unsurprising, but it has meant that other composers, contemporaneously active in this field, have been relatively neglected. This is especially true of the period 1733 – 1737, during which time two Italian opera companies attempted to co-exist in the city. Leading one of the companies was Handel, with the Neapolitan, Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), recruited to compose the works for the rival opera company, the so-called ‘Opera of the Nobility’. This study therefore discusses Porpora’s contribution of five operas to the London operatic stage during his three year residency between 1733 and 1736, in opposition to Handel’s company. This has required an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the formation of the rival opera company, its operation in terms of repertoire and the influence of its librettists on Porpora’s works. Detailed analysis of the music has been undertaken to consider Porpora’s style, establish how he adapted this in London for an English, rather than Italian audience, and determine the efficacy of his communication of the drama through his music. This thesis is the first large-scale detailed study of Porpora and his operas. Although the primary focus of this work is his London operas, the necessity of providing a context for these has resulted in a contribution to greater knowledge of Porpora’s overall style. There is still much work to be done on a full study of all of Porpora’s 44 operas and other compositions. This study also significantly adds to the current knowledge of operatic rivalry in London between 1733 and 1736, for the first time evaluating the fabric and importance of Porpora’s operas within this period.

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Spies, Maria Margaretha. "Pelléas et Mélisande as symbolist opera." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8250.

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Includes abstract.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-150).
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) has more often than not been labelled an Impressionist, implying that his music parallels the art of the Impressionist painters; this is because in his work musical colour takes precedence over form and design (Jarocinski, 1976: 11). However, it has been documented that Pelléas et Mélisande is considered to be the masterpiece of French Symbolism (Lesure, 2001). This is the only opera that Debussy completed during his lifetime, and in it he succeeded in combining words and music in a way he could realise his musical ideals.

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Glantz, Katarina. "Opera och homoerotiskt lyssnande : En jämförande studie om homosexuella kvinnors och mäns relation till opera." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för musikvetenskap, 2003. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-173516.

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Katarina Glantz: Opera och homoerotiskt lyssnande - en jämförande studie om homosexuella kvinnors och mäns relation till opera. Uppsala universitet: Institutionen för musikvetenskap, 60 p, 2003. Idag får vi en relativt splittrad bild av vad ett homosexuellt förhållande till opera innebär. En övervägande del av samtida texter behandlar ämnet ur ett manligt perspektiv, men det finns även lesbiska kvinnor som beskriver sina relationer till opera. Syftet med uppsatsen är att visa på likheter och olikheter över könsgränserna, genom att jämföra texter som speglar ett kvinnligt respektive ett manligt homosexuellt förhållande till opera.I studien kan läsaren bl a se hur operaintresset utmynnat i divakult och skivsamlande för operabögar, men även hur lesbiska kvinnor faller för operadivor. Operaprimadonnor kan vara speglingsobjekt för både homosexuella kvinnor och män, men det finns en skillnad i vilka röstfack som föredras. Det kan även urskiljas två typer av tolkningar av operor, öppna och dolda homoerotiska tolkningar, vilka återfinns hos både homosexuella kvinnor och män. Opera kan också upplevas som en ytterst erotisk konstform av såväl homosexuella kvinnor som homosexuella män.Arbetet bör ses som en inblick i den värld av homoerotiska möjligheter, vilket opera kan innebära för homosexuella med ett operaintresse. Naturligtvis är det inte bara homosexuella som samlar på skivor, bedriver divakult eller upplever opera som erotiserad njutning. Poängen med arbetet är att visa på tendenser mot hur detta kan ske för vissa homosexuella.

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Stawiski, Eileen Beth. "Ucieczka w Fantazi Opery (Escape-Fantasy Opera): Preserving the Heart of Poland." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1276532042.

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Ferraro, Mario. "Contemporary opera in Britain, 1970-2010." Thesis, City University London, 2011. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/1279/.

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This study of contemporary opera in Britain considers first, the theoretical aspects of the creation of an opera, then moves to a survey of British opera companies and their productions of modern opera over the past 40 years. There follows a detailed study of three works produced in Britain during this time, all of which are of particular significance to this composer: Maxwell Davies’s The Lighthouse, Saariaho’s L’amour de loin, and Birtwistle’s The Minotaur. The final chapter concerns the production of my own opera, The Moonflower (2011). The study was informed by established theories about opera and its history; an examination of scores, libretti and programme booklets for some operas produced in Britain, 1970 – 2010; direct contact between the author and composers, co-creators, and the works themselves (including attendance at many recent operatic productions in London), and the analysis of excerpts from the three contemporary operas mentioned above, while investigation of opera companies active in the period aimed to identify some possible trends in programming. The creation and performance of the author´s own opera was the culmination of this investigation; it illuminated many of the issues raised above, concerning the process of composing, designing and staging an operatic work in the early twenty-first century.

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Fahrenbruck, Mary Jane. "The piano in Alban Berg's opera, LuLu." The Ohio State University, 1990. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343662257.

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Anbari, Alan Roy. "Richard Wagner's concepts of history /." Austin, Tex. : University of Texas Libraries, 2007. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/anbaria35075/anbaria35075.pdf#page=3.

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Lôbo, de Azevedo Mello Neto Armando. "Iludens! : a concept opera." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/33071.

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Iludens! - a concept-opera comprises conceptual essay and music portfolio. The conceptual essay explores musical, dramatic, and ritualistic aspects that qualify play as a structuring factor in culture. It aims at producing a multi-layered amalgamation of Philosophical Anthropology and Art, focusing on the strategies for creating a new piece of music - in this case, a conceptual opera (or performative oratorio). The music portfolio features several pieces composed by me throughout the doctoral period. Some pieces have a more direct connection to my doctoral research. The largest and most important one is the concept-opera Iludens, through which I developed patterns of aesthetic creation inspired by philosophical conceptions related to the notion of play. Also, as agon1 is one of the crucial aspects I was able to identify in the history of play, I have explored some agonistic features in culture and provided an interpretation of elements of conflictive interaction using the tools of contemporary concert music. The conceptual essay and the main piece of the music portfolio are intimately related. I consider music according to the Greek classic notion of mousiké, namely an entity of multiple knowledge and applications, rather than a mere craft of physical sounds.

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Willis-Lynam, Keyona. "The Crossover Opera Singer: Bridging the Gap Between Opera and Musical Theatre." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1449161062.

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Grize, Justin Newcomb. "Singing beasts : opera and the animal." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2017. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/70890/.

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This practice-led project examines opera in light of the current critical attention to animals, both real and metaphorical, and their often hidden or overlooked presences in human culture. Despite their near ubiquity in our lives, animals have only recently become the subjects of serious intellectual inquiry, and the field of animal studies is a rapidly-evolving discipline, with scholars like Keith Thomas and Harriet Ritvo considering animals as active participants in human lives and histories. Opera as a form has always concerned itself with meetings between the human and the not-human; Orpheus, the semi-divine hero of the earliest operas, subdues both gods and wild beasts through his music. It is therefore curious that no serious study of opera in relation to animals and animality has yet been undertaken. For the first part of this project I have been examining the extensive representation of animals in opera over the 400 years of its existence to understand the changing forms and meanings of animals in opera. The voice is central to opera, and a closer consideration of the voice as the locus of human and non-human difference reinvigorates the debate about operatic representation, reinforcing opera's status as the ultimate humanist art form while exposing the vulnerability of this position in an era when humanism itself is increasingly called into question. A synthetic opera-animal approach casts important light on some concerns which are central to both fields: the porous, shifting boundary between human and non-human animals (and the way in which mimesis and performance further reinforce or erode those boundaries, building on work by Ritvo and Erica Fudge, Deleuze and Agamben); questions of anthropomorphism and authenticity as addressed by Steve Baker; notions of wonder, the metaphysical, and the uncanny as explored by Abbate and Tomlinson; even the politics and ethics of performance-as-animal. Practical research is also central to this project, which explores, through a portfolio of documented workshops and performances, the opportunities and necessities occasioned by the creation of a new post-human music theatre that articulates and confronts head-on our own animality, moving beyond a modernism which defines itself in opposition to the animal. In fact, as public discourse turns more and more to the sciences rather than to the arts for answers to the fundamental questions of human and animal nature, animal-opera is an obvious territory on which these two epistemological frameworks, scientific and artistic, can coexist - or collide - revealing how animals might be regarded not simply as passive carriers of imposed human meaning, but generators of meaning in their own right. The main project realised through this process of experimentation is Arthropoda, a collection of works based on the life stories of arthropods. The choice of animal is not arbitrary - their phylogenetic distance, their problematic bodies, their simultaneous familiarity and utter alienness supply particular representational challenges beyond those of more easily anthropomorphised creatures. The first work from this series, Phthirus, a cantata for human singers as human parasites, has underlined some of the limitations of traditional anthropomorphic representations, while new developments in the field of insect communication have suggested radical new directions that push the boundaries of opera as a form. A reconfigured examination of animal lives and bodies offers new source material, such as the bizarre lifestyle of the parasitic barnacle Sacculina; new musical dramaturgies, in the repurposing of entomological classics as performance texts; even new ways of producing and perceiving musical sound, such as the tymbalum, a biomimetic musical instrument based on cicada physiology. Each of these approaches seeks to bridge the perceptual divide between human and arthropod.

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Bergström, Gunnel. "In search of meaning in opera : an opera singer's approach to the dialetics of words, music, & myth in opera from Monteverdi to Verdi /." Online version, 2000. http://bibpurl.oclc.org/web/26209.

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Alzin, Ryszard. "Opera in Miniature : Around my piece "Raport o stanie planety" for four solo voices and ensemble." Thesis, Kungl. Musikhögskolan, Institutionen för komposition, dirigering och musikteori, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kmh:diva-3940.

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This thesis is a culmination of a two-year master program called Contemporary Performance and Composition (CoPeCo). For my final project I composed a chamber opera (“opera in miniature” as I like to call it) "Raport o stanie planety" ('Planet Report') for four solo voices and ensemble consisting of nine musicians. The main purposes of this thesis are to analyze the compositional techniques I used in that piece, problematize my artistic ideas, as well as put them in a context of other works.

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Norling, Cody Andrew. "Operatic egalitarianism: English-language opera, Redpath Chautauqua, and the May Valentine Opera Company." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6619.

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For the majority of summers between 1917 and 1925, May Valentine presented popular operas to receptive audiences on the chautauqua circuits, conducting and managing her own operatic troupe for the Redpath Chautauqua Bureau from 1923 to 1925. During this time, Valentine produced and conducted “light opera”—English-language operettas such as DeKoven’s Robin Hood, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and The Gondoliers, Oscar Straus’s The Chocolate Soldier, and Michael William Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl—throughout much of the United States to chautauqua’s demanding, predominantly rural crowds. That her company maintained relative operational autonomy, saw steady ticket revenues and an enthusiastic press reception, and garnered regular appearances in period entertainment magazines while on the summer circuits suggests that Valentine was a successful conductor and impresario. A case study of the May Valentine Opera Company, this thesis explores processes associated with the chautauqua-based dissemination of opera in order to address broader operatic tastes of the 1910s and 1920s in the United States. The capitalist enterprise of the chautauqua circuits proved to be an ideal outlet for the large-scale dissemination of a vernacular operatic repertoire. Throughout her career, Valentine expressed her egalitarian vision for opera in the United States and, with tour stops in upwards of forty-seven states, furthered her cause through the day-to-day operations of a touring, commercial troupe. Valentine’s public persona as a female operatic conductor further inspired a press reception that often focused on her position as a harbinger of the period’s increased attention to female participation in public music making. The chautauqua-circuit career of May Valentine represents not only a now-forgotten continuation of touring English-language opera, but an early twentieth-century operatic phenomenon propagated by standardized chautauqua-circuit business practices, both grounded in and promoted with period ideals of social edification and cultural egalitarianism.

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Kruger, David. "Wagner's Meistersinger and the tradition of comic opera." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12798.

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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-186).
Wagner's avowed aim in his music-dramas was to create a new type of artwork that had little in common with conventional opera. However, in his only mature comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he engages more extensively with the conventions of the genre. In order to determine the extent of this engagement, the dissertation looks firstly at the nature of comedy, and at comic theatre in Germany, as well as the development of a German type of comic opera in the years preceding Wagner's opera. This is followed by an examination of the conventions of comic opera in terms of subject matter, style and form and finally by an investigation of how these were applied in Meistersinger. While it is evident that he discards what is perhaps the most salient stylistic characteristic of comic opera, namely the use of closed song-like numbers with lively accompaniments based on simple rhythmic patterns, he adopts, adapts and re-invents many of the other conventions associated with the genre. This can be seen in his use of conventional aria types, traditional orchestral forms, ensembles, choruses and moral endings. Much of this marks a unique departure from the other works composed at this stage of his career and evinces his debt to the traditions of comic opera. The vocality of his protagonists owe much to the traditions of comic opera and the music is far more diatonic than in his other late works. Conventions of subject matter that he appropriates include characters derived from the commedia dell'arte, a plot involving two pairs of lovers facing various challenges, which are overcome through a certain amount of scheming and the agency of a higher and wiser authority. While set in remote history, the opera is far more realistic in tone than Wagner's other music-dramas, and the only one in which the supernatural does not figure prominently. Other comic elements include the use of burlesque, word-play, a degree of emotional detachment, the breaching of the "fourth wall", parody and satire.

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Philips, Julian Montagu. "Investigating new models for opera development." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2012. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/40174/.

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This thesis is a culmination of an AHRC funded collaborative doctoral award between the Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre at Sussex University and Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The research took the form of a Composer in Residence scheme in 2006-9 and the submission consists of three new operatic projects, Followers, The Yellow Sofa and Knight Crew. The thesis takes the form of a series of four case studies which explore the creative and aesthetic resonances of the above works in addition to a study of Péter Eötvös's new opera Love and Other Demons, commissioned by Glyndebourne for the 2008 Festival. The exploration of all four case studies is intended to offer a range of possible models for the future development of the operatic art form. The central creative research questions of this project relate broadly to questions of context and the reanimation of tradition. In terms of context, each of these four operatic case studies considers the perspective of the commissioning opera company, of the creative team, of singers and instrumentalists and of audiences. In terms of the reanimation of tradition, this research considers ideas around narrativity in opera and the centrality of the operatic voice and operatic lyricism. The polystylistic nature of opera is just one of several other themes that emerge as a consequence of this research. The thesis lays out each case study in chronological order beginning with an introductory chapter that describes the terms of the residency. Chapter Two considers the site-specific promenade opera Followers, Chapter Three examines the gestation of Péter Eötvös's new opera Love and Other Demons, Chapter Four details the chamber opera The Yellow Sofa developed as part of Glyndebourne's Jerwood Chorus Development Scheme, while Chapter Five projects the central themes of this research onto a larger-scale, grand operatic canvas in a community-specific context. A final Chapter Six concludes with a sketch for a new operatic aesthetic, which attempts to synthesise the creative and research experience of this composer residency.

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Gagua, Zaza. "Practical advices for young Opera singers." Thesis, Stockholms konstnärliga högskola, Operahögskolan, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uniarts:diva-624.

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Opera itself is a combination of music, poetry, acting and plastic where the central role-plays singer-actor. Each singer should try to develop itself every time. During my study period, I have learned a lot from the reading books of successful and famous opera singers; I noted recommendations of my teachers, professors, opera singers I have met; and tried to follow their recommendations. As you have already read, it really affected me. I hope that my work will be useful for the beginners since several year ago I was beginner too, studied a lot, and worked a lot for my future career.As I have already mentioned below I have played the role of Masetto and Commendatore during performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. And from my point of view it is quite hard to play both roles but if you will follow the advices that I have mentioned here ineach my chapter I am sure that it will help you to sing properly during your entire singing career. Since when I started to practice thesetwo roles I had quite few time to study and met a lot of challenges. Hoverer I started to look for the solutions howto overcome challenges. First of all I have started to observe why I couldn’t sleep sometimes well, why I had reflux, why my voice wasn’t in a good condition and also I have started to think about faster ways of studying and started to think how I could learn faster and what are the important keys. I am always trying to follow the advices of the famous singers and trying to fit it to myself. I do not tell you how you should develop your voice skills or singing technique because I think that it is up to your voice technique teacher’s job but what I am trying to share with you is that all my selected chapters will help and do not heart you.

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Friebel, Tamara. "Generative transcriptions : an opera of the self." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2013. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/19262/.

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The techniques which I developed for my work between 2009-12 are a consequence of my own unique mix of synaesthetic sensibilities. I have sought to investigate these innate impulses in order to formulate a deeper understanding of my compositional process and define technical strategies that I have termed generative transcriptions. In this thesis I focus on CANTO MORPH, ‘an opera of the self’, a project in multiple parts exploring processes of embodiment, association and dissociation. It is realised through the media of recorded improvisation, a 45-minute scored composition, a virtual architecture, a media installation, a video installation and a sculptural libretto. This project as ‘an opera of the self’ is located in an experiential process comprising several stages: 1/ I perform a series of improvisations in a trance-like state using various instruments and my own voice to create multi-layered recordings – trance improvisation mix. 2/ These recordings are subjected to analytical transcription which I understand as a process of reverse engineering akin to the process that architects employ whereby complex 3-dimensional structures of buildings are analysed and explored diagrammatically in order to discover what kind of essence might be contained in the blueprint of its built form. I cite Xenakis’ Philips Pavilion and the dual nature of composition/architecture that is embodied within this design. This process inspires my own methodology, where mimetic scripts are created from the trance improvised mix and then refined and further manipulated into a score that can be performed. 3/ The improvisation-analysis-composition process which can broadly be conceived as an ‘embodiment of self’ is subjected to another stage in which I create a new body – a re-embodiment in which to site the work architecturally. In exploring the multi-modal approach that is represented by the CANTO MORPH, I have underpinned a novel and multi-facetted way to approach a compositional practice, where through synaesthetic empowerment, a myriad of forces enable an emergent compositional method of generative transcriptions.

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Ottervik, Jennifer. "The Use of Jazz in Opera." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1995. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc277623/.

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Methods of incorporating jazz in opera range from using simple blue notes and fox-trot rhythms, to utilizing jazz instruments, to employing elaborate passages of improvisation. Current definitions of "jazz opera" do not consider variations in the genre, which, because of their evolving nature and the varied background of their composers, are diverse. This study attempts to collectively discuss these third-stream works. Jazz rhythms and harmonies first appeared in the 1920s in the works of Gershwin, Harling, Krenek, and Freeman. In 1966, Gunther Schuller was the first composer to use improvisation in an opera, which has become the primary distinguishing factor. There has since been a tremendous interest in this genre by such jazz musicians as Dave Burrell, Anthony Davis, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Anthony Braxton, George Gruntz, and Jon Faddis.

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Richmond, Jessye. "Opera Marketing| Rebranding the Genre." Thesis, American University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10786455.

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This paper reviews current and historical opera marketing practices and analyzes the marketing mix (product, place, promotion, price, and people) of major opera companies in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to determine methods to attract and build sustainable, less homogenous audiences. Surveys were conducted to determine public perceptions about the art form from both opera-goers and non-opera buyers and interviews with leaders within the field of opera marketing revealed current trends. The paper provides insights about changes within the field in recent years and offers suggestions for improvement based on the success of other opera companies and other artistic organizations.

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Janis, Christine Anne. "Opera workshop for the undergraduate: more than aria coaching /." The Ohio State University, 1994. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487856076413803.

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Coduti, C. Leonard. "Giuseppe Verdi| The Paris Opera commissions." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1523336.

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This thesis examines the relationship between Giuseppe Verdi and the Paris Opera and the stage works that Verdi composed or reworked as a result of this business venture. Between 1847 and 1867, Verdi accepted four formal commissions for Paris: Jerusalem (1847), Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), Le trouvère (1857) and Don Carlos (1867). After a brief introduction discussing Verdi's career before Paris, each commission is discussed in detail from the genesis of the work through its premiere, and the eventual outcome of each opera. This study also evaluates the benefit of this collaboration to Verdi's international career given the requirements and time expended to produce each commission. It explores Verdi's adaptation to cultural differences, his handling of foreign business affairs, and his personal feelings toward French society. Much of the source material is drawn from Verdi's own writings and correspondence, as well as the writings of several Verdi scholars.

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Burke, Kevin R. "Propagating a National Genre: German Writers on German Opera, 1798-1830." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1277145931.

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Gyllengahm, Isabelle. "Opera i Stockholm, Stadsgårdskajen." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-34445.

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Stockholmsoperan, Stadsgårdkajen, en opera för alla! Koppla samman och tillåta; Mitt huvudkoncept handlar om att skapa kopplingar i staden och locka människor att vistas på platsen, dag som natt, Stockholmsbo som värmlandsbo. Oavsett om du går på opera eller bara tar en kvällspromenad, vill äta en god matbit eller fika på café, ska operan tillgodose alla dessa behov.

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Bagge, Felix. "Mellanmänsklighet : Ledarskap och dirigering." Thesis, Kungl. Musikhögskolan, Institutionen för komposition, dirigering och musikteori, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kmh:diva-3532.

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Henriksson, Jonatan. "Opera i Stockholm, Stadsgårdskajen." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-34058.

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Arndorfer, Richard. "Degrees of Turpitude." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1490289930149143.

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Gómez-Estévez, Pablo Ignacio. "Chanflín." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1586358160650967.

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Blixt, Johan. "Stegvist komponerande : strategier för att skapa flow." Thesis, Kungl. Musikhögskolan, Institutionen för komposition, dirigering och musikteori, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kmh:diva-2445.

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I denna uppsats beskriver jag mitt arbete med en kortopera som heter Dags som jag skrivit under min masterutbildning i komposition på Kungl. Musikhögskolan. Jag använder en auto-etnografisk metod för att beskriva reflektioner kring olika aspekter av komposition. Jag vill blottlägga delar av mitt kompositionsarbete, de låsningar som kan uppstå när man komponerar och de strategier jag använder för att komma över låsningarna. En strategi som jag använder mig av är det jag kallar för stegvist komponerande, en term jag lånar från kontrapunkten. Jag kommer beskriva hur man som kompositör kan fokusera på flera små problem och lösa dem en efter en istället för att försöka lösa ett stort komplext problem direkt. Musikhistoria, tekniska synvinklar på musik samt citat är saker som inspirerar mig till att skriva musik. Jag kommer beskriva metoder för komposition samt historisk och nutida praxis för hur man kan komponera stegvis, och på så sätt skapa sitt eget flow.
In this thesis I describe my work with a short opera called Dags which I have composed during my master program in composition at Kungl. Musikhögskolan. I use an auto-ethnographic method to describe my reflections of different aspects of composition. I want to expose parts of my compositional work, the deadlocks that can arise when composing and the strategies I use to get out of the deadlocks. I call the strategy I have created step-wise composing, borrowing a term from the study of counterpoint. I will describe how one as a composer can focus on many small problems and solve them one by one instead of trying to solve a large complex problem instantaneously. Music history, technical aspects of music and quotations are things that inspire me to write music. I will describe different methods for composing and also historical and contemporary practices for how to compose step-wise, and create one’s own flow.

Uruppförande av kortoperan Dags med text av Emma Palmkvist och musik av Johan Blixt

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Patino, Julio. "Matador." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1998. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279182/.

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Matador is an opera scored for orchestra, mixed chorus and soloists (mezzosoprano, 3 tenors, 2 baritones). The work is in one act divided into two main sections. Each of these sections is divided into subsections. The libretto is aphoristic in nature and dictates the form of each of these subsections. The division into two parts also serves as a means to evoke a sense of hopelessness of emotions in the first and a transforming disposition that culminates in a jubilant song in the second.

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Kalmaru, Märta. "Opera i Stockholm, Galärvarvet." Thesis, KTH, Arkitektur, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-34444.

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Leung, Lai-yue Ciris. "The social organization of a Cantonese opera performance /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B22763235.

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Branstetter, Leah Tallen. "Angels and Arctic Monkeys: A Study of Pop-Opera Crossover." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1249493305.

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Cornsweet, Amy 1956. "Handel's use of flute and recorder in opera and oratorio." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291499.

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Handel uses flutes or recorders in 125 pieces in his operas and oratorios. Flutes appear most frequently in the keys of E minor and B minor, and the relative major keys of G major and D major, and recorders in the keys of F major, B♭ major, and the relative minor keys of D minor and G minor. Other keys are used primarily for special reasons, especially those related to the affections. Most pieces including flutes or recorders are pastoral songs, lovesongs, and laments. Flutes and recorders double other musical lines more than 50 percent of the times they appear in the operas, and in the oratorios, they double about 35 percent of the time. Flutes are independent of all other parts about 15 percent in the operas and 17 percent in the oratorios; recorders about 28 percent in the operas and 15 percent in the oratorios. In the remaining pieces, flutes and recorders alternate between independent use and doubling other parts. In all but a handfull of pieces Handel uses only alto recorders or transverse flutes in D. On rare occasions lie specifies a higher or lower member of the flute or recorder family.

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Lin, Thomas Wen Tsen. "Giasone's Travels: Opera and Its Performance in the Seventeenth Century." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467520.

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This dissertation presents an in-depth examination of Giacinto Andrea Cicognini and Francesco Cavalli’s Giasone (1649). Its premiere in Venice took the city by storm, generating such enthusiasm among opera audiences that the publisher Andrea Giuliani was forced to print two additional editions of the libretto that same year simply to meet widespread demand. In an industry that chewed up and spat out operas, one in which most productions had an effective shelf life of one year, Giasone would go on to be performed throughout Italy over the next forty years, ranging as far south as Palermo and as far west as Turin, until its final performance in Brescia, 1690. It was without a doubt the most performed stage work of the Seicento. The four decades between 1649 and 1690 saw many changes, both to a public opera economy and culture that were barely nascent in Venice when Giasone saw its first performance, and to the opera itself. Not only were words, verses, swaths of text, and even entire scenes cut, shifted, or added from city to city, Giasone was even revived under different titles from the 1670s onward. Part 1 of my dissertation untangles the forty-five librettos, twelve scores, two scenari, and four prose editions associated with the opera. I divide these sources into groups of librettos and families of scores based on a combination of publication city, historical data, and most importantly the similarity or variation of content. This philological work sets the stage for Part 2, a close analysis of Giasone employing textual and musical methods that accounts for and explicates the dramatic nucleus of the work, one focused around continuities—of location, character focus, interlocution, and harmony. I show how despite the revisionary pressures exerted on it throughout its forty-year performance history, Giasone’s identity as a sentimental, at times ribald love story, remained intact. In doing so, I provide insight into some of the creative and artistic processes behind the composition of the seventeenth century’s most popular opera.
Music

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Zhao, Ye. "Chamber Opera 'With Her Eyes'." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1623251121828837.

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Shirey, Benjamin 1985. "Transient Delete: Original Composition with a Critical Examination of the Compositional Process and a Survey of Digital Technology in Opera." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2016. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc849752/.

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This paper explores various technologies available to the modern composer and utilized in recent modern opera, providing creative approaches to producing aural, visual, and theatrical performance environments. It also explores my own use of digital technology in Transient Delete. Transient Delete is a digital miniature-opera that explores different aspects of a community of post-human cyborgs. The story follows Iméra, a newly converted cyborg as she acclimates herself to this new cybernetic existence. During this process she meets several other cybernetic entities that are there to help guide her through her metamorphosis.

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Leafstedt, Carl Stuart. "Inside Bluebeard's castle : music and drama in Béla Bartók's opera /." New York [u.a.] : Oxford University Press, 1999. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0605/98040668-d.html.

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Becker, Rachel Nicole. ""Trash music" : valuing nineteenth-century Italian opera fantasias for woodwinds." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/279018.

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Opera fantasias have been denigrated as insufficiently intellectual or serious, as derivative, as merely popular or sentimental. However, many of the perceived flaws were, if not hallmarks, at least accepted realities of Italian opera composing. Like opera itself, the opera fantasia is a popular art form, stylistically predictable yet formally flexible, based heavily on past operatic tradition and prefabricated materials. I approach opera fantasias, instrumental works that use themes from a single opera as the body of their virtuosic and flamboyant material, both historically and theoretically, concentrating on compositions written for and by woodwind-instrument performers in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Important overlapping strands in my theoretical framework include the concept of virtuosity and its gradual demonization, the strong gendered overtones of individual woodwind instruments and of virtuosity, the distinct Italian context of these fantasias, the presentation and alteration of opera narratives in opera fantasias, and the technical and social development of woodwind instruments. I have uncovered a large body of compositions and composers, many of whom have not been written about in English, through archival research in Milan, Naples, Parma, Bologna, and Palermo. This reveals trends in operas used for fantasias, temporally, spatially, and between instruments, as well as further trends in the use of specific melodies. I use contemporary reviews of performances and compositions to attest to the popularity of the opera fantasia throughout the second half of the nineteenth century in Italy, including oboist Antonio Pasculli as a case study. This often overlooked genre is intimately tied to the central canon and deeply connected to its social and musical contexts. Approaching the opera fantasia as a coherent and meaningful group of works clarifies a genre that has been consciously stifled and cultural resonances that still impact music reception and performance today.

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Rives, David Michael. "Factors influencing performance standards for professional opera singers from 1600 to the present time." Connect to resource, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1244136822.

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Hsu, Chiung-Tan. "Fusion of musical styles and cultures in Bright Sheng's opera "The Song of Majnun" /." Connect to resource, 1999. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1261054889.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Music; Opera'

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