Humanities 101

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ORIGINS OF MUSIC DRAMA

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Opera is around 400 years old. Opera is made up of 3 arts: music, drama, and spectacle. It was invented by mistake in Italy by a group of late Renaissance intellectuals (the Florentine Camerata) trying to revive ancient Greek drama. Opera was born in the baroque age of theatricality and excess, as a lavish court entertainment.

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CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

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Claudio Monteverdi wrote the first full length opera. He wrote the early opera seria works such as Orfeo.

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JOHN GAY

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John Gay wrote Italian comic opera. He wrote "The Beggar's Opera" which led the way into opera buffa (comic opera).

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

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Mozart was the first German-speaking composer to gain great fame as a composer of operas.

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RICHARD WAGNER

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Richard Wagner was a nineteenth-century opera composer who called his operas Musikdramen.

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GIUSEPPE VERDI

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Giuseppe Verdi was a nineteenth-century opera composer whose work "La Traviata" portrayed more realistic characters.

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STEPHEN SONDHEIM

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Stephen Sondheim was a contemporary American musical composer who is more popular with critics than with his audience. ""A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and "Into the Woods"

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LEONARD BERNSTEIN

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Leonard Bernstein revolutionized the American musical with the tragic "West Side Story"

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ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

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Andrew Lloyd Webber is a contemporary British musical composer of his such as "Phantom of the Opera" "Cats" and "Les Miserable".

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THREE TYPES OF MUSICALS

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3 Types of Musicals Are:
1. Show Musicals: earliest kind, contained unrelated songs, a narrative connected unrelated songs. "Cabaret"
2. Fairy Tale Musicals: integrated musical numbers into the storyline and dialogue: however, the plot is make-believe. "Camelot" "Annie"
3. Folk Musicals: storyline is realistic and is combined with musical numbers that never would have occurred in reality. The songs allow the characters to pour out their emotions. "West Side Story"

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TERMS: RECITATIVE

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A RECITATIVE is an accompanied vocal declamation halfway between speaking and singing.

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TERMS: LEITMOTIF

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A LEITMOTIF is a clearly identifiable musical phrase that accompanies the return of a character, idea, or circumstance during the musical.