Opera

"Casta Diva" is the main soprano aria from Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma. It takes place in Act 1, shortly after the title's character first entrance. The part is considered one of the most challenging roles in the opera for a variety of reasons but particularly the music. This piece requires perfect vocalism, a wide range voice, skill at sculpting long curving phrases, and steady technical control. Many sopranos have recorded this aria, including Maria Calla and Anna Netrebko. It is a prayer…

of the opera. He did this to try to analyze and breakdown Mozart’s thinking when he composed the opera. According to Kierkegaard, the character Don Giovanni makes the opera appealing with the characters seductive nature which therefore, makes the opera Don Giovanni stand the highest of the classics for Kierkegaard. In his work, Either/Or, he describes the character of Giovanni as a handsome older man with a deep sensual voice. He explains how Don Giovanni seduces other characters in the opera…

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany, and went on to become one of the world's most influential—and controversial—composers. Richard Wagner was famous for both his complex operas, such as the four-part, 18-hour Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings, which, posthumously, made him a favorite of Adolf Hitler. There is evidence that Wagner's music was played at the Dachau concentration camp to "re-educate" the prisoners. As a young boy, Wagner attended…

Beethoven vs. Mozart As a growing musician, I look up to the great composer. Some of these composers are more recent and some of them are in the past. The composers from the past had a lot of variation. Some of the past periods of music are classical and romantic. Two of the composers that lived during this period are Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. These men are very influential in the area of classical music. Some different features of Mozart and Beethoven are their…

result of decades of voice use, and lots of singers develop vocal cord growths or nodules that often bleed and can scar, making the voice more hoarse in quality. Surgeries to remove such growths are much more common these days, but especially among opera singers, because of substantial demands on their voices. One voice surgical specialist has been developing a special gel that he hopes, when put to use, will allow restoration and preservation of the voices of…

Micaëla who was portrayed as a “sexless white middle-class woman who espouses family values” (Frisch). Carmen’s foreign ethnicity was highlighted through Bizet’s use of Spanish-style music while Micaëla was conveyed using a musical style more similar to Opéra-Comique (Frisch). Bizet use of exotic music was intended to differentiate the subject, the gypsies, from his own group or people. Because of Bizet’s desire to display Carmen as an outsider to the French bourgeoisie, primarily based on her…

Unit four of the textbook is about music in the nineteenth century, and the first part of this section starts by dedicating a whole chapter to Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven was a true genius, his music is still widely popular until today. His style of music was mostly Classical, he was a student of Haydn. One of Beethoven 's first work that really showed his his individuality as an artist was his symphony called Bonaparte. This symphony was written in honor of Napoleon Bonaparte, but later on,…

roles in our modern day productions. Much like other trends, the castrati soon died out towards the end of the 18th century. Le Nozze Di Figaro is a clear example of the decay of the castrati. Suddenly the need for a castrati voice disappeared. As opera seria started to die out, so did the Castrati. Because there are no mythical or godlike characters in Le Nozze Di…

He died on May 7, 1825 in Vienna Austria. His operas were introduced throughout the late 18th century. He came from a family of merchants and both of his parents died but, he continued studying music in Venice. He studied the violin and harpsicord from an early age and through the family of Mocenigo, Salieri had free admission to the school of St. Mark's in Venice His first opera, Le Donne letterate, was produced at the Burg-Theater in 1770. More operas were introduced in fast speed, and his…

Both Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi wrote several operas during the 1800s that brought them to stardom and their work is still admired today. Wagner and Verdi both have a musical style that tells a story with their operas. In their opera pieces we can see a sense of passion and meaning behind the pieces. With the pieces Va Pensiero by Verdi and Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner, we can see the passion and drama. Both of the opera pieces were written in a series of acts and both pieces can…