At the Opera
A piano piece that is meant to evoke the drama and lyricism of bel canto opera through "cantabile" or singing-like playing. Bonus point: name the composer most famous for this genre of piece.
Nocturne; Chopin
A famous example of binder's volumes of parlor songs from the 1850s. Bonus question: name one song from this binder's volume.
Emily's Songbook; The Sontag Polka, It Is Better to Laugh Than Be Sighing, My Old Kentucky Home Good Night
Listening Example: Name this symphony and the political origins of its main motive. Bonus question: when was it composed?
Beethoven's 5th symphony, The French Revolution slogan, 1808
Listening Example: name this aria and the opera it is from. Bonus point: name the year this opera premiered.
La Donna E Mobile, Rigoletto; 1851
Third movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; breaks away from the typical third symphony movement, based on a courtly dance, to depict struggle and revolution.
Scherzo and Trio (typically 3rd movements are minuet and trio).
Listening Example: name this piece's English title and composer. Bonus Point: name the opera it is originally from
It Is Better to Laugh Than Be Sighing, Donizetti. Lucrezia Borgia
Listening Example: name this piece and the famous singer who performed it in America.
Listening Example: name this piece and the opera it is from. Bonus point: name one way this piece or the opera has been recontextualized.
Ride of the Valkyries, The Valkyries. Operation Valkyrie in WWII, the helicopter scene in "Apocalypse Now," Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Listening example: name this piece and its composer. Bonus point: who are the TWO flawed or evil father figures in this piece?
Listening Example: name this piece and its composer. Bonus point: name a more recent composition partly inspired by this piece.
Chopin Piano Sonata op. 35 3rd movement "March Funebre;" "Imperial March" from Star Wars.
Listening Example: name this aria and the character singing it.
Un Bel Di, Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San)
Listening Example: name this piece and its composer. Bonus point: name the year this piece was composed.
Wagner's cycle of four operas which is imbricated in the project of German nationalism
The Ring of the Nibelung (the Ring cycle)
The name of the Victor Hugo play on which Rigoletto is based. Bonus point: name the two bad father figures in Rigoletto.
Le roi s'amuse. Rigoletto (father of Gilda) and the Duke of Mantua ("father" figure in patriarchal rule)
A theatrical technique that used lanterns to produce the effect of spectral figures (ghosts, skeletons, etc) appearing out of the darkness and shrinking away.
Phantasmagoria
What are the two goals of Wagner's operas, expressed in his book Opera and Drama?
To make the music and drama intertwined, as opposed to earlier traditions of scene, then react; to make music function as memory through leitmotifs
Music periodical co-founded by Robert Schumann in Leipzig, expressed his disdain for "mechanical dexterity" and appealed to the past as a source of beauty for music of the present and future.
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Listening Example: name the opera it is from, as well as the name for 19th/early 20th century fascination with and exoticization of Eastern people and cultures.
Madame Butterfly (Butterfly's Entrance), Orientalism
Name the two sources for Puccini's Orientalist/Imperialist opera.
Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysantheme and John Luther Long's Madame Butterfly.
The poet who wrote "Erlkönig." Bonus point: what type of poem is Erlkönig?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; ballad (or long strophic poem)
Tempo d'attaco
Listening Example: Name this piece and its composer. Bonus point: what element of the composer's personality does this piece represent?
Schumann, Eusebius from the Carnevale cycle. This is his shy, poetic side.
The music box which played the Chinese melody "Shiba-Mo," a melody Puccini used to depict "The Orient" in Madame Butterfly.
Guinness Music Box
Listening Example: name this piece and the characters singing. Bonus point: what is the significance of the horn line towards the end of the piece?
Leb wohl, du Kühnes, Herrlisches Kind; Wotan and Brunnhilde; the horn line is Siegfried's leitmotif--he is the "hero" of the next two operas who will awaken Brunnhilde by raping her
Listening Example: name this aria and the opera it is from. Bonus point: what has the character singing just heard that prompts this aria?
Chi e mai, Rigoletto. He has just heard the Duke singing "La Donna E Mobile," and he thought he had the Duke's dead body.