Musical Terms
This musical style is highly dissonant, has irregular rhythms, and tries to break the typical "musical syntax."
What is Atonality?
These two composers were often pitted against each other in debates, one being more "Shakespearean" and the other more "Epic".
Who are Verdi and Wagner?
This composer fought in World War 1.
Who is Alban Berg?
In Paris, this was one of the two main opera houses, the other being the Grand Opera.
What is the Opera Comique?
This artistic movement sought an increase in emotional expression and a blurring of rigid forms.
What is Romanticism?
This term refers to a musical idea (melody, orchestration, etc.) that is tied to a specific character, object, or idea.
What is a Leitmotif?
This scene called for an out-of-tune piano to be included onstage.
What is Berg's Wozzeck, Act 3 Scene 3.
This composer's arias were famed throughout Europe and the United States, even among those who never entered an opera house.
Who is Giuseppe Verdi?
The city of Verdi, this city had long been one of the centers of public opera.
What is Venice?
This political movement sought to create particular styles for the art from particular countries, and also to redraw borders to more closely align them with the with which groups people perceived themselves to belong.
What is Nationalism?
This is a faster portion of a larger aria.
What is the Cabaletta?
Who are the Folk?
This composer wanted to create a mythological past to rival the Greeks, but for his own nation.
Who is Richard Wagner?
Alban Berg was from this nation, which suffered catastrophic losses in WW1.
What is Austria-Hungary?
This opera has a controversial ending that can be reinterpreted through new stagings, leading to even more controversy about how opera should be performed.
What is Carmen?
This term refers to a slippery way of writing melodies that often sounds 'sexy' or 'alluring'.
What is chromaticism?
This opera excerpt uses the same rhythm as "Despacito."
What is Bizet's Habanera from Carmen.
This is Wagner's term for the Artwork of the Future.
What is the Gesamtkunstwerk?
Opera performed in this theater was typically not fully sung, but instead had spoken dialogue with musical numbers.
What is the Opera Comique?
This artistic movement focused on the artist's interior experience of the world, rather than its actual appearance.
What is Expressionism?
This form has had a shifting definition, but typically refers to a piece focused on one musical idea that develops it intensively.
What is an Invention?
The most famed composer of French Grand Opera, who also helped Richard Wagner in his early career.
Who is Giacomo Meyerbeer?
Bizet accidentally stole his famous Habanera from this composer.
Who is Sebastian Yradier?
This is the city in which Wagner built his Festspielhaus.
What is Bayreuth?
This early 20th century artistic style involved a turn back towards older styles.
What is Neoclassicism?