Music 3812

Music 3812
Study Guide #18
Opera and Music Drama in the Nineteenth Century

Assignment: Grout and Palisca, Chapter 18
            Read: 625-632 (top)
            Skim: 632 (top)-632 (bottom)
            Read: 633 (top)-641 (top)
            Skim: 641 (top)-641 (bottom)
            Read: 641 (bottom)-648

Study Questions:

1. What are the characteristics of French grand opera? What elements came from
      the earlier French tradition? What influence did this genre have outside of
      France and on later composers?--p. 626-627
2. How does opéra comique differ from grand opera in the 19th century? What is
      opéra bouffe?--p. 627
3. What are the characteristics of French lyric opera?--p. 628-629*
4. What was the relationship between Italian opera and the Romantic move-
      ment?--p. 630
5. What are the elements of Rossini’s operatic style? What is a cavatina? a
      cabaletta?--p. 631**
6. Be able to describe Bellini’s operatic style. What is opera semiseria?--p. 633
7. What elements of nationalism may be found in the career of Verdi?--p.
      633-634
8. Where did Verdi obtain his subject matter?*** What are the characteristics of a
      typical Verdi libretto? How did he organize his operas?--p. 634
9. Be able to trace the development of Verdi’s style through his three periods--p.
      635-638**** What are "reminiscence motives"?--p. 635 What elements of
      style remain constant?--p. 638
10. What different traditions are blended to form German Romantic opera?--p. 638
11. What are the characteristics of early German Romantic opera, as exemplified by
      Der Freischütz? In what ways are these characteristics nationalistic?--p.
      639-640
12. What is melodrama? What are the salient features of the Wolf’s Glen Scene in
      Der Freischütz?--p. 640
13. What is significant historically about the works of Richard Wagner?--p. 641
14. What is Opera and Drama?--p. 643-644 What are the features of Wagnerian
      music drama? What is Gesamtkunstwerk?--p. 645
15. What are leitmotives? How do they operate? How do they differ from the recur-
      ring motives of other composers?--p.645-647 (and NAWM 124)
16. What influence did Wagnerian style have on future composers?--p. 647-648

*Note that this is a modern term. In the 19th century, these works were usually classified as opéras
comiques, as is the case with Gounod’s Faust and Bizet’s Carmen, both of which originally employed
spoken dialogue, rather than recitative.

**Note the French element in late Rossini. A parallel situation will occur in the career of Verdi.

***Note that the majority of his dramatic sources (and all those mentioned by the text) were not Italian.

****Il trovatore is misplaced chronologically in this discussion. It was composed in 1853, after Luisa
Miller and Rigoletto, shortly before La traviata. However, in many ways, dramatic as well as musical,
it does reflect an earlier tradition.