Music Appreciation Class #13 Romantic Ballet and Opera

Music AppreciationClass #13Romantic Ballet and Opera

Peyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky1840-1893

Biography

•Child prodigy▫Discouraged

•Composed at 14•Musical training (conservatory)•“The Five”

▫Conflicting musical influences•Civil service job•International success

Musical style•Russian

▫Folk tunes▫Harmonies▫Rhythms

•European▫German form▫Italian melody▫French lyricism

Ballet (Russian Nationalism?)

•Previously inconsequential music▫2nd rate composers

•Tchaikovsky elevated and expanded▫Full orchestral tonality

•Stand-alone quality

“Romeo and Juliet” (1869)

•Scandal!

Musically graphic Violence/sex

•Overture Fantasy (11:00)

• Youtube.com @ 7:45

Brief segue

•Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)▫“Romeo and Juliet” 1935

Arrival of the Capulets and the Montagues Romeo and Juliet’s pas de deux

Rudolf Nureyev and Lynne Fontanne: Balcony Scene

Nutcracker (1891)

•Most expansive ballet score to date▫Immediately popular▫Critically ridiculed

▫“Sugar Plumb Fairy” from the Kirov Ballet

Piano Concerto #1 (1875)

•Van Cliburn (1934 - )

•1st International Tchaikovsky Competition ▫1958

1812 Overture (1880)• Commission

▫Russia’s victory over Napoleon▫Orchestration

Tubular bells 16 cannon shots on musical cue!

• Carnegie Hall

• Philadelphia

Seiji Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmonic @ 4:0011:45

Personal • Gay

▫ Punishable by prison/execution

• Paranoid

• Married▫ Antonina Miliukova

Virtual stranger Unsolicited love letter Disastrous marriage

Nadezhda von Meck• Patron, 1877-90

• Letter relationship only

• Abrupt end

“Bob”

FranceOpéra Comique

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Carmen (1875)

•Prosper Mériméé (1845)

•Commission

▫Opéra Comique

Light, tuneful music Comic or silly plot Spoken dialogue

Premiere

•Acts 1 and 2 Applause, curtain calls

•Acts 3 and 4 Booing, whistling

•Bizet’s escape and death

Idée fixe

•“Fate” motive

▫Overture

▫Carmen and Don Jose’s meeting

▫Carmen’s murder

Two scenes

•Habanera

•Carmen’s murder

▫American singers

Maria Ewing

Barry McCauley

Retellings

•Ballet suite

•Carmen Jones (1943)▫Oscar Hammerstein II

Dorothy Dandridge (Marilyn Horne)

GermanyRichard WagnerRichard Strauss

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Biography

•Step-father’s influence

•Composition training▫Beethoven▫Bach

•Opera as drama

Gesamtkunstwerk

•“Complete art work”

▫Total synthesis of

Music Drama Theater Dance Politics

Thirteen complete “music dramas”•http://wagneroperas.com/

indexwagneroperas.html

Leitmotif

•Musical idea or Melody▫Associated with

Character Event Prop

• Idée fixe ▫Hector Berlioz

Symphonie Fantastique

“Mad” King Ludwig II

King Ludwig and Wagner

•Admirer

•Patron▫Saved Wagner’s career?

•“Swan King”▫Lohengrin

Neuschwanstein

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

•Mecca for Wagnerites

•Replacement for Easter/Church

•Complete “Ring” cycle

•Hidden Orchestra pit

Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848-74)•Das Rheingold (The Gold of the Rhine)

▫Creation of the Ring

•Die Walküre (The Valkyries)

•Siegfried

•Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Ring Cycle Facts

•Libretto▫German, Scandinavian and Norse myth▫34 characters

God(s) vs. humans Aryan culture vs. Jewish “threat”

•Music▫15 hours▫Through-composed

Die Walküre (2nd opera in the cycle)•God

▫(Wotan or “Wälse”)

•Siegmund▫“victory” + “mouth” (“shield”)

•Sieglinde▫“victory” + “gentle”

God in Human Form

•Wagner ideal

•Sieglinde and Siegmund (“Wehwal”)

Sister/bride and Brother/groom

“Now let our race flourish and continue!”

Siegfried (Savior/Fuhrer/Leader)

Background

•Hunding▫Mystery wedding party guest

•Tree with a Sword (“Notung”)

Finale of Act I. (Concert version with Domingo)

Bayreuth : Jeanine Altmeyer and Peter Hoffman

Essays

•Anti-Semitic

•Sexist

•Socialist

•Inspiration for Nazis

The Ring and Star Wars

•http://www.trell.org/wagner/starwars.html

GermanyEven Worse…

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Biography

•Musical family

•Involved with the Dresden opera▫Wagner

•Politically active▫3rd Reich

Tone Poems (1896)

•Also sprach Zarathustra

▫Friedrich Nietzsche

“God is dead.”

•2001: A Space Odyssey▫1968

Salome

•Mark 6:21-29 & Matthew 14:6-11

•Oscar Wilde

▫Paris, 1891

In French?!

Prison

Characters

•Herod, King of Judea

•Herodias, his wife (former sister-in-law)

•Salome, her daughter (14)

•John the Baptist (“Jochanaan”)

Operatic/dramatic problems

•Orchestra▫Wager +

•Salome▫Vocally demanding

Look 14 years old Sexually attractive

▫The “Dance of the Seven Veils”

Censored!

•New York, 1907

▫Metropolitan Opera

•Dress Rehearsal

▫Sunday afternoon Patrons = Astors, Vanderbilts Politicians

Opening Day Reviews

“…one of the most horrible, disgusting, revolting and unmentionable exhibitions of degeneracy I

have ever heard, read or imagined...”

“…A sewer is a necessity of our everyday life, but the fact of its existence does not also create the

necessity for us to bend over its reeking filth and inhale its mephitic vapours...”

Final scene: warning!

•Catherine Malfitano