THE MUSICAL STAGE

Chapter 8

Early History of Musical Theater Musical rituals date back as far as 30,000

B.C.E.

Music song and dance combine to create Dionysian festivals in early Greece

Elizabethan theater included music

Opera was developed in Italy in the late seventeenth century

Mozart

Many say his operas have never been surpassed.

Signature style: melodious arias alternating with dialogue, sometimes spoken but mostly sung. This solved the problem of telling a dramatic story in song.

Terms

Sung dialogue is called recitative

The combination of recitative and song is called singspiel Singspiel is sometimes hard to

listen to because it is not melodious like a song

Libretto- the lyrics and recitatives of an opera

Most popular of Mozart’s work

2 lowly servants outwit the master of the house

Finale is “what it would sound like if God could sing!”

Romantic movement protests restraint

Verdi’s operas are melodramas with music

Characters are thwarted by social restrictions

The Marriage of FigaroVerdi and the Romantic Opera

Richard Wagner

Romanticism fostered nationalism (Germany)

Wanted to create true music-drama that would be in the same class as Sophocles and Shakespeare

Gave Germany a mythology

Operetta vs. Opera

Spoken dialogue moves the play forward but is continually interrupted by arias

Shortened spaces between songs

Many songs, 2 dimensional characters

All or most of dialogue is sung

Desire to create works that are elegant and noble

Heavier than operetta

More complicated

Other Famous Operas

Porgy and Bess Amahl and the

Night Visitors Candide Sweeney Todd The Ghost of

Versailles

Broadway Musicals

Of Thee I Sing Satire of

Presidential Politics

Candidates will do anything to win the election

Pal Joey Deepened the

Broadway musical and deserves to be called a musical play

Led to others wanting greater depth in the genre

About the courtship of a cowboy and a farm girl

Includes folk dance, ballet

Took musical stage in a startling new direction

Modernization of Romeo and Juliette

Arias have become classics

Rival gangs of New York

Oklahoma! West Side Story

Dance

Egyptians took part in elaborate dance ceremonies

Greece marked the beginning of dance as an official form of public entertainment

Dance awakens the Dionysian spirit in all of us

Ballet

Known as the premier form of dance art

Athletic, yet graceful Classical ballet often

tells a story, but is not needed

Giselle Tchaikosvsky-Swan

Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker

Modern Dance

Breaks with classical tradition

Starts with classical moves but then adds in athleticism, complex variations

Mikhail Baryshnikov- famous modern dancer/now actor

Famous Modern Dance Choreographers

Martha Graham Agnes De Mille Michael Bennett Jose Limon Twyla Tharp

Folkloric Dance

Rooted in time honored values and customs

Usually vastly different from formal dance, requires little or no training

Native American Traditional Forms

Potlatch-Northwest tradition where community members come together to feast and dance to celebrate special occasions

Bear Dance-far west, reenactment of a ceremony ritualizing the hunt

Powwow-plains, sequence-grand entry, signing of anthem, series of dances representing life activities (planting, harvest, courtship, marriage)

Mexican Folkloric Ballet vs. Asian Dance

Highly trained dancers

“Set Pieces”-Stag Dance, love, marriage, cycle of life

Joyous mood, colorful

Every dancer is a monk

Black metal caps adorned with peacock feathers, purposely monotonous to still emotions

Next dance, colorful silk because they believe color can be experienced temporarily

Flamenco

Spanish, from Gypsy songs

4 females, 2 males, 2 guitars and 2 singers