How to Listen to and Understand Opera

The goal of this
course is to introduce students to the world of opera. This is not a
comprehensive history of opera, but an overview designed to impart knowledge of
arguably the greatest, most complex art form on earth. The course opens with an
analysis of perhaps the most famous aria in operatic history: “Nessum Dorma”
from Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot. This
aria exemplifies opera’s unique marriage of words, music, and visual art, before
students are transported back to Monteverdi and the birth of opera. Students
will track the various influences of opera including Neoclassicism, the Roman
Catholic Church, Secularism, the Enlightenment, Postmodernism, and more in the
operatic masterpieces of Gluck, Mozart, Verdi, Strauss, Wagner, Puccini, et al.