Opera is not verbally translatable, so, the interpretation process of the audience are influenced by revisions of a work. Music and libretto dictate the narrative and the action. Through this, they advance the action in in the limited period of time that they have; integrating the complex actions between real and dramatic time to deepen the narrative microcosm that is presented to us. The audience will identify with characters emotions and moods through an absurd medium but with such a rich empathy that it reaches us in a unique manner. Thus, there is a creation of this elite musical culture engrained into society and their values. More than two hundred years after the premiere of The Magic Flute, audiences and critics alike are concluding …show more content…
The Queen is initially presented in the early scenes as distraught from loss and yearning for the retrieval of her daughter, Pamina. The initial image of her is of the white lit dress as the audiences’ sign of her sincerity. The libretto shifts quite violently during the second act right after Sarastro’s men have orientated the tone of this presented underground world, that women are deceptive and the reason for this segregation on the foreign world. This is a representation of the Queen of the Night as a rival of the true, progressive creed that Sarastro embodies. This dichotomy is paralleled on the musical plane. The original score of Mozart (1791) gives Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, the two most rhetorically powerful figures presented to the audience, distinct and conflicting personas of music. Sarastro's music is characterised by ideals of rational order where “one knows not revenge and should a person have fallen, love will guide him to duty”. The contrast of the Queen of the Night’s music is contained within two arias drawing on the expressive use of coloratura as well as Sturm und Drang to distinguish the divergence of the two entities. She has chromatic harmonies, abrupt and frequent changes, frequent intonation, melismatic content, and a vast vocal range embellish the significance of her values: “Gods of revenge, hear the oath I speak” (McCorkle et al., 1966). Where Sarastro's arias are constructed as rational and controlled vocalizations of greater principles, the Queen of the Night’s arias shadow the deviations of her passions, and the excessive means in the way she speaks becomes more apparent than the semantic content of her words. Implicated within the conflict of Light versus Darkness, operating at the level of both text and music, there is a linguistic coordination that configure woman in an
The author denounces sexism and believes in change. She demands the audience to acknowledge the injustice women have suffered in history. She demands change. In ‘El eterno femenino, she debunks popular notions of the feminine mystique. Castellanos ' method here is comic, and through a theatre language comprised of visual and verbal clichés she precisely captures, and then subverts, the many stereotypes of male-female roles and behaviour.’
In the mid-nineteenth century, a girl named Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe (Oona) was born in pitch darkness in the middle of the day when the sun and moon crossed paths. The book Night Flying Woman by Ignatia Broker is the biography of Broker’s great-great-grandmother, Oona. It describes Oona’s life through what Broker has learned from her grandparents when they passed down the stories. In the book, one of the main themes is passing traditions on. I chose this theme because, in the book, passing traditions on is a major part of the characters’ culture.
On November 16th, 2015 at 7:30 PM in Williams Hall, I attended the cello concert performed by Sophie Shao. This performance included the Seven Variations on the theme “Bei Mannern, welche Liebe fuhlen,” from Mozart’s Opera, “The Magic Flute,” by Ludwig Van Beethoven; Sonate in D Minor by Claude Debussy; Five Pieces in Folk Style op.102 by Robert Schumann; and Violin Sonata op.78 (transcribed to a cello sonata by Paul Klengel) by Johannes Brahms. Sophie Shao began playing the cello at age six and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Yale College and a master of music degree from the Yale School of Music. Her accompanist was Milana Strezeva, a Moldovan-American pianist who began playing piano at the age of 11.
The Film Becoming Queen (2004) was a documentary created by Mark McLaughlin. During its hour runtime, Becoming Queen, illuminates how the band famous for their gaudy, flamboyant performances and their distinct sound came to be. The London based band, Queen, resulted from numerous failed bands. The band underwent several name changes and a wide arrange of band members, until the perfect harmony was created. Brian May, the lead guitarist for Queen, pursued a passion for music in grammar school where his failure to enter the school`s band inspired him to craft his own guitar out of a wardrobe and a fireplace.
Although the stage and costumes are seemingly more saturated with decorative props than the stark, almost empty surroundings of the Beijing Opera, there is a subdued dimness that allows the audience to put full attention to the male vocalist and his muse. The singing lines in the Beijing Opera were performed within a limited range, at a very high octave with a limited range. Similar to screeching, the notes were carried high in her throat, and produced with a certain harshness. On the contrary, the big, powerful “bel canto” operatic voice of the male singer in the Italian Opera, resonates with rich, full sounds throughout his voice range. The male performer’s voice and the message of love to the woman present with him, is obviously the main focal point of the piece.
Illusion Versus Reality Illusions tend to drift an individual away from their sanity, causing them to negligently live their lives according to false, misleading and fantasized beliefs. Reality, on the other hand, is the state of the world in which it exists. The theme of reality versus illusion, and how one copes with conflict, is excessively depicted in Margaret Laurence “Horses of the night,” through the protagonist, Chris. He experiences several external and internal conflicts associating with his grandfather and chris’ environment. In relation with external conflicts, Chris encounters internal and external conflicts between society and himself, his need to obtain a rich life to uphold his reputation in society takes over his mind, and the reality becomes a blur of colors which he does not seem to see.
6. Take a single act from the Marriage of Figaro and, using particular examples, show how Mozart structures the act in terms key, form and texture. How does the opera critique the social order of the time? This essay looks at the first act of Mozart’s opera buffa ‘Marriage of Figaro’ in detail, specifically focussing on the key, form and texture used within this act.
Watching the enchanting Ashley Laracey in the “Summer” section from The Four Seasons last evening reminded me how fabulous last year’s The Sleeping Beauty with her as the Lilac Fairy was. Two moments remain vivid in my memory. First, when the Lilac Fairy was explaining to the King and Queen that Princess Aurora was not dead but asleep, and that one day a handsome prince from a foreign land would awaken her. How radiant and discerning Laracey appeared that instant!
Loren Eiseley explores the theme of the journey of dark descent in collection of essays called The Night Country, particularly in his essay titled “The Places Below.” Along with this comes the imagery of darkness, of “the night country,” which gives the volume its title and unifying theme. The “night country” into which people descend is described as a series of dark caves, tunnels, labyrinths, tombs, basements, and hidden passages by Eiseley. Per Eiseley, we will be drawn to the darkness because: You will be drawn to it by cords of fear and of longing.
The Faerie Queene is the longest poem that consists of six individual mini epics. Edmund Spenser had many things that have happened to him in his life. There was his family and education. He was born twelve years before Skapekspeare and Marlowe. In his education, he went to the Merchant Taylors School then went to Cambridge for his bachelors degree.
Mozart’s opera piece Don Giovanni, in aria form, “tells the tales of a Spanish libertine’s endless pursuit of women”. (Macmillan Ch. 14) I will be examining the final portion of this piece, la ci darem la mano. Here Don Giovanni attempts to suede Zerlina into marriage. The most compelling aspect of the piece is Mozart’s ability to resolve the discord between Don Giovanni and Zerlina through a light and simple melody, which confirms the text.
The horror genre has existed for a centuries, and its purpose is to ignite fear. Which also brings up the question, can fear be enjoyable? In actual fact, it can. It somehow brings out the adrenaline rush within the audience. Quite identical to the experiences that people have when they go on a roller coaster ride.
In his critique, Igor Stravinsky asserts the what he views as the hindrance of conductors upon the musical community that ultimately detracts from the quality of the musical artwork. Stravinsky supports this assertion by exemplifying the distractions from the music conductors serve as and the effects conductors have upon the interpretation of the music. Stravinsky’s purpose is to reveal the blight on the musical world that is the conductor in order to refocus public attention on the music. Stravinsky employs a tone of unrestrained animosity with the music consuming public and critics that bolster the position of the conductor.
Besides a brief and unsuccessful career as a munchkin in a production of The Wizard of Oz, I never really considered myself a theater kid, but my first viewing of Les Miserables would swiftly change that. The sweeping music, beautiful sets, and vibrant story enthralled me and left me sobbing in my seat for the vast majority of the three hour musical. Captivated, I left the theater yearning to learn all I could: to analyze even the smallest details in the dialogue, to study the music and glean all I could about the history that fueled the plot. Les Miserables sparked a love for both the culture of theatre and the stories of history which influence and inform my perspective. Until Les Miserables, I had never understood just how much musicals
Released in 1955, The Night of the Hunter tells the story of a violent preacher named Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum, and his search for money hidden in the home of Willa Harper, played by Shelley Winters, and her children. It is this greed which compels Powers to marry and then murder Willa and pursue her children as they escape along the Ohio River. The film is famed screen actor and stage director Charles Laughton’s only directed film, and while a failure with audiences and critics at the time, it has risen to critical praise in recent decades. In particular, critics praise Laughton, and his cinematographer Stanley Cortez, for their use of stage lighting techniques to provide an eerie and gothic quality to the film which critic Roger Ebert called it a “stylized nightmare”. It is through this lighting aesthetic, the visual language of duality and shadows, which Laughton and