Opera Essays

John Gays''s "The Beggar's Opera" is a prime example of literary parody, a genre that emerged in 18th century England as a form of satire and social commentary. Through his deployment of exaggerated characters, mock-heroic elements, and musical parody, Gay uses the burlesque to satirize his time's social and political norms. The Beggar's Opera is a play set in London's criminal underworld and features a cast of characters, mainly thieves, prostitutes, and highwaymen. Gay employs the burlesque by

French Opera Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide consists of five acts and a beginning overture, called a prologue. This is in conformity to the Aristotelian ideal of length in the opera as a musical genre and in contrast to the Italian practices of the time. The French recitative and aria are the focus of Raguenet and Lecerf’s criticism and praise of French opera. This section will evaluate one of the Armide’s recitatives and arias in light of Raguenet and Lecerf’s arguments over French opera.

afternoon tea with John Gay, a more realistic journey would be to engage with technology at the very tips of my fingers. Let me take you three centuries ago and walk through Gay’s life to find out what might have influenced him to write the Beggar’s Opera. It all started on 30 June 1685 in Barnstaple, England where Gay was born. Gay went to London after finishing his studies to be an apprentice to a silk merchant but he disliked the job. He continued exploring other jobs in London; being a secretary

BALLAD OPERA & OPERETTA Ballad operas and operettas both share qualities found in traditional opera. Just like the opera, these genres are both sung in an operatic style. The ballad opera originated in England around the eighteenth century, and developed to become a type of comic opera. It typically featured farcical plots and light-hearted music that was mainly confined to ballads and folk songs that were interspersed with spoken dialogue. The Beggar 's Opera is an example of a ballad opera. An

Aida is an Opera that consists of four acts. This story, written by Giuseppe Verdi, is about the love between the ethiopian princess, Aida, and an Egyptian General and it takes place in ancient Egypt. In Act one starts out with Radames, who is a young egyptian warrior, finding out that war with the Ethiopians is inevitable. Radames and Aida are both secretly in love with each other but neither of them can confess because Amneris is also in love with Radames. The King, who is also the father of Aida

and present tune. Music operas turned into more and more optical with all the circulate and listing of piece videos and concerts. Music of all types also become more and more compact. Headphones allowed other folks lotus adjoining one another to hearken to utterly the different shows or split a similar opera. 20th Century opera brought a new self-determination and extensive experiment including new choral styles and forms a well known challenged the preferred rules of opera of in advance periods.

This was the first ever Italian opera, I have attended. In the very beginning, I was lost as to what was being said. After the first intermission and speaking with the people around me they shared some helpful advice in understanding the remaining acts. La Triviata, made me feel as I was living in an Italian fairy tale. The costumes were very elegant and beautiful. In the opening act, the main character (Violetta), was preparing for a party she was having in her house. She was wearing a skirt with

My husband and I have season tickets to the Seattle Opera. It’s something we’ve done for two seasons now and it’s become as much a part of our lives as work, only more fun. I love going to the opera. It evokes a feel of times past, where one dressed up and men wore suits and top hats, and the women wore beautiful gowns, glittering jewels and sweeping long coats. Last night we had a “parking lot picnic”. Sandwiches sitting in the car in the Mercer street parking garage. While we dine, an SUV whips

As opera developed throughout the Baroque era, distinct styles emerged from the countries of Italy and France. Each country held specific goals with the composition and production of opera. Italy desired to make money from public opera houses, therefore, they hired the most famous divas to sing their most virtuosic arias to guarantee a full house. France, however, wished to preserve their cultural traditions and maintain a distinction between themselves and the rest of Europe. Under the supervision

The relationship between the music and the drama – the story – is the essence of what any opera is. Both the West and China have produced numerous operas in many different traditions and genres. As a much-cherished traditional art form in China, Peking Opera was formed through the combination of various music and performing techniques. Having a history of 160 years, Peking opera was formally created in 1790 through the merging of several regional styles in China that have their roots in the 13th

within the performances of The Phantom of the Opera and Cats both composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber. The opulent gothic context, the external realistic style, and the ability to explore musical theatre with a higher soprano singing from The Phantom of the Opera contrast with the bleak modernistic context, internal realistic style, and the ability to explore musical theatre with an alto pitched singing from Cats. In the context of The Phantom of the Opera musical the inspiration was sourced from the French

Operas started to come into existence in the late 16th Century. These works are entirely sung, and usually tell a story of some sort. They began in Italy and were put into motion by the Florentine Camerata. One could think of Opera as a rebirth of Greek dramas. Prior to the 16th Century, storytelling was done in various forms of singing and dancing. Operas stemmed from Greek dramas, and were an attempt to recreate it. Almost all of the characters in the early operas were taken from Greek and Roman

The Italian opera Don Giovanni is into two acts. It is about a character known better as Don Juan. The music piece was written by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte. Don Giovanni was first performed at the National Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787. It was a great success. Mozart who most commonly called himself wolfgang Amade’ or Wolfgang Gottlieb came from a musical background such as myself. He never attended a proper school, which was a

Discussion From research it shows that one of the earliest signs of a jukebox musical was John Gay’s creation of The Beggar’s Opera (1728). Before The Beggar’s Opera all popular theatre was opera and the main operas were mostly written by a man name Georg Frideric Handel. The daring storylines and poetry were written in a time when all operas focused on love, romance, gods and heroes. In contrast, Gay took a completely different approach and wrote a performance based on thieves, maliciousness, and

A comparison of the Beijing Opera and the Italian Opera reveals a significant contrast in almost all fundamental areas of music between the two examples. Because of cultural influences, the two performances share little commonalities, as the timbre, medium, elements of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, form and phonic structure are definitely not similar. For instance, the musical and physical performance dynamics of the Beijing opera music are forceful, the timbre is loud, tinny and harsh, the rhythm is

of Erik, the Opera Ghost. Created by French novelist Gaston Leroux, Leroux writes about a tortured man known as the Opera Ghost or the Phantom who falls in love and becomes obsessed with a young chorus girl after tutoring her in singing. When felt challenged for her affection by a childhood friend, the Phantom begins killing anybody who he believes will keep her from him. Captivated by Leroux’s story, filmmaker Carl Laemmle creates the Americanized, silent film The Phantom of the Opera. Due to the

In Gaston Leroux’s story, The Phantom of the Opera, Christine's attraction to both the Phantom and Raoul leads to turmoil and difficult decisions as shown through repetition when referring to both. Firstly, on the roof of the Opera house, Christine tries to prove to Raoul that the Phantom of the Opera really exists. After expressing how terrifying her experience with him was, she, in a trance-like state, says “but his voice filled my spirit with a strange, sweet sound” (Leroux 38). The author's

During the Baroque period, everything was over the top ranging from the architecture of buildings to the musical styles. The piece we were given to analyze describes perfectly the styling of music at the time. Opera was first introduced during the baroque period. Opera is best known as a dramatic work. In the piece, the tempo remains constant throughout the whole work, in certain parts where the words are elongated, the tempo follows the high pitch and as the pitch gets higher, the tempo get faster

Romantic Opera composers in the 19th-century often centered their works on spectacles that satisfied their novelty-seeking audiences in hopes of facilitating their success. A prominent style of Italian opera composition in the first half of the 19th-century is referred to as Bel Canto, a term literally meaning “beautiful singing.” These operas used intense emotion and dramatic circumstances to connect to the emotions of the audiences. A popular Bel Canto work, Vincenzo Bellini’s (1801-1835) La Sonnambula

Barring the novel’s title, the word “phantom” is never again used in reference to Erik in Gaston LeRoux’s The Phantom of the Opera; in other words, the choice of the word phantom appears to be an entirely deliberate ploy to convey a reality of Erik’s nature. To examine LeRoux’s motivations in selecting such a word in his title, one must examine the etymology of the word in its original French form, fantôme. In spite of its contemporary meaning of “a ghost or apparition,” the word is derived from