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Notes on video lecture:
Le nozze di Figaro: The Music Conveys the Drama
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on October 14, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
material, dramatic, halls, Rome, drama, ahead, unaltered, same, Salieri, music, tangible, wedding, dramatists, songful, 1786, minds, preoccupied, singers, terse, Susanna, Ponte, rapturous, instruments
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when we think of Italian opera, we often think of         , Venice, Florence, Milan
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yet in the late 18th century, much Italian opera occurred in Vienna
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Mozart
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Antonio               
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Martín y Soler
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few works that were created in the late 18th century had come to us                   
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usually not played on the kinds of                        Mozart wrote for
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               are trained differently
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the            in which they were originally performed have mostly disappeared
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but the notes of Le nozze di Figaro have for the most part remained the         
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         composed Le nozze di Figaro
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Lorenzo Da           
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gave him an Italian libretto in order to create an Italian opera
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has stood the test of time
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the music, independent of the words, can tell us much about the lives, hearts, and            of the characters who are represented in the opera
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opera represents the achievement of intense                  expression by essentially musical means
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if we listen with intent to the music and the music alone, we can understand much of the drama on stage and in the lives of the characters on that stage
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the music conveys the           
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you don't always need to know the words that are being sung, you don't even need to see the work being performed on a stage
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if you learn to develop your ear to hear the            is doing, you will pick up and understand much of the drama composed by the best musical                     
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opening duet
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at one point counting numbers
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strange words to set to music
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Figaro is measuring out the room that he and                will share together once they get married
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he is fairly                       
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at first he doesn't seem to hear Susanne at all
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who is more focused on the nature of their                and marriage
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the music changes when Susanne sings
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more lyrical
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more song-like
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whereas the music when Figaro speaks represents his more            expressions of distance
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two people are singing
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but they are not singing together
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they aren't singing about the same thing
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Figaro:                  matters
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Susanne: less                  issues
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Figaro's first not keep being raised higher and higher
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keeps expanding Figaro's range
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a musical portrayal from 5 to 43
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strings keep playing the same not over and over
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the fixed point from where the measurements expand
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Susanne singing
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more               
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more variety in rhythm and volume
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expresses a wide range of possibilities
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has more thoughts and feelings than Figaro has expressed so far
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first 20 second
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Figaro measuring out the room
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next 10 second
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Susanne
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then a mix
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Figaro even more consumed with his measurements
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Susanne continues in                    thought of their life ahead
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oblivious to Figaro and his actions
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Figaro starts to sing the song that Susanne's music
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never goes back to measuring
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allows them to sing in harmony with each other
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abandons measuring out the room in order to join Susanne in rhapsodizing about their life together
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by the end they are singing Susanne's music, not Figaro's
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gives us a hint that Susanne might be a step            of Figaro throughout the opera

People:

######################### (1754-1806)
Spanish composer of opera and ballet in his day compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa
  • born in Valencia and studied music in Bologna under Giovanni Battista Martini
  • he has been called the Valencian Mozart
  • in 1777, he travelled to Naples, where he composed for the Teatro di San Carlo
  • in 1785 he moved to Vienna, where he enjoyed great success with three operas composed to texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who was simultaneously collaborating with Mozart and Antonio Salieri
  • the three comedies were Una cosa rara (1786), Il burbero di buon cuore (1786), and L'arbore di Diana (1787)
  • in 1788, Soler was invited to the Russian court at St. Petersburg, where he wrote three Russian language operas: The Unfortunate Hero Kosmetovich (1789), Melomania (1790), and Fedul and his Children (1791)
  • moving to London for the 1795, including La capricciosa corretta (the libretto again by Lorenzo Da Ponte and partly adapted from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew)
Le nozze di Figaro: The Music Conveys the Drama