“The Barber of Seville” I was granted the honor of attending “The Barber of Seville” Opera at the Houston Grand Opera’s temporary home, showcased at the George Brown Conference Center on Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 2:00P.M. This opera consist of five different segments, this was the second show out of the five. I arrived early in order to attend the pre-concert lecture about the opera. There was food and concession being sold as well. I am glad I did take advantage of the pre-lecture because it gave viewers an opportunity to identify the characters and their role throughout the stage play. Due to the Opera being conducted in Italian, the pre-lecture gave lots of insight regarding understanding each scene.
The guests in attendance were all
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A fast tempo is also called an allegro, while a slow tempo may be referred to as a lento or largo.
Rossini utilizes a method referred to as crescendo throughout this musical. Crescendo is a gradual, steady increase in loudness or force. Crescendo is portrayed in “The Barber of Seville”, with both instruments and soloist in tune, utilizing several different tempos. The tunes feature short phase’s repetitive rhythmic ideas, different pitches and melodies, textures, and musical forms.
A brief synopsis of “The Barber of Seville”: The opera begins with Count Almavia and several townsmen standing outside a house in the city/town of Seville singing. It is night time as Count sings at the window of the young lady he wishes to be his lover. During the Classical Era this method is referred to as singing serenade. Rosina is a beautiful, talented, young lady whom is housed by her much older and wealthy guardian, Dr. Bartolo. Rosina’s beauty has captured the eyes of two men, her guardian and a young handsome man who goes by the name of Count
Almaviva. Count Almavia disguises himself as a poor student named Lindoro, hoping that Rosina will fall in love with him and not his
The last section of the piece imitates the lively scherzo style of the beginning and the piece ends with quick chords in the same range heard at the opening.
It holds such power over captives and captors alike that they cannot help but feel enamoured to the life it brings. Cesar especially feels the beauty of music “Oh, how he loved to hear the words in his mouth… It didn't matter that he didn't understand the language, he knew what it meant. The words and music fused together and became a part of him” and through music, he discovers his latent talent for singing (224). Based only on Roxanne’s previous arias, Cesar’s potential is outstandingly bright when he sings for the first time without any training whatsoever. Not only do the others learn to appreciate his gift, but Roxanne herself recognizes how promising he is or she would not have bothered to waste her time tutoring him. Beforehand, Cesar is nothing remarkable, just another one of the terrorists who detains them, but the opera transforms him into a separate person. Like the mansion enveloped in the garua, Cesar is heavily shrouded by serious self-esteem issues and fear, but after his breakthrough, his worries suddenly disappear and his life becomes a reservoir of joy. If “life, true life, was something stored in music”, then Cesar has lived a deprived life; his passion for music was just unfolding, but fate robs the world of who “was meant to be the greatest singer of his time” (5,
The first main area of art and reality colliding in the play is the existence of characters who are referred to as Characters. Pirandello stretches the bounds of meta-theater by having actors portray Characters who swear they are not actors, when faced with other actors playing actual actors and a Director. The layers of unraveling of reality are astounding. The Characters must try and convince not only the Actors and the Producer of their true nature, but also the audience. Pirandello must convey his beliefs about the essence of art through the mouths of Characters seemingly unattached to the actuality of the theater around them. In the play, the Producer acts on stage in place of the author, questioning the sincerity and the true nature of the Characters, who become his r...
One of the most interesting challenges in operatic composition , is composing for all the specific characters. A composer has to distinguish between characters through his music. Jan can’t sound like Fran , and Dan can’t sound like Stan. Each character must have his or her own traits. Mozart’s opera , Don Giovanni , provides us with many different characters to compare and contrast. One scene in particular lends itself to the comparison of Don Giovanni , Leporello , and The Commendator. Scene fifteen of Act two, places all three characters in close interaction with each other , making it easy to compare and find out how Mozart and his Librettist Lorenzo da Ponte brought them all to life.
The Baroque’s operas was based on classic mythology but within the Classical era it turned to a more realistic contemporary subject reflecting the ideas of enlightenment present in the Classical era. Some major differences between these two eras operas though was the subject matter and form. Within the Baroque era the opera seria, or serious opera, was very common. Opera seria was characterized by the rigid form and appeal to authority or those in power. The later Baroque opera emphasized the strophic variation over the da capo aria was established as a vocal form. Along with these forms was the bipartite aria, which consisted of only A and B variations. In contrast with the late Baroque opera and its rigid alternation of recitative and aria, the middle Baroque opera retained great formal flexibility.The change from this rigid serious opera form came about the years of 1762 to 1783 when the introduction of a simpler more human like opera was introduced. This change can be somewhat contributed to Cristoph
Barry Millington, et al. "Wagner." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 23, 2014,
The history and development of tango can be divided into three stages, the first stage being La Guardia vieja, or Old Guard, which lasted until 1920. During this time, tango had emerged as a genre of instrumental music. The form during this time consisted of three parts, with different sections (ABC). This form usually uses four instruments: flute, violin, guitar and bandoneon. The most famous tango ever written is from this time period, Gerardo Matos Rodrigez’s “La cumparsita.” This early tango used rhythms related to habanera and milonga in duple meter and began to slow the tempo down during the 1910s. During this time, a quadruple meter with sharp accents was also adopted. Marcato and sincopa, two new patterns, established the harmonic and rhythmic foundations of more recent tangos.
Opera buffa can be defined as an Italian style of comic opera that has many characters and whose text is sung all the way through the work. It also generally jests about the problems of the period, sho...
There are various other new motifs that are introduced at this point, to signify the Tarnhelm etc.Each motif in this opera is used to signify the importance of certain characters,scenes,objects,feelings. No melodic phrase is without its importance or contribution to the storyline. They are used to set the scenes that are happening or that are yet to come. A number of the motifs heard in this particular opera, are also heard in the later operas with some variations.
The history of opera companies in New York City may bring to mind the largesse of the Metropolitan Opera Company, but for years before that opera was alive and well, and even thriving, in New York City. High society in New York had long been envious of the elegance associated with European opera outings, but it wasn't until 1825 that the first production of an opera was performed on a New York stage – an Italian opera troupe performing the premiere of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. A review from the New York Evening Post reported, “the first-night house was full”, and noted with a “touch of relief” that “an assemblage of ladies so fashionable, so numerous… so elevated, so ‘European’” attended the performance. Accompanying the ladies of high
Before discussing the future of opera, it is imperative to examine traditional opera and some modern trends. The primary focus of traditional is on the actors’ and actresses’ singing and acting. Apart from vocal performance, opera also puts emphasis on movement and expression. Movement and expressions are exaggerated so that audiences sitting far away can see. The movements are theatrical. Opera is performed on live stage with sets and costumes designed especially for the performance. For example in Tosca, The actors and actresses all dressed in the costume of the Napoleon era. Males have waxed hair, and they wear breeches and long coats with tall standing collars. Females wear dresses that ar...
Countless dozens of Ph.D. theses must be written about Mozart's The Magic Flute, and yet it is so lively with elements of fantasy and free-flying imagination that it is often the first opera to which children are taken. It has a plot of such complexity that it takes several viewings for all but the most studious opera buffs to sort out the characters and follow the ins and outs of the multilevel story. At the same time, it has so much easily accessible charm and so many glorious Mozart tunes that even the novice will be captivated. There is a large cast of characters including the priest Sarastro (a very serious, proselytizing basso), the Queen of the Night (a mean, angry, scheming coloratura), and her daughter, the beautiful and courageous Pamina. There is the handsome hero, Tamino, on the quintessential road trip, and his cohort in misadventure, the bird seller, Papageno.
31 in D major, Paris, K. 297/ 300a by Mozart, which represents the Classical Period. Mozart composed this piece in 1778 and it was performed in Paris, France on June 18, 1778. In the first minute, I heard crescendos. To be exact, at (00:20), and (00:31) and (00:50). These change in crescendo and diminuendo make different unique melodies that make the instruments challenge one another as the crescendo and diminuendo occur. Moreover, it makes the listener surprised because he or she does not expect it right away. It also builds the excitement for the listener. From (8:00) to (13:39), it has an andante rhythm and from min (13:40), it has an allegro rhythm. Mozart continues to switch the rhythm because he does not want to make it drab like the music of the Baroque era, which did not vary its dynamics. He also made sure his composition was clear and uncomplicated and thus, the texture was
Shakespeare, William, and Kim F. Hall. Othello, the Moor of Venice: Texts and Contexts. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. Print.
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. Samuel Barber expressed his passion for music from childhood and even at a very young age he decided to become a music composer. Barber was born in a family of musicians, it was quite natural that he went along with music all his life. Barber’s works acknowledge his love for poetry and his deep knowledge of music in all aspects. Barber had a very amazing skill in packing dense emotions into small segments of highly charged music. Barbers music often penetrated directly to the listener’s heart. This made his music popular among music buffs all over the world. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished composers to emerge in the twentieth-century. Barber followed neo-romantic style built on romantic