MUS 219 - Opera

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU.
Prerequisite(s): Ability to read music or permission of the instructor.
Operatic performance is at once a historical and a living tradition. Accordingly, we will examine operas as historically embedded works, shaped by the economic and political circumstances, cultural contexts, and aesthetic expectations of particular composers and audiences at particular times. Yet because opera realizes historical works in the present context, we will also study operatic performance itself as a text, examining the ways that the very pliability of the operatic tradition allows contemporary directors and audiences to question, probe, or revise standard interpretations of a given work.
Offered every other year.