Antonio Lotti (1667 – 1740) gehörte zu den angesehensten Musikern seiner Zeit und wurde deshalb vom sächsischen Kurprinzen mit Einverständnis seines Vaters für drei Jahre nach Dresden verpflichtet. Lotti hatte den Auftrag, mit einem italienischen Ensemble italienische Opern in Dresden aufzuführen. August der Starke erteilte am 23. August 1718 von Warschau aus die schriftliche Ordre an den Grafen Wackerbarth, ein neues Opernhaus am Taschenberg zu errichten. Es wurde am 3. September 1719 mit „Giove in Argo“ eröffnet.

This thesis is concerned with the discernment of rhetorical technique within the eighteenth-century opera seria. An oration and an opera seria are both carefully planned word strategies which are vocally performed before an audience with the aim both to entertain and to persuade. As the audience is led through a succession of events and emotional responses to these events, a climax is reached where the audience is suddenly aware of the message of the oration or drama, and the conclusion strongly reinforces this before the curtain drops. The audience is therefore obj ectively convinced as to the moral of the drama through the libretto and is similarly emotionally convinced through the use of music and gesture. This is the method of opera seria. The libretto, the music, and the acting all work towards the same rhetorical ideal of a moral lesson through persuasive presentation. It is truly an exercise in rhetoric from its smallest component to its overall structure. Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782) wrote his first opera seria libretto in 1724 -- Didone abbandonata (set by Domenico Sarro) -- and from this point on, he became the century's chief librettist for opera seria. Anxious to continue the earlier reforms in operatic libretti, Metastasio required an ideal model on which to base his reforms. Given his strong knowledge and ready skill in the art of oration, this thesis proposes that it is upon this model that he formulated his many opera seria libretti. Although the original 1724 production of Didone abbandonata was a great success, most eighteenth-century critics of opera maintained that the drama was best presented in the Rome production (1726) as set to music by Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730), and it is this setting which will be the focus of the thesis. Chapter I examines and defines the art of rhetoric. Proof is provided to illustrate that both music and rhetoric share the same means, procedures, and goals, and as seen through the words of musicians and writers of rhetoric, it is shown that they themselves borrowed extensively from each other. In Chapter II, the libretto of Didone abbandonata is analyzed as a rhetorical exercise using the rhetorical framework discussed in the previous chapter as a guide. Chapter III examines the persuasive functions of the aria and the accompanied recitative for, although the libretto alone is a persuasive argument, it grows more powerful when underlined and punctuated with music as a direct appeal to the emotions of the audience. Finally, Chapter IV concludes with a discussion of the abuse of the aria by virtuoso singers and the unchanging opera seria format whose principles did not adapt to changing tastes of the audience. As a result, the opera seria remains a genre of the early eighteenth-century. / Graduate / 0413

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The play One Man's Vision covers the period 1963 to 1966 when Jorn Utzon, the Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House, resided in Sydney until his resignation or dismissal in February 1966. The play draws on the tensions and hostility towards Utzon, which builds in the government of the day, cultural groups, press, and also with some senior architects. Rowdy scenes in the N.S.W. Legislative Assembly paint a broad canvas of construction, funding, and political problems. These further escalate with a change of government. Utzon's daily work features interaction between his assistant, consulting engineers, and Public Works Department inspectors, as pressures develop to overcome operational and financial problems. His forced dismissal, resulting in a public rally and march, puts in doubt the completion of the opera house. The exegesis takes Arthur Miller's argument for the playwright as an interpreter of history as its starting point, in order to examine the issues of balancing history with drama in the writing of my play, One Man's Vision. To bring unity to existing reports and to construct a play capable of holding an audience, a playwright must make many choices shaped by the conventions of the theatre and of the genre of the work being attempted. A historical play based on existing records will also draw on the imagination of the playwright. The playwright, therefore, makes decisions as to the blend of history and imagination which will be used to serve the story and represent ideas and concepts through dialogue. In making these artistic decisions history becomes just one component rather than the predominant one.

Thesis (M.Mus.)--University of Melbourne, 2003. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references( (leaves 62-67).

Thesis (M.M.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 101 p. : music. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 331-342).

Thesis (D. Mus. Arts)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-165).

Thesis--Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1983.