Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University / Tonight we will recreate musical moments from the plays of Don Pedro Calderon De La Barca, who lived from 1600 until 1680. During his long span of life he dominated the brilliant Baroque playwrights and poets for several generations. He took the rich heritage of drama forms which Juan Del Encina, Tirso De Molina, Lope De Vega and many others had created, and under the magnificent patronage of the Hapsburgs--Philip III, Philip IV, and Carlos II--Calderon brought the one-act sacred plays, called autos sacramentales, to their definitive form. For us he is particularly interesting for the enormous amount of music he employed in his plays, and the creative ways in which he used the musical forms , and because he wrote the first librettos for Spanish opera and for the musical comedies, called zarzuelas. Calderon produced three types of plays: the one-act sacred plays, the three-act comedies and three-act dramas [TRUNCATED]