Diss.--Zürich--Musikwissenschaftliches Institut, 2001. / Bibliogr. p. 189-196.

Th. Etat--Musicologie--Saint-Etienne--Saint-Etienne-Jean Monnet, 2002. / Catalogue des oeuvres de G. Donizetti p. 508-545. Bibliogr., discogr. et videogr. p. 428-467. Index.

The leading baritone roles in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, known as Verdi baritone roles, presented new challenges for the singers who first interpreted these roles. Their demanding tessitura and complex characterizations tested the skill of a generation of singers who began their careers singing the roles of Gioacchino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante, Vincenzo Bellini and Giovanni Pacini in the lighter, bel canto style. The purpose of this study is to examine the careers of singers active in Italy between 1830 and 1845 and to provide insight as to which roles written before the premiere of Verdi's Nabucco contained similar vocal and characterization demands. Through examination of available Italian opera house annals, ten singers were identified by the author as precursors to the Verdi baritone, and are categorized into three groups: the pre-Verdi baritones, the transitional baritones and the established Verdi baritones. A brief biography of each singer is included, as well as an appendix for each singer that includes roles performed, dates and locations of the performances. The title role in Donizetti's Torquato Tasso and the role of Manfredo in Mercadante's Il giuramento were determined to be the roles most similar to Verdi's Nabucco. Each role is analyzed in terms of characterization and tessitura demands, and is compared using tessitura charts that account for the frequency and duration of individual pitches. The roles are divided into sections, and each section is designated by its overall range, primary tessitura, secondary tessitura, and weighted pitches. These designations provide quantifiable evidence that each role presents similar challenges for the baritone.

This creative project is the design and construction of costumes for the opera "Don Pasquale" using flat pattern, draping and fitting methods. This creative project enabled the author to gain an understanding of the methods and skills of the craft of costume construction with emphesis on short cuts for rapid construction and methods for making changes in costumes for future use.This project also involved a thorough study of the 18th century period costumes and textiles and the planning of each costume in relationship to the stage setting and lighting.

Master of Music / Department of Music / Kelvin T. Kerstetter / CHRISTOPHER ROBERT NICHOLS 138 Years of the Clarinet: Program Notes for a Master's Clarinet Recital of Works by Reger, Smith, Donizetti, Muczynski, and Schumann (Under the direction of Tod Kerstetter) This study provides a stylistic and structural analysis of Max Reger's Sonata in B-flat for clarinet and piano, Op. 107, William O. Smith's Five Pieces for Clarinet Solo (1959), Gaetano Donizetti's Primo Studio for solo clarinet (1821), Robert Muczynski's Six Duos for flute and clarinet, Op. 24, and Robert Schumann's Soiréestücke for clarinet and piano, Op. 73. This study contains five chapters, one devoted to each piece. Chapters include the composer's biographical information, harmonic and structural analyses, performance considerations, date of completion, premiere, dedication or commission information, and publication information. INDEX WORDS: Clarinet, flute, piano, woodwind, chamber music, Donizetti, Muczynski, Reger, Schumann, Smith, performance.

The 19th-century fascination with madness led to a theatrical phenomenon most palpably represented in the operatic mad scene, where the insane heroine expresses her madness in an aria of ‘phenomenal difficulty’ (Ashley 2002). This research explores the representation of female madness as power in the mad scenes of two famously mad opera characters: Lucia from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) and Ophélie from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet (1868). The objective is to investigate the representation of female madness in the libretti, the musical scores and in visual performances, in order to challenge the notion of female madness as weakness. The research was conducted using a qualitative research paradigm. The study explored the depiction of female madness in various fields of artistic representation, and the concept of power and female power in literature, resulting in the novel interpretation of these enigmatic mad scenes. This was a hermeneutic study considered within an interpretive paradigm. The research was conducted in three stages: a literature review, a full score analysis and a visual performance analysis. The results show that the 19th-century gendered paradigm shift of madness to an overtly female disorder, led to various artistic interpretations of the madwoman, most notably in art, literature, theatre and opera. Opera proved to be the ultimate platform for the musical depiction of female madness, particularly due to the virtuosic vocal capacity of the coloratura soprano. In spite of social and political advancement, women were portrayed as weak in operatic plots. It was established that a delicate balance exists between power and powerlessness in the operatic mad scene. Both Lucia and Ophélie are women trapped in a patriarchal environment, and the onset of their madness is traditionally attributed to the weak default of their gender and their inability to process dramatic emotional events. However, the composers’ musical realisation of madness, as well as the embodied performance of both characters by the soloists, accentuates the interplay between madness as weakness and, most importantly, madness as empowerment. The study shows that the powerlessness associated with female madness is paradoxically reversed by the very factors that denote female madness in the operatic mad scene, namely gender and vocal virtuosity. Numerous musical and visual performance elements employed by composers and directors, notably depicting the madwoman as feeble, point to the empowerment of the seemingly ‘weak’ soprano. Musical elements used to portray madness include deconstruction, orchestration and high pitch. The study revealed additional musical elements, such as the inclusion of themes from previous acts of the opera, the use of specific instrumentation and a capella passages for soprano. The study argues that the characteristics that define female madness in music, namely gender and vocal excess, specifically contribute to the representation of madness as power. Elaborate coloratura vocal passages and scant orchestration are the two musical elements used by Donizetti and Thomas to assist in the depiction of female madness as power in the operatic mad scene. Consequently the study establishes that the extravagant vocal virtuosity displayed by the coloratura soprano casts the madwoman as powerful in the operatic mad scene. / Mini Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Music / Unrestricted

This thesis presents extended program notes for a seventy-minute vocal graduate recital consisting of the following repertoire for tenor: Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata Ich armer Mensch ich Sündenknecht; two songs from the eighteenth-century Spanish collection Tonadillas Escénicas; Gaetano Donizetti's song La derniére nuit d'un novice; Francis Poulenc's song cycle Tel jour telle nuit; Jake Heggie's song cycle Friendly Persuasions; and John Corigliano's Three Irish Folk Songs for Flute and Tenor. Spanning four centuries of music and representing four different language traditions, these works are sufficiently representative of the tenor repertoire. The content of this thesis features detailed information on these works through historical study, and musical analysis.

Cette étude de la diffusion du comique en Europe, à travers les productions d’opere buffe, d’opéras-comiques et de komische Opern dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, porte dans un premier temps sur les livrets et leur circulation, puis sur la diffusion des œuvres, enfin sur les modèles structurels musicaux du comique et leurs transferts. Entré le premier dans l’ère de la « littérature industrielle », le théâtre français s’impose à l’échelle du continent et les librettistes français bénéficient du système avantageux du droit d’auteur. Déconsidérés et mal rémunérés, les librettistes italiens et allemands traduisent et adaptent en grande quantité des pièces françaises. Tandis que l’opera buffa connaît une incroyable diffusion en France et en Allemagne entre 1800 et 1850, aussi bien en langue originale qu’en traduction, et que l’opéra-comique suit son exemple en Allemagne en traduction, la komische Oper est rarement jouée en France, et les genres français et allemand restent inconnus en Italie. Les modèles structurels du comique italien, dont les opere buffe de Rossini constituent la plus célèbre expression, sont repris par les compositeurs français et allemands dans leurs propres ouvrages. Les compositeurs allemands empruntent également aux modèles structurels du comique français, si bien que le genre de la komische Oper consiste principalement en une synthèse franco-italienne. Dans une période caractérisée par l’essor des nationalismes, la circulation des œuvres, des librettistes et des compositeurs favorise paradoxalement la construction d’une unité de l’Europe par le rire. / This study of the diffusion of comic in Europe, through the productions of opere buffe, opéras-comiques and komische Opern during the first half of the 19th century, firstly examines the libretti and their circulation, then the diffusion of comic operas, and lastly the musical structural models of comic and their transfers. The French theatre inaugurates the age of « industrial literature » imposing itself on the whole continent, and the French librettists benefit from the profitable system of royalties. Discredited and badly payed, the Italian and German librettists translate and adapt a great number of French plays. While the opera buffa enjoys an incredible diffusion in France and in Germany between 1800 and 1850, as well in the original language as in translation, and while the opéra-comique follows suit in Germany (but always in translation), the komische Oper is rarely played in France, and the French and German genres remain unknown in Italy. The structural models of Italian comic, of which Rossini’s opere buffe are the most famous expression, are taken up by French and German composers in their own works. The German composers also borrow from the structural models of French comic, so much so that the genre of the komische Oper ends up consisting principally of a synthesis of French and Italian elements. During a period characterised by the rise of nationalisms, the circulation of the works, the librettists and the composers paradoxically favours the construction of a European unity through laughter.

The purpose of this research is to analyze representations of Queen Elizabeth I of England in nineteenth-century Franco-Italian opera, and the relationship of these representations to contemporaneous singing style and the historical background. The basis for this analysis is three arias: "Quant'é grato all'alma mia" from Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (1815) by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), "Sì, vuol di Francia il rege...Ah! quando all'ara scorgemi...Ah! dal ciel discenda un raggio" from Maria Stuarda (1835) by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), and "Malgré l'éclat qui m'environne" from Le songe d'une nuit d'été (1850) by Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896). This research is divided into two main sections: the historical background of Italy and France in the nineteenth century, especially in the contemporaneous vocal style and fashions of literature; and a discussion of the composers' musical and dramatic choices for Queen Elizabeth I in the three selected arias. Chapter 2 is a brief introduction to the early nineteenth-century Franco-Italian historical background, vocal style, and popular literature. Chapter 3 presents an analysis of the three arias. The last chapter summarizes the representations of Elizabeth I in nineteenth-century politics, literature, and vocal style.

This thesis explores the relationship between the many literary texts referring to the deaths of Ugo d'Este and Parisina Malatesta, who were executed in Ferrara in 1425 in accordance with an order by Niccolò III d'Este after he discovered their incestuous relationship. The texts are divided in three categories: (1) the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian novellas and their translations; (2) the seventeenth-century Spanish tragedy; and (3) the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Romantic works. Although these categories divide the various texts chronologically, they also represent a thematic grouping as the texts within each category share common themes that set them apart from those in the other groups. While the various texts all tell the same story, each approaches the tragedy slightly differently based largely on the audience for which it was intended. Thus, the time and place of each text greatly affects its telling. Still, the fact that substantial differences exist between texts that were produced in both geographic and temporal proximity suggests that these are not all-determining factors. Although scholarship exists analyzing individual texts, a comprehensive study of the literary accounts relating to the tragedy has never been undertaken. Rather than detracting from the story, the differences put forth in each of the literary texts enrich the global reading experience by offering many perspectives on the tragedy. In addition, these differences influence how the reader reacts to each of the other texts. Familiarity with one version of the story changes the way a reader approaches the others. A parallel reading of the different versions of the story also shows the power culture has on interpretation. Texts referring to a singular event from one time and place sharply contrast with those that are the product of other circumstances.