Treatise (D.M.A.) Florida State University, 2007. / Advisor: Stanford Olsen, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 3-25-2008). Document formatted into pages; contains 56 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Са само пет наслова од дванаест опера колико је укупно написао, Пучини већ више од века доминира у репертоару свих светских оперских кућа, од најмањих до највећих, што га ставља у исти ранг са Моцартом, Вердијем, Вагнером. Његова популарност је тако велика не само због изванредне музике и сјајног осећаја за оркестрацију, него управо због сасвим специфичног начина на који је Пучини драматуршки третирао своје главне протагонисте. Нарочити афинитет је имао ка савршено нијансираном креирању хероина. Управо су његове хероине главно обележје његовог стваралаштва. Како је опера уметност заснована на синтези две уметности &ndash; драмске и музичке, реч је о раду који истражује главне женске ликове анализирајући упоредо драматуршка и музичка средства која је композитор користио и које има за циљ да дође до општих закључака о емоционалном аспекту хероина у значајном делу стваралаштва Ђакома Пучинија, у операма Боеми, Тоска, Мадам Батерфлај и Турандот.</p> / <p>Sa samo pet naslova od dvanaest opera koliko je ukupno napisao, Pučini već više od veka dominira u repertoaru svih svetskih operskih kuća, od najmanjih do najvećih, što ga stavlja u isti rang sa Mocartom, Verdijem, Vagnerom. NJegova popularnost je tako velika ne samo zbog izvanredne muzike i sjajnog osećaja za orkestraciju, nego upravo zbog sasvim specifičnog načina na koji je Pučini dramaturški tretirao svoje glavne protagoniste. Naročiti afinitet je imao ka savršeno nijansiranom kreiranju heroina. Upravo su njegove heroine glavno obeležje njegovog stvaralaštva. Kako je opera umetnost zasnovana na sintezi dve umetnosti &ndash; dramske i muzičke, reč je o radu koji istražuje glavne ženske likove analizirajući uporedo dramaturška i muzička sredstva koja je kompozitor koristio i koje ima za cilj da dođe do opštih zaključaka o emocionalnom aspektu heroina u značajnom delu stvaralaštva Đakoma Pučinija, u operama Boemi, Toska, Madam Baterflaj i Turandot.</p> / <p>With only five out of the twelve operas he wrote, Puccini has been dominating the repertoire of opera houses of the world, from the smallest to the largest ones, for more than a century. This puts him on par with Mozart, Verdi, Wagner. He is so well known not only for the excellence of his music and a great sense of orchestration, but also for the very specific ways in Puccini&#39;s dramaturgical treatment of his main protagonists. He has shown special affection towards his perfectly nuanced creation of heroines. It was his heroines that turned out to be the main feature of his whole opus. As the opera as an art is a synthesis of two arts - drama and music, this thesis analyzes the main female characters by simultaneously focusing on the dramaturgical and musical resources which the composer used, and it aims to reach more general conclusions about the emotional aspect of his heroines in a significant part of the creative work of Giacomo Puccini, in his operas La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot.</p>

The songs of Puccini provide another approach to understanding the composer's musical development. The objective of the study is twofold; first to provide a discussion of the musical style of Puccini's songs; and second, to show how Puccini utilized and integrated the preexistent material into the operas. The songs are grouped and characterized in three stylistic periods. In each period, Puccini was concerned with different issues in text setting. They anticipated or corresponded to the musical style of his operas, and this is evident by his use of the earlier songs in the later operas. Three examples of such cases are examined. The details involved in the transformation of self-borrowing are illustrated in terms of recomposition, expansion of the vocal line and orchestration. Each case illustrates the textual and/or musical consideration by Puccini of the original source for the new dramatic context of the opera. The borrowed material, often incorporated with new themes and expressive orchestration, blooms as an effective dramatic piece of music in his operas. In addition to the lecture recital, based on the dissertation and given on June 23, 1997, three other public recitals were performed. The first, on February 27, 1989, included works of Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, and Strauss. The second program, an operatic performance of The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky, was given on April 20, 1991. The third recital was performed on February 20, 1995, and included works by Handel, Mozart, Stravinsky, Schubert, Poulenc, and Turina.

abstract: The focus of this in-depth study is to look at the gestation, performance history, and reception of Giacomo Puccini's evening of three one-act operas called Il Trittico and differentiate the particular components, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi to analyze them for their individual stylistic elements of Italian Opera. These were the styles of verismo, pathos and sentimentality, and opera buffa. As substantiated by written criticism, the audience and the critics did not fully comprehend the hidden meaning behind the individual works of Il Trittico. Puccini, enigmatically, had chosen to present one last glimpse of outmoded Italian operatic traditions. In order to evaluate Il Trittico's importance in the history of Italian opera, this study will first review the musically changing landscape in Italy during the early to mid-nineteenth century, then the second part of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth-century when German, French, and eventually Russian music were starting to influence audience taste. Puccini who, over the course of his compositional life, absorbed and incorporated these different styles realized that long held Italian operatic tradition had reached a fork in the road. One path would ensure Italian composers a place in this new order and the other a stagnant dead end. Even though Puccini's triptych garnered primarily negative reviews, the basis for this negativity was the perception that Il Trittico had broken with the historically traditional Italian musical styles. Though the present study acknowledges that break to a degree, it will also present a historically based rationale for the deviation, one left largely unnoticed by Puccini's critics. In the end, this author plans to realize their symbolic importance as a farewell to three uniquely Italian styles and a departure point for a new operatic tradition. Looking forward to the centenary of the work, this author seeks to illuminate how Puccini reached the pinnacle of firmly rooted genres of Italian opera. Ultimately this might help to unravel the enigma of Il Trittico while it continues to secure its rightful place as one of the masterpieces of the Puccini canon. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music 2015

Abbé Prévost’s novel L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731) has inspired at least four operas, notably by Daniel Auber, Jules Massenet, Giacomo Puccini, and Hans Werner Henze. This study will look at the three nineteenth-century operas based on that novel: Auber’s Manon Lescaut (1856), Massenet’s Manon (1884), and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1893). Massenet’s treatment receives the most attention because it is the most popular, and arguably the most well-known, of the three operas. I will discuss Manon’s role in the novel and operas, and its impact on the dramatic conception of each work. In the three operas I will examine her arias and other music, and her relationships with other characters. The goal is to gain a better understanding of each composer’s interpretation of Prévost’s heroine and to explore why Manon is different in each work.

No description available.

As lirico-spinto soprano commonly indicates a soprano with a heavier voice than lyric soprano and a lighter voice than dramatic soprano, there are many problems in the assessment of the voice type. Lirico-spinto soprano is characterized differently by various scholars and sources offer contrasting and insufficient definitions. It is commonly understood as a pushed voice, as many interpret spingere as ‘to push.' This dissertation shows that the meaning of spingere does not mean pushed in this context, but extended, thus making the voice type a hybrid of lyric soprano voice type that has qualities of extended temperament, timbre, color, and volume. This dissertation indicates that the lack of published anthologies on lirico-spinto soprano arias is a significant reason for the insufficient understanding of the lirico-spinto soprano voice. The post-Verdi Italian group of composers, giovane scuola, composed operas that required lirico-spinto soprano voices. These giovane scuola composers include Alfredo Catalani (1854 –1893), Umberto Giordano (1867 –1948), Pietro Mascagni (1863 –1945), Giacomo Puccini (1858 –1924), and Riccardo Zandonai (1883 –1944). Descriptions of the soprano voices that premiered these roles are included in this document to determine the suitability of the lirico-spinto soprano voice for each role.

As a popular historic work with constant and worldwide performances, the sexist and racist narratives disseminated by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly causes harmful social and political ramifications. Many scholars point to this opera specifically when discussing the fetishization of Asian females, and mention the title character as the quintessential example of damaging stereotypes. Thus, I conduct a postcolonial and feminist reading of Madama Butterfly, through analysis of the opera's libretto, the libretto sources, and the opera's score. I unravel the Orientalist assumptions that make up the foundation of the Butterfly narrative, and trace them as they make their way into Puccini's opera. I re-read Madama Butterfly as a metaphor for imperialism, and its effects on the colonized psyche. I examine Lieutenant Pinkerton and Butterfly's characters with specific attention to the power dynamics of their relationship in the context of colonization. I emphasize gender, race, and class tensions evident within the white male and white female gazes on the bodies of third world women of color. I present Puccini's musical choices in the operatic score as supplementary to my postcolonial-feminist reading. Puccini's use of pentatonic scales to evoke "Oriental" sounds, as well as his appropriation of Japanese folk tunes and "The Star Spangled Banner" into the score serve to supplement my basic contentions that Madama Butterfly is a product of Oriental discourse and a metaphor for imperialism and its effect on the colonized psyche.