This thesis focuses on the opera text enlightened from four different perspectives: the translator, the librettist, the composer and finally the singer, based on the author’s thirty years of professsional practice, in the spirit of Donald A. Schön’s study from 1983: The Reflective Practitioner; How professionals think in action. The method is basically hermeneutic and the esthetics inspired by Umberto Eco’s Opera Aperta (”The Open Work”) from 1962. Questions from within the perspective of the translator are: In what ways does opera translation differ from other forms of translation, and how does an opera translator work? What is the history of “opera in the ver-nacular” compared to “opera in original language” and are singable translations needed whatsoever in the modern era of subtitling? The perspective of the librettist examines the opera form’s SWOT-analysis, the differences from other “storytelling” art forms, the task of making an adaption compared to choosing to create an original plot, the matter of taste and building the form from dramaturgical principles, the shaping of aria texts, the importance of tight collaboration and cutting, cutting, cutting (“a libretto cannot be short enough” Edgar Istel, 1922). The composer’s perspective contains practical and theoretical words of advice and examples from practice, together with a so ”think aloud”-study from within a composer’s thought process while working. The final chapter, from the singer’s perspective, focuses on whether modern vocal ideals and singing “in original language”, with subtitles, together with expanding performance halls, have made opera text harder to perceive, and rendered earlier established texting techniques forgotten or obsolete. The answers to all these questions are complex. This thesis concludes that the opera form is still expanding, but not necessarily in the direction of creating a new, contemporary canon. “There are about 600 opera houses in the world, all are ‘National Galleries’, none is the Tate Modern” (Per-Erik Öhrn, 2012), but there are also opportunities. Almost all successful new opera productions in recent years have their librettos written in English, a language traditionnally regarded as “weak” in the field of opera. Opera audiences worldwide are nowadays accustomed to hearing and understanding sung English words and comprehending a dramatic context when expressed in English, thanks to 100 years of Anglo-American dominance in popular music and about 50 years of dominance in television and films.

No description available.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to penetrate closer to the nature of the world-famous opera singer Emmy Destinn (Ema Destinnová) and to reveal the connections between her personal life and her professional activity. Firstly, it focuses on areas that have influenced personality formation and consequently the career of the singer (nature, background, education, interests, career development). It also discusses in detail the important work and personal relationships of the singer with the emphasis on the frequent interconnection between these two areas. She also focuses on aspects of the personality that caused the inner solitude of the singer, describes her need for peace and loneliness, but also the close person, and then describes an intense relationship with her companion and her close friend, Maria (Marie) Martínková. At the end of the work, great emphasis is placed on the significant characteristic of the singer, which led to the decline of her career. The benefit of this thesis is in the understanding and the explanation of some events in the professional life of the singer with regard to the causes in the personal life and vice versa, but mainly in the knowledge that all that glitters is not gold. And that a world-class star with her wealth and glory can experience her own hell without the world knowing it or doing anything about it (as at the end of her life).

Subject of this Master´s thesis is analysis and vocal characterization of female roles in the opera Don Giovanni, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I decided to divide this subject into several principal parts. Initially I would like to overview the life and work of the author himself. The next part of this thesis examines the opera as whole; its history of origin, plot issues, characters, performance traditions and main differences between traditional interpretations. As next I would like to address female characters in Don Giovanni opera. Finally this paper presents a deep analysis of the three main female characters of the opera with emphasis on vocal characterization and interpretation of their famous representatives. Finally this paper describes general classification of voice types, discuss the overall problematics of tone and voice production and also evaluate the mechanics and functionality of vocal chords from the physiological point of view.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

It is generally agreed that modernism is a period and movement rich in interdisciplinary collaboration. What is often contentious in understandings of the modernist period is to whom modernist artists addressed their projects. On the one hand, traditional scholarship has tended to view modernism as an essentially elitist project practiced among a closed set orbiting around British and American expatriate coteries: Ezra Pound and his “Ezuversity,” Stein and her Paris Salon, Woolf and the Bloomsbury circle. On the other hand, recent scholarship in modernism has sought to expand the field to included modernisms practiced in different time periods, in different countries, and by a wider range of artists. While my project is firmly situated in the work of the so-called high modernists, my operatically focused approach, which sees Pound, Stein, and Woolf engaging directly with mass culture by way of opera (albeit in different ways and to different aims), suggests that we need to re-think the way in which we have mythologized the period, even where these “high” modernists are concerned. In chapter one, I read Pound’s operatic endeavors as alternative means of translation. Though these pedagogical projects valorize the art they “translate” for its unique difficulty, the use of opera and later, radio opera, as the means to translate this art demonstrates an interest in democratizing this difficulty. This is a remarkable inconsistency given Pound’s undisputedly fascist allegiances. Chapter two, which focuses on Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts, shows how the prospect of writing an opera helped Stein to forge a new connection between playwright and audience in the theatre. What I am calling the “envoiced landscape” is an anti-patriarchal, enabling alternative to teleologically driven narrative that defeats authorial control by way of play. Chapters three and four turn to Woolf’s conspicuously hybrid novels, The Waves and Between the Acts. Both works question the nineteenth-century notion of music’s capacity to transcend language, embracing instead a distinctly operatic frame of reference, as Woolf celebrates the novel as an omnivorous but democratic, open-ended, contingent form, endlessly capable of incorporating and co-opting other genres. Whereas The Waves enacts a critique of the Gesamtkunstwerk played out on the Wagnerian stage, Between the Acts considers the social text played out among opera’s audiences, positing, then critiquing, a Brechtian reevaluation of Wagnerian aesthetics.

It is generally agreed that modernism is a period and movement rich in interdisciplinary collaboration. What is often contentious in understandings of the modernist period is to whom modernist artists addressed their projects. On the one hand, traditional scholarship has tended to view modernism as an essentially elitist project practiced among a closed set orbiting around British and American expatriate coteries: Ezra Pound and his “Ezuversity,” Stein and her Paris Salon, Woolf and the Bloomsbury circle. On the other hand, recent scholarship in modernism has sought to expand the field to included modernisms practiced in different time periods, in different countries, and by a wider range of artists. While my project is firmly situated in the work of the so-called high modernists, my operatically focused approach, which sees Pound, Stein, and Woolf engaging directly with mass culture by way of opera (albeit in different ways and to different aims), suggests that we need to re-think the way in which we have mythologized the period, even where these “high” modernists are concerned. In chapter one, I read Pound’s operatic endeavors as alternative means of translation. Though these pedagogical projects valorize the art they “translate” for its unique difficulty, the use of opera and later, radio opera, as the means to translate this art demonstrates an interest in democratizing this difficulty. This is a remarkable inconsistency given Pound’s undisputedly fascist allegiances. Chapter two, which focuses on Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts, shows how the prospect of writing an opera helped Stein to forge a new connection between playwright and audience in the theatre. What I am calling the “envoiced landscape” is an anti-patriarchal, enabling alternative to teleologically driven narrative that defeats authorial control by way of play. Chapters three and four turn to Woolf’s conspicuously hybrid novels, The Waves and Between the Acts. Both works question the nineteenth-century notion of music’s capacity to transcend language, embracing instead a distinctly operatic frame of reference, as Woolf celebrates the novel as an omnivorous but democratic, open-ended, contingent form, endlessly capable of incorporating and co-opting other genres. Whereas The Waves enacts a critique of the Gesamtkunstwerk played out on the Wagnerian stage, Between the Acts considers the social text played out among opera’s audiences, positing, then critiquing, a Brechtian reevaluation of Wagnerian aesthetics.

English Abstract Magic Flute is Mozart¡¦s last work of opera, and also the peak of Singspiel. This opera integrates the composing styles of German, French, and Italian operas and demonstrates the roundedness and refinement characteristic of Mozart¡¦s later works. The original libretto of Magic Flute, written by Schikaneder, has a lot to share with the ideology of Freemasonry. Therefore, besides the entertaining effects common in Singspiel , this opera is ethically instructive. Papageno is the comic character in Magic Flute and the soul of it, too. He functions to carry on the plot and takes on the task of amusing the audience. His performance, including the musical essence, the singing skills, and the action, holds the key to the success of the opera. This research is divided into seven sections: 1. Mozart¡¦s life and his creation of operas 2. The creation process of Magic Flute 3. Introduction to the roles in Magic Flute 4. The characteristics of the role of Papageno 5. Discussion about the singing of Papageno 6. Some suggestions about the action of Papageno 7. Conclusion

Diss.--Philosophie--Köln--Phil.-Fak., 2003. / Nombreux exemples musicaux en fin de volume. Bibliogr. p. 279-294. Index.

Thesis--Musicology--Chicago (Mich.), 1982. / Bibliogr. p. 299-307.