This anthology of late 19th- and early 20th-century Czech opera arias for soprano focuses on works that lack existing scholarship, bridging the language gap through translations and pronunciation materials for English-speaking singers. Its 24 arias supplement the works of Smetana, Dvořák, and Janáček with those of contemporaneous composers Karel Bendl, Zdeněk Fibich, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Karel Kovařovic, Vítězslav Novák, and Otakar Ostrčil. Its musicological scope provides vignettes of the musical-cultural landscape of Czech opera around the turn of the 20th century, the transformation of Czech declamation during that period, and the language knowledge needed to sing the works thereof. Chapter 2 elucidates the methodology used in the anthology's phonetic transcriptions and discusses the unique articulatory demands of singing in Czech. Chapter 3 grounds contemporaneous discussion of Czech declamation as late 19th- and early 20th-century composers and librettists sought to shape a musical voice suited to the features of their language. The following chapter is a look at Janáček's unique solution to this challenge. In Chapter 5, the relationship between criticism and composition is examined for these two faces of Czech modernism. Finally, Chapter 6 includes new performance editions of the arias curated for the anthology. Each aria is accompanied by an idiomatic translation, an inline phonetic transcription and word-for-word translation, a brief biographical introduction of the composer, and background information contextualizing the aria and the work from which it is derived. The objective of the anthology is to facilitate a broader range of well-informed performances of Czech repertoire as well as the acquisition of Czech lyric diction for singers at various experience levels.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1808448 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Nichols, Bree |
| Contributors | Wilson, Carol (Soprano), Ross, John Robert, 1938-, Morscheck, Stephen |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | viii, 289 pages : illustrations, music, Text |
| Coverage | Czechia, 1850/1950 |
| Rights | Public, Nichols, Bree, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
| Relation | Recital: November 8, 2018, not yet digitized, Recital: September 21, 2019, not yet digitized, Recital: September 19, 2020, ark:/67531/metadc1811145, Lecture Recital: February 26, 2021, ark:/67531/metadc1818520 |
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