John Gay's Use of Music for Satire in The Beggar's Opera Essay

Music during the Baroque period was diverse and composers began to rebel against the styles that were popular during the Renaissance. In the Baroque era music was driven by the text and the emotions behind it. Vocal and sacred music developed greatly during the Baroque period. During the mid-17th century the Italian phenomenon opera dominated most of the theatres in Europe. Sacred music was deeply influenced by the opera, contributing to the development of the oratorio and cantata genre. The opera, oratorio, and cantata contain musical similarities; among all three genres they feature recitative, soloist orchestras, and duet arias.

Historically, endings to stories are expected to be happy, concise, and with no loose ends. However, in literature there are many stories with gruesome endings or not-so-happy endings. An ending like the one of the play Cyrano De Bergerac written by Edmund Rostand is less than happy and very sad to read. While feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy motivated Cyrano to keep a secret and lock up his feelings, Cyrano’s choice to withhold his true feelings of love for Roxane led to a death and 2 lives wasted. In Cyrano De Bergerac, Cyrano is the protagonist, a man with many extraordinary talents in wordcraft and swordcraft, but an abnormally large nose that makes him self conscience about his appearance and spurs much self doubt. Cyrano is in love with his beautiful cousin Roxane, who happens to be in

One of the strengths of good theater is its ability to mirror the problems and conditions shaping its time. In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare reflects two important aspects of Elizabethan society: the corrupting influence of prosperity and the increasingly vengeful nature of Venetian justice. To address the former issue, Shakespeare downplays the importance of wealth by associating its involvement in romance with superficial and insubstantial advantages. He characterizes prosperity as a deceiving agent, citing its ability to introduce shallowness into a relationship. Shakespeare reasons that genuine romance depends on sacrifice and emotion, not wealth. The problem with justice is equally striking. In the play, justice is

Warm up your vocal cords because you’re going to want to sing along to this youth theatre company’s musical revue. The performance showcases a wide range of music – from energetic group numbers to stirring ballads that will have you weeping in your hanky. Whether you enjoy new smash hits like Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen or classics like A Chorus Line and Hairspray, there’s something sure to please everyone.

An opera can be defined as a dram a set of music which is made of vocal pieces having orchestral accompaniment as well, as orchestral overtures and interludes. In this discussion, I am going to write about Opera which was written in 1775 by Mozart (La finta giardiniera). The opera is assumed to be the first opera that was done by Mozart as part of his opera buffa which is of significance. La finta giardiniera can be translated as “The Pretend Garden-Girl”. The opera was written in “Munich when Mozart was 18 years old and the first performance was done on January 13, 1775, at the Salvator Theatre in Munich” (Cantrell 22, 27). There has been a serious debate on who write the libretto for the opera with most people ascribing to Calzabigi while others attributing the libretto to Giuseppe Petrosellini. There are also a lot of questions on whether the style of libretto is for Giuseppe (Cantrell 53).

do the opera in German. This was seen as unmoral cause all opera’s were in Italian. Also

Like the previous eras, Opera continued to be one of the most important music genre is the 19th century, especially in Italy, German and France. Opera served as a form of entertainment for the people of higher social class. Opera music was also popular among the people of other social classes due to the availability of transcribed opera music for them to enjoy in salons or homes of the middle class. This genre was extensively explored and developed by the Italians and Germans. This paper will discuss how Italian and German opera were developed by comparing each composer’s distinctive compositional traits.

There were also stricter demands of the solo singers. The two mid eighteenth century composers, Jomelli and Traetta played a big part in the reform of Italian opera in the late 18th century by influencing the French towards opera of a more international flavour.

Opera in the Romantic Period was a time when opera changed drastically, especially in the country of Italy. The recognition of singers as being important, almost irreplaceable, in the art of “bel canto” opera changed the idea of a vocalist in opera forever. A singer’s voice was prized and Italian composers, like Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini wrote operas and works to showcase the voice, it’s color, range and agility. These Italian composers were moving away from the normal style of composition of the time, and the composer Rossini, who set the stage for many other followers. Many of the operas written during this time are still performed today and are highly acclaimed. For the most part, before Italy became a main player, France

With every great story line comes a theme. William Shakespeare created an art of intertwining often unrecognizable themes within his plays. In Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, one hidden theme is the idea of homosexuality. This theme might not have even been noticed until modern Shakespeare fans discovered them. According to Alan Bray’s book, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, “the modern image of ‘the homosexual’ cannot be applied to the early modern period, when homosexual behavior was viewed in terms of the sexual act and not an individual's broader identity.” (Columbia University Press). This difference between homosexuality as a “sexual act” and an

The play tells a story of Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was overthrown in a power struggle with his brother Antonio and then set adrift upon a raft bound to sink. After surviving the hardship and landing on a deserted island accompanied only by his

To begin, back in the days on Geoffrey Chaucer, religion was ruled by one and only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. He never really agreed with the ways of the church so he wrote a series of tales making fun of the people of England and the ways of the church. Even though he was purposely making fun of the church, he had to be careful of the way he said some things. With some of the characters he creates, Chaucer finds himself apologizing in advance for what he is about to say; or what the characters were about to say. By doing this Chaucer is using satire. Satire is when you say something but mean another or the opposite of the thing you say. Most of Chaucer’s tales are not appropriate for high schools, but of

In anticipation of attending the performance, I read up on the opera’s plot and watched videos of key moments. I became familiar with the characters and formed expectations of each. For instance, I expected Count Almaviva to be foolishly arrogant, with an I-expect-to-be-obeyed attitude. However, I was surprised and shocked to discover how very “human” each personage really was. A typical novel is told in the point of view of one individual with whom we, the audience, tend to sympathize with. We know their thoughts and feelings and we “cheer them on”, while despising the antagonists. In Guth’s The Marriage of Figaro, I found myself wishing for good closure for each and every one of the characters despite the fact that they are the source of each other’s misery.

The genre of comedy, throughout the history of dramatic art has always served to not only entertain audiences, but to make them aware of their own individual flaws, or flaws that exist in society. (Weitz, E.) Comedy has no precise definition, and its boundaries are broad. One function of comedy however has remained the same - to hold up a mirror to the society of the time but through pleasure, inviting audiences to reflect and also providing amusement. Set in the late nineteenth century, the play An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (1895) epitomises comedy, as both a literary and dramatic genre. Wilde was masterful in his ability to combine aspects of evolved comedic traditions and dramatic conventions to critique Victorian society. Drawing on characteristics of Greek and Roman tragicomedy, the choices in the play’s plot involves elements of tragedy as well as scenes that serve as comic relief and give the audience a sense of finality through a happy resolution. (Bureman, L) Focussing on the upper class stratum, Wilde employs a comedy of manners Molière style, of the Restoration Period in the seventeenth century in the play by combining forms of comedy with aspects of realist drama. The portrayal of archetypal figures such as Lady Chiltern and Lord Goring satirize rigid moral value of the time and expose their hypocrisies, through dialogue involving irony, wit and humour. Elements of farce and disguises characterized by ‘commedia dell’arte’, a form of comedy first developed in

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked the start of opera in Italy. The earliest opera manuscripts to survive are the two settings of Euridici by Peri and Caccini (Grout 43). Although Euridici is the first known opera, Peri and Caccini were both not considered the founder of opera, that honor was instead given to Monteverdi (Grout 51). The reason for this may be because Euridici is said to contain many imperfections including: “weakness of characterization, the limited range of emotions expressed, the lack of clear, consistent musical organization, and above all the monotony of the solo style” (Grout 49). Grout explains that Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo “represents the first attempt to apply the full resources of the art of music to opera” (53). La morte d’Orfeo was the first secular opera performed in Rome in 1619 (Grout 62). This marked the beginning of serious secular opera. Opera continued to