Observation Of The Opera

The Conductor of the Choral Concert was, PCC concert choir and chamber singers, Rodger Guerrero who has just joined the Pasadena City College Faculty a year ago. Additionally, Marina Fortuna Dean was the director of the Opera scenes.

C. I am not really a fan of opera. I have heard this song before. I do not know if I would attend an opera or not. I guess it would depend on which opera it is. The performance was done well. I have heard of Pavarotti before and he always does great job from the songs I’ve heard.

Music affects our emotions and has much to do with our everyday lives. Music has always and will be a part of my life. I would have to say that without music there is no life -- something is missing in our lives without music. If there were no music society we would only have people speaking to each other, and there would be no entertainment. The form of musical entertainment that I attended was the opera, La Boheme, composed by Giacommo Puccini and Libretto by Giuseppe and Luigi Illica. The opera took place at The New City Opera on November 10, 2001. La Boheme takes place in 1830, 19th century Paris around Christmas time. This opera tells the tragic love story of a young Bohemian, Rodolfo, who finds a love interest in

Orchestrally, it is scored for strings, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, two flutes, one piccolo, two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four French horns, two trumpets, three trombones, two harps, and one cimbasso. Musically, this opera is very directly vigorous. It sticks to the widely used concepts of arias, duets, finales, and choruses. His fine music often excused the glaring faults in character and plot lines.

The first concert I attended was performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra had performed Shostakovich’s “Symphony NO. 7, Leningrad” from the Romantic era. The orchestra was a large ensemble (1) containing various instruments that contributed to the overall sound of the piece. Since the orchestra was a large ensemble, just like the instrumentation common in the Romantic era, the orchestra was able to perform in a lively, vigorous manner, probably vivace (2). The orchestra performed tutti

George Bizet's Carmen was an opera that followed a Gypsy woman named Carmen in Seville, Spain. Carmen was characterized as being a gypsy

Georges Bizet (1838-1875) composed the opera Carmen, it opened on March 3, 1875 at the Opera Comique in Paris. It was not a success, initially. Then again, Carmen would soon become the most popular opera of all time. The entire work however, was disapproved of for its harsh libretto, and the music was criticized. The reception of Carmen left Bizet acutely depressed and on June 3, 1875 he suffered from two heart attacks and died.

Overall, the performance turned out a success. Both the symphony and opera act enhanced the audience with the feeling of warmth and laughter. The symphony made me to realize how each section is structured and in order, while the opera act was simple, yet made it very delightful to listen to. Also, It’s amazing how different the symphony and opera act turned out. The symphony followed a four-movement pattern: fast, slow, minuet/dance, fast, while the opera combined both musical and singing element. In essence, the combination of voice and strings as well as the unstructured nature and freedom of the opera led me to emotionally connect with all three pieces of the

The choice of the “Three women of Don Giovanni” can give a good understanding of the type of music which was used to create an opera in the 18th century Italy. The opera buffa was a comic opera with a funny story line and light music. Mozart wrote at different levels.

I feel that the fourteen members of chamber orchestra and the two vocalists did an outstanding job. This piece was well put together. I loved the harmony that was brought forth between the orchestra and the vocalists. The two vocalists a tenor known as Paul Groves and a soprano known as Anna Larson, did a beautiful job staying in tune. The way that their voices went back and forth in harmony was just beautiful.

No longer was the orchestra the main component to listen to when attending an opera. Librettists and composers worked extremely close to get the right feel for arias and other pieces in the story.

Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Frederic Handel, and Christoph Willibald Gluck were the most significant opera composers of the first two-thirds of the 18th century. However, their works were surpassed by the brilliant operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the early 19th century, Gioacchino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti dominated Italian opera. In the later 19th century the greatest works were those of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Wagner, with his bold innovations, became the most influential operatic figure since Monteverdi. Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini wrote the most popular late 19th- and early 20th-century operas. Though the death of Puccini in 1924 is often cited as the end of grand opera, new and often experimental works—by composers such as Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten, Gian Carlo Menotti, John Adams, and Philip Glass—continued to be produced to critical acclaim. Opera entered the 21st century as a vibrant and global art form.

When students study to sing Italian bel canto opera, it’s better to use the work which performed by people who is original singer to imitate and practice. However, there are still a series of problems will happen for non-Italian students when they are study singing the opera, for example Semiramide. Bel raggio lusinghier. Even according to the video soundtrack to imitate, the overall effect artistic and performances is not satisfactory. The problems are pronunciation hesitation, slurred speech, unknown the meaning of the text. All of these problems will reduce the bel canto opera artistry.

The composer of Turandot is Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, who was born on December 28, 1858 in the small town of Lucca Italy. Puccini came from 5 generations of musicians and began writing operas at the age of 21. His realistic verismo style, which means truth or reality in Italian, allowed him to identify with his characters in a realistic way and his operas reflect real life situations. Puccini liked to write operas with heroines rather than heroes. His operas almost always include a death for the sake of love. Despite his operatic genius, Puccini only wrote ten operas in his lifetime. He died on November 22, 1924 at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he was only one act short of completing Turandot. His close friend and fellow composer, Arturo Toscanini, finished Turandot shortly after his death. Puccini has been referred to by many critics as "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi" (Brittanica.com).

Donald Grout defines opera in his text, A Short History of Opera, as “a drama in music: a dramatic action, exhibited on stage with scenery by actors in costume, the words conveyed entirely or for the most part by singing, and the whole sustained and amplified by orchestral music” (4). A literal translation of the word opera is simply work, and although the term opera was not coined until 1634, one of the first known operas was performed in 1597 (Grout 1). Grout explains that there are two types of opera. The first type is when the main emphasis is on the music (Grout 6). Examples of this type of opera can be seen in the works of Lully and Wagner (Grout 7). The second type of opera is characterized by the music and other factors being of