From Literature to Opera to Film (345-0-1)

Instructors

Linda P Austern
847/491-5705
l-austern@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: E-mail instructor to arrange a meeting.
Specialist in Renaissance and baroque musical-cultural relations, gender and feminist theory, European iconography, music as related to visual art and the early history of science. Recipient of major fellowships and research grants, including American Council of Learned Societies, British Academy, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute (Radcliffe College/Harvard University), and National Endowment for the Humanities. Author, Music in English Children's Drama of the Later Renaissance (Gordon and Breach, 1992), Music in English Life and Thought 1550-1650 (forthcoming); editor, Music, Sensation and Sensuality (Routledge, 2002), editor, Music and the Sirens (Indiana University Press, 2006). Author of numerous articles and reviews in books and such journals as Journal of the American Musicological Society, Modern Philology, Music and Letters, and Renaissance Quarterly.

Meeting Info

RCMA Lower Level 111: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This course considers select operas that were based on pre-existing literary or theatrical works, and which, in turn, inspired cinematic or televised works in the late twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. In each case, we will study the literary or theatrical inspiration in its own right (those who can are encouraged to read these classic works in their original languages), become familiar with the opera, and proceed to films and other video adaptations of each opera. We will end the course with a popular 1977 film that is directly based on neither a literary original nor an opera, but relies strongly on conventions from both.

Registration Requirements

Must be a junior, senior, or graduate student

Class Materials (Required)

All materials will be on reserve in the library, but students may want to purchase:

Citron, Marcia (2000). Opera on Screen. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300191417 $40.45.