Repertoire Studies (493-0-3)
Topic
Opera Repertoire
Instructors
Roger Golden Pines
Meeting Info
Regenstein Hall of Music MCR: Mon 9:00AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
The aim of the first half of the Opera Repertoire course is to explore vocal style in significant area of the repertoire - composers as diverse as Monteverdi and Handel; Mozart; Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi; Gounod, Bizet, and Massenet; and Menotti, Barber, Floyd, Argento, and Heggie. The class sessions will be divided between the instructor's detailed comments regarding each composer, extensive discussion, and in-depth coaching.
Registration Requirements
Registrants for this course are almost invariably juniors, seniors, and grad students, although freshmen and sophomores can register if vocally equipped to sing operatic repertoire.
Each student will be coached at least twice during the course (that number could increase depending on enrollment).
Only operatic repertoire will be coached - song repertoire is not permissible.
Only arias by a composer indicated in the syllabus can be coached during any class session.
If a student does not already know arias by any of the composers represented in individual class sessions, that student must be willing to learn at least two arias assigned by the instructor for in-class coachings (in addition to a new aria assigned by the instructor specifically for the final).
Learning Objectives
By the time students finish the course, the instructor will expect them to have significantly developed their ability to listen perceptively and in depth. The second objective, equally important, is that they become significantly more conversant with the differences in style that color the operas of all the composers studied in the course, as well as the essential vocal requirements needed for a singer to succeed in performing music of each of these composers.
Teaching Method
The instructional design is lecture/discussion in the first hour, covering one or more of the above-mentioned composers, followed in the second hour by coachings, with students performing arias by one of the composers covered in the first hour.
Evaluation Method
1) Attendance; 2) participation in class discussions; 3) preparation and overall performance - including spoken introduction - of all arias coached in class; 4) one in-class test, requiring immediate identification of particular arias (or educated guesses regarding those pieces), with precise justification for each choice; 5) two written assignments, comparing and contrasting different interpretations of the same aria; 6) for the final, preparation and overall performance - including spoken introduction - of an aria new to that student's repertoire, to be assigned by the instructor.
Class Materials (Required)
No required class materials.
Class Notes
This class introduces students to a great deal of repertoire, while enabling them to develop a much broader frame of reference in opera, especially as regards historically important performances and the "continuum of singing" in general.