MUMH 6770

SEMINAR IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC

SPRING 2004

MONDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS, 2:30–3:50

ROOM 295, MUSIC BUILDING

DR. NOTLEY

NEW TYPES OF OPERA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Innovations in theater accompanied the frequently noted changes in worldview that emerged in the late nineteenth century. Critics have devoted a great deal of attention to the new types of spoken theater. This course will focus on the relevance of the innovations to opera, a topic that has not been thoroughly assessed in the existing critical literature.

In this course, we’ll be looking above all at operas that fall into the following categories, which either came into existence in the early twentieth century or became more important at that time: one-act operas, epic theater, and Literaturoper (opera based on a preexisting literary work).

Students will be asked to consider the operas that we study both as musical works and as works for theater, and they will be required to buy four Dover scores: those for Bartók’s Bluebeard Castle, Strauss’s Elektra and Ariadne auf Naxos, and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Additional operas that we’ll study include Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Berg’s Wozzeck, along with a number of others, several of them much more recent.

If you have any questions about the course, you may phone me at (940)565–3751 or send me an e-mail at mnotley@music.unt.edu.