chapter 28 Opera and Musical Theater in the
Later Nineteenth Century
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. World fairs during the 1880s and 1890s immediately influenced European musical culture by showcasing the music
of
a.
Latin America.
d.
the American Pacific Northwest.
b.
East Asia.
e.
the British Isles.
c.
Africa.
2. In Wagner’s view of music history, the most important precedent for his own synthesis of
drama and music was
a.
J. S. Bach’s cantatas.
d.
Weber’s operas.
b.
Mozart’s operas.
e.
Schubert’s symphonies.
c.
Beethoven’s symphonies.
3. The Artwork of the Future and Opera and Drama are historically important documents because
of their
a.
shocking racial claims.
b.
defense of traditional operatic styles against criticisms made by young composers.
c.
discussion of the poetic and musical techniques that Wagner would implement in his subsequent
stage works.
d.
analysis of operatic composition from a Schopenhaurian perspective.
e.
bold statements of political positions that would subsequently energize revolutionaries in 1848–
1849.
4. Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer most clearly illustrates the composer’s interest in
a.
the conventions of French grand opera.
b.
Norse mythology.
c.
medieval poetic verse forms.
d.
the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
e.
the theme of redemption through sacrifice.
5. Wagner’s Ring cycle is about
a.
conflicting desires for power and love among mythological and human characters.
b.
the defeat of a monstrous race of gnomes by the gods of German mythology.
c.
the adulterous love of a knight and a princess, torn apart by political loyalties.
d.
a magical ring that will be the reward of a hero who defeats an evil dwarf.
e.
the captain of an enchanted ship who sails the oceans in eternal pursuit of the magical ring that can
lift his curse.
6. Stabreim is
a.
the German term for Wagner’s concept of musical prose.
b.
an evil gnome in Wagner’s Ring cycle.
c.
the city where Wagner established a festival theater for performances of his works.
d.
a poetic verse type that uses alliteration.
e.
a poetic verse type that uses either iambic or trochaic meters together with end rhymes.
7. As opposed to reminiscence motives, Wagnerian leitmotives
a.
connote change in character and drama through their musical development and combination with
other leitmotives, while reminiscence motives tend to have singular, static connotations.
b.
are most often first introduced in the orchestra, while reminiscence motives most often appear first
in the vocal part.
c.
are usually long, lyrical melodic themes, while reminiscence motives tend to be short, harmonic
progressions.
d.
are never transposed, while reminiscence motives may appear in any key.
e.
refer to abstract ideas rather than concrete things, while reminiscence motives refer to concrete
characters or objects.
8. Schopenhauer’s philosophy resonated especially with Wagner’s ideas about musical drama because it
a.
proposes that poetry is the art most capable of directly and concretely expressing our emotions.
b.
proposes that music provides the most direct expression of the human condition.
c.
supports the revolutionary political agenda of the Ring cycle.
d.
supports Wagner’s own ideas about the importance of love in human history.
e.
describes techniques of motivic development and chromaticism that were important to Wagner’s
technique.
9. All of the following operas were based on poems and stories by Alexander Pushkin EXCEPT
a.
Boris Godunov.
d.
Ruslan and Lyudmila.
b.
Eugene Onegin.
e.
Parsifal.
c.
The Queen of Spades.
10. Contrasting diatonic and chromatic musical idioms in Wagner laid the foundation for their prominent use to
symbolize
a.
a heroic character.
d.
the embodiment and beauty of nature.
b.
contrasts of reality and fantasy.
e.
concrete objects or places.
c.
the presence of evil.
11. In Tristan und Isolde, the central idea of erotic desire is most directly conveyed by
a.
diatonic chord progressions.
b.
a recurring leitmotive that represents female beauty.
c.
the delay or avoidance of harmonic resolution.
d.
the alliteration of particular consonants in the poetry.
e.
the use of specific keys that symbolize erotic longing.
12. Verdi’s early operas were modeled largely on
a.
Donizetti bel canto operas.
b.
French grand operas of the 1830s.
c.
German Romantic operas of the 1820s.
d.
classical Italian operas by Haydn and Mozart.
e.
opéras comiques.
13. The plot of La traviata is a good example of mid-nineteenth-century
a.
idealism.
d.
realism.
b.
symbolism.
e.
classicism.
c.
exoticism.
14. Verdi’s advances beyond Rossinian conventions in La traviata are most evident in his
a.
replacement of lyrical singing with Wagnerian musical prose.
b.
abandonment of the tempo d’attaca and tempo di mezzo sections of scenes.
c.
more prominent use of the orchestra to highlight the dramatic impact of important words and
gestures.
d.
use of many leitmotives throughout the opera.
e.
replacement of recitative with continuous lyrical singing.
15. What was Wagner and Verdi’s main common achievement?
a.
They both created radically new forms of musical theater that were completely independent of the
opera traditions of the past.
b.
They both advocated and experimented with alternative kinds of poetry in their opera librettos.
c.
They both achieved an unprecedented unity of word and music by composing the scores and
writing the poetry of their operas.
d.
They both developed new ways of using the orchestra as an expressive rather than merely
accompanimental device in opera.
e.
They both celebrated their respective national cultures by composing operas based mainly on their
own nation’s histories and mythologies.
16. Verdi’s last two operas were both on subjects drawn from the works of
a.
Shakespeare.
d.
Schiller.
b.
Manzoni.
e.
Dante.
c.
Goethe.
17. The opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan in the mid-nineteenth
century provided the historical context for the plot of
a.
Il trovatore.
d.
Tosca.
b.
La forza del destino.
e.
Madama Butterfly.
c.
Turandot.
18. That Gounod’s Faust was first performed as an opéra comique indicates that it was
a.
first performed in concert form without sets or costumes.
b.
first performed at the Paris Opéra.
c.
first performed in its original German-language version.
d.
performed with spoken dialogue.
e.
given a happy ending in which Faust and Marguerite are married.
19. The late-nineteenth-century French taste for exoticism is reflected in all the following operas EXCEPT
a.
Carmen.
d.
Les pêcheurs de perles.
b.
Werther.
e.
Samson et Dalila.
c.
Lakmé.
20. Under a broader definition of verismo, operas that reacted against Romantic idealism and turned away from reliance
on conventions include all of the following operas EXCEPT
a.
La traviata.
d.
Carmen.
b.
Madama Butterfly.
e.
La Wally.
c.
Tristan und Isolde.
21. Both Orphée aux enfers and The Pirates of Penzance
a.
satirized contemporary and historical operatic conventions.
b.
emulated the leitmotivic techniques of Wagner.
c.
preserved the conventions of opera seria for contemporary audiences.
d.
restored Greek classical myths as operatic subjects.
e.
helped establish a new genre of through-composed light opera.
22. Conservatories were established in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the
a.
1780s.
d.
1860s.
b.
1820s.
e.
1890s.
c.
1840s.
23. The so-called Mighty Five Russian composers included all the following EXCEPT
a.
Balakirev.
d.
Musorgsky.
b.
Borodin.
e.
Tchaikovsky.
c.
Rimsky-Korsakov.
24. Spanish composer Francisco Asenjo Barbieri sought to create distinctive national traditions by inaugurating the new
genre
a.
zarzuela grande.
d.
zapateado grande.
b.
seguidilla grande.
e.
vihuela zarzuela.
c.
verismo seguidilla.
25. Several compositions by the Mighty Five were subsequently completed and/or orchestrated by
a.
Wagner.
d.
Dvořák.
b.
Rimsky-Korsakov.
e.
Nikolay Rubinstein.
c.
Verdi.
TRUE/FALSE
1. The failure of the 1848–1849 revolutions in Europe led to the steady decline of rights and living conditions for
citizens.
2. Nationalist ideologies and movements played opposite roles in the states of the German Confederation and the
Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
3. At the opening of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde, the so-called Tristan chord functions as an altered Neapolitan
harmony.
4. Wagner’s leitmotive technique was very important for twentieth-century developments in film music, but because of
nationalist parochialism it had virtually no impact on nineteenth-century Italian and French opera composers.
5. Many of Wagner’s and Verdi’s stage works were overtly or implicitly linked to contemporary political crises and
issues.
6. Like Verdi, Wagner drew the majority of his plots from classic plays and poetry of the sixteenth through nineteenth
centuries.
7. Singers like Victor Maurel neglected the quality of their acting and stage presence in order to focus entirely on the
increasingly challenging vocal demands of late-nineteenth-century opera.
8. As Verdi’s career progressed, his operas treated Rossinian bel canto conventions with greater freedom.
9. The Russian composers known as the Mighty Five were inspired less by the classical symphonists of western
Europe, such as Mozart and Mendelssohn, than by progressive composers like Liszt and Berlioz.
10. Transpositions of the whole-tone scale can produce three unique pitch collections.
SHORT ANSWER
1. The evocation of non-Western lands and cultures by a European composer through citations or imitations of their
musical styles and sonorities is often called ________.
2. Wagner’s notion of an ideal drama based on the collaborative integration of poetry, scenic design, staging,
movement, and music is expressed by his German term ________.
3. As ambitious opera composers during the late 1830s and 1840s, both Verdi and Wagner spent time in the city of
________, which during those years was the operatic capital of Europe.
4. Wagner imitated the styles and conventions of the Paris Opéra in his own 1842 opera titled ________.
5. The last opera Wagner composed before he had to flee Germany because of his revolutionary activities was
________.
6. Wagner’s only comic opera is titled ________.
7. In Italian opera, the late-nineteenth-century aesthetic trend toward vividly realistic depiction of the often–sordid lives
and conflicts of the lower classes of society is known as ________.
8. Musorgsky’s harmonic progressions of triads related by thirds demonstrates his familiarity with the harmonic
language of the western European pianist-composer ________.
9. A musical scale comprised of the pitches of two interlocking diminished seventh chords a semitone apart is called
a(n) ________.
10. The genre of musical theater with spoken dialogue composed by English and German composers
like Sullivan and Strauss the Younger in the 1870s and 1880s is called ________.
MATCHING
Match each character to the opera in which he or she appears.
a.
Alberich
d.
King Marke
b.
Gilda
e.
Alfredo
c.
Gretchen
1. The Ring cycle
2. La traviata
3. Tristan und Isolde
4. Rigoletto
5. Faust
Match each work to the genre it represents.
a.
Evangeline
d.
The Mikado
b.
Tannhäuser
e.
Tsar Sultan
c.
Swan Lake
6. operetta
7. ballet
8. musical comedy
9. fairy tale opera
10. German Romantic opera
ESSAY
1. Identify and discuss the sources and evolution of Richard Wagner’s ideas about musical theater. What
dramaturgical, poetic, and musical practices did he develop in tandem with these ideas? What impact did these ideas
have on his, his contemporaries’, and successors’ musical theater works? What broader consequences did Wagner’s
ideas have on music composition generally? Identify and explain some of Wagner’s principal theoretical works and
propositions, as well as his stage works that illustrate their implementation.
2. Discuss the variety of historical, social, and political factors that affected opera during the second half of the
nineteenth century. In particular, explain the roles of exoticism, realism, and fantasy in shaping the development of
operatic styles and techniques. How and why did composers in Italy, France, and Russia exploit these categories in
their operas?