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The Use of Jazz in Opera

Description: Methods of incorporating jazz in opera range from using simple blue notes and fox-trot rhythms, to utilizing jazz instruments, to employing elaborate passages of improvisation. Current definitions of "jazz opera" do not consider variations in the genre, which, because of their evolving nature and the varied background of their composers, are diverse. This study attempts to collectively discuss these third-stream works. Jazz rhythms and harmonies first appeared in the 1920s in the works of Gersh… more
Date: December 1995
Creator: Ottervik, Jennifer
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Matador

Description: Matador is an opera scored for orchestra, mixed chorus and soloists (mezzosoprano, 3 tenors, 2 baritones). The work is in one act divided into two main sections. Each of these sections is divided into subsections. The libretto is aphoristic in nature and dictates the form of each of these subsections. The division into two parts also serves as a means to evoke a sense of hopelessness of emotions in the first and a transforming disposition that culminates in a jubilant song in the second.
Date: May 1998
Creator: Patino, Julio
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Cimbasso and Tuba in the Operatic Works of Giuseppe Verdi: A Pedagogical and Aesthetic Comparison

Description: In recent years, the use of the cimbasso has gained popularity in Giuseppe Verdi opera performances throughout the world. In the past, the tuba or the bass trombone was used regularly instead of the cimbasso because less regard was given to what Verdi may have intended. Today, one expects more attention to historical precedent, which is evident in many contemporary Verdi opera performances. However, the tuba continues to be used commonly in performances of Verdi opera productions throughout the… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Costantino, Alexander
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Capriccio, By Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss: Theoretical Discussion as Theatrical Presentation, Together with Three Recitals of Selected Works of Strauss, Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Britten, and Prokofiev

Description: In Capriccio. Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss examine the very nature of opera with the core of their thesis being the relationship of words and music. A work that is, in essence, an extended discussion poses two problems to the composer and librettist: how to sustain the argument of the thesis without losing the attention of the audience, and how to prevent a conversational opera from sounding like endless recitative. Strauss and Krauss manage to present their case without having to resort … more
Date: August 1986
Creator: Saunders, David Harold
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Bandanna, An Opera by Daron Aric Hagen with Libretto by Paul Muldoon, Commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association: The Origins of an Artwork with a Glimpse at its Musical Character Development

Description: All information for this study was obtained by original source documents, interviews with the principal participants and the personal observations of the writer. A complete transcript of interviews with Daron Aric Hagen Michael Haithcockand Robert De Simone are included as appendices. In1961 the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) created its commissioning project for the purpose of contracting prominent composers to contribute works of high quality to the growing wind repertoir… more
Date: December 2002
Creator: Powell, Edwin C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Opera and the eighteenth-century wind band, a lecture recital, together with three recitals of selected works of C. P. E. Bach, B. Britten, D. Buxtehude, J. H. Fiocco, R. Malipiero, A. Marcello, W. A. Mozart, F. Poulenc, G. Schuller, R. Schumann, and A. Vivaldi

Description: The lecture recital was given on June 27, 1976. Wind band arrangements of popular opera music were commonly used for serenades and table music in German-speaking countries during the eighteenth century. Selections from J. G. Tribensee's arrangement of W. A. Mozart' s Don Giovanni were performed by a wind band following the lecture.
Date: August 1976
Creator: Hough, Robin Zemp
Partner: UNT Libraries

A Different Drummer: A Chamber Opera

Description: A Different Drummer is a chamber opera adaptation of Donald Davis's story "A Different Drummer" from his collection Listening for the Crack of Dawn, published by August House. The opera lasts about seventy minutes, and calls for a cast of three and an orchestra of sixteen players. It contains a prologue, epilogue and four scenes in a single act. The score is prefaced by a paper describing the musical strategies employed in setting the story as an opera. Three chapters describe the adaptation f… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: May 1999
Creator: Friedman, Arnold Jacob
Partner: UNT Libraries

Paintings and Palaces, or the Lament of the Burger Flipper

Description: The opera is scored for chamber orchestra consisting of one oboe, two Bb clarinets, two horns in F, one trumpet in C, one tenor trombone, two percussionists (playing snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, wood block, triangle, suspended cymbal, crash cymbal, agogo bells, cow bell, brake drum, metal whistle, whip, large gong, Glockenspiel, chimes, timpani in F (low) and C), eight or more violins in two parts, six or more violas in two parts, and eight or more cellos in two parts. The characters are… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: May 1999
Creator: Salfen, Kevin McGregor
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Nobody's Fool: A Study of the Yrodivy in Boris Godunov

Description: Modest Musorgsky completed two versions of his opera Boris Godunov between 1869 and 1874, with significant changes in the second version. The second version adds a concluding lament by the fool character that serves as a warning to the people of Russia beyond the scope of the opera. The use of a fool is significant in Russian history and this connection is made between the opera and other arts of nineteenth-century Russia. These changes are, musically, rather small, but historically and sociall… more
Date: December 1999
Creator: Pollard, Carol J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Beyond the Human Voice: Francis Poulenc's Psychological Drama La Voix humaine (1958)

Description: Francis Poulenc's one-character opera La Voix humaine (1958), a setting of the homonymous play by Jean Cocteau, explores the psychological complexities of an unnamed woman as she experiences the end of a romantic relationship. During the forty-minute work, she sings in a declamatory manner into a telephone, which serves as a sign of the unrevealed man at the other end. Poulenc uses musical motives to underscore the woman's changing emotional states as she recalls her past relationship. The musi… more
Date: May 2000
Creator: Beard, Cynthia C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Opera and the Galant Homme: Quinault and Lully's Tragedie en musique, Atys, in the Context of Seventeenth-Century Modernism

Description: The tragedie en musique of Quinault and Lully was a highly successful new genre, representative of contemporary Parisian life. However, it is still largely viewed in the negative terms of its detractors, the proponents of classical tragedy. The purpose of this study is to redefine the tragedie en musique in terms of seventeenth-century modernism. An examination of the society and poetry of the contemporary gallant world provides the historical framework for an analysis of both the libretto and … more
Date: May 1994
Creator: Browne, Marilyn K. (Marilyn Kay)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Mozartean Gesture and Rhetoric in Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet

Description: Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet (Concerto a Tromba principale) is overtly operatic and is stylistically reminiscent of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Using the methodology of Leonard Ratner and Wye J. Allanbrook, it is possible to explore gesture and rhetoric in Hummel's Concerto for Trumpet and Mozart's Don Giovanni, and achieve a deeper understanding of the stylistic similarities shared between the two works. In the third movement, dance is the most significant link to Don Giovanni. In the second move… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Phillips, Edward
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Performer's Analysis of Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night

Description: Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is the least explored of his artistic output. A monodrama in one act for soprano, Miss Havisham's Wedding Night contains some of Argento's most beautiful and challenging music of his compositional output. The purpose of a detailed analysis of the structure and content of Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is to facilitate the solo vocal performer's interpretation. Argento's setting of Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is unique in that he musica… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mott, Jammieca D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Jackpots on Responding and Choice in Two Domestic Dogs

Description: The current study investigated the impact of delivering a jackpot on response rate and response allocation in two domestic dogs. For the purpose of this research, a jackpot was defined as a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of reinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of delivering a jackpot in both single-operant and concurrent schedule procedures. Experiment 1 investigated the impact of a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Muir, Kristy Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Accessibility and Authenticity in Julia Smith's Cynthia Parker

Description: In 1939, composer Julia Smith's first opera Cynthia Parker dramatized the story of a Texas legend. Smith manipulated music, text, and visual images to make the opera accessible for the audience in accordance with compositional and institutional practices in American opera of the 1930s. Transparent musical themes and common Native Americans stereotypes are used to define characters. Folk music is presented as diegetic, creating a sense of authenticity that places the audience into the opera's We… more
Date: December 2007
Creator: Buehner, Katie R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Reconstructing Convention: Ensemble Forms in the Operas of Jules Massenet

Description: Over the last quarter-century, scholars have taken a unified approach in discussing form in Italian and French opera of the nineteenth century. This approach centers around the four-part aria and duet form begun by Bellini, codified by Rossini, modified by Verdi, and dissolved by Puccini. A similar trajectory can be seen in French opera in the works of Meyerbeer, Gounod, and Massenet; however, only Meyerbeer and Gounod have received significant critical attention. This is in part due to Mass… more
Date: December 2004
Creator: Straughn, Gregory
Partner: UNT Libraries

Reading Handel: A Textual and Musical Analysis of Handel's Acis and Galatea (1708, 1718)

Description: The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: one is to analyze the narratives of Acis and Galatea written by Ovid, and the two libretti by Handel's librettists including Nicola Giuvo (1708) and John Gay (1718) with John Hughes and Alexander Pope; the other is to correlate this textual analysis within the musical languages. A 1732 pastiche version is excluded because its bilingual texts are not suitable for the study of relationships between meaning and words. For this purpose, the study uses … more
Access: Restricted to the UNT Community Members at a UNT Libraries Location.
Date: August 2005
Creator: Chang, Young-Shim
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Michael Nyman: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Description: Composer Michael Nyman wrote the one-act, minimalist opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, based off the neurological case study written by Oliver Sacks under the same title. The opera is about a professional singer and professor whom suffers from visual agnosia. In chapter 1, the plot and history of the opera are discussed. Chapter 2 places The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat alongside a selection of minimalist operas from Philip Glass and John Adams. Chapter 3 contains a history… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Avant-Rossi, Joan
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Così fan tutte? A Study of Character Development through Key Characteristics in the Prima Donna and Soubrette Roles from Four of W.A. Mozart's Late Italian Operas

Description: This dissertation investigates how W. A. Mozart applies the concept of key characteristics—the affective properties of each tonality—as discussed by three of his contemporaries, Johann Mattheson, C.F.D. Schubart and G.J. Vogler, to four soubrette and four prima donna characters from four of his late Italian operas: La Contessa and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro; Donna Anna and Zerlina in Don Giovanni; Fiordiligi and Despina in Così fan tutte; Vitellia and Servilia in La clemenza di Tito. The ana… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Tsai, Meng-Jung
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Wagner's Das Liebesverbot

Description: Wagner's second opera Das Liebesverbot, composed in 1835 and first performed in Magdeburg in 1836, could be termed Wagner's "Italian" opera. It represents Wagner's attitudes and feelings at the time of its composition. During this period in Wagner's life the composer had become particularly enchanted with Italian music and also with the Italian way of sensuous and carefree living. At the same time his disillusionment with German conservatism and pedantry also had an influence on the compositio… more
Date: May 1973
Creator: Behne, Danna
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Dramatic and Musical Unity of Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens

Description: The discussion concentrates on Hector Berlioz's second opera, Les Troyens, which is Berlioz's final large work written between 1855-1858. The study demonstrates how the opera is unified through its drama and music. Les Troyens, a five-act tragic opera that is based on Virgil's Aeneid, is perhaps one of Berlioz's least known major works. The orchestral score had not been published in its entirety until 1969, when a two-volume edition of the opera was published by Bärenreiter in the New Edition o… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Menn, Marta C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Psychological Approach to the Character of Wotan in Richard Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen

Description: The ancient Germanic god that Richard Wagner resurrected in his operatic style Der Ring des Nibelungen was worshiped and feared from Greenland to Asia Minor for 1,000 years after the birth of Christ. This thesis examines the psychological aspects of Wotan as he appears in the opera.
Date: June 1966
Creator: Elam, Donald W. (Donald Willis)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Transcription and Translation of Musica Dalla Parodie d'Alceste by Carlos d'Ordoñez

Description: Parody may be defined as a humorous or sarcastic imitation of a serious piece of literature. It appears, following this interpretation, that Carlos Ordoñez composed his marionette opera, Musica Dalla Parodie d'Alceste as a parody on Gluck's Alceste. A microfilm of the original manuscript of Ordoñez was procured from the National Szecheny Library in Budapest, the possessor of the only copy of the work.
Date: June 1972
Creator: Bankston, Tina L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Twin oaks: A Comic Opera in One Act

Description: Twin Oaks: A Comic Opera in One Act is a chamber opera approximately 60 minutes in length. Its accompanying ensemble is scored for flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling English horn), B-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, trumpet (in C and B-flat), F horn, percussion, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello and double bass. It is a Number Opera with 10 numbers. There is a single case in which there is music played under the dialogue. The text is based off the W.S. Gilbert Play: Eyes and No E… more
Date: August 1995
Creator: Kuniyasu, Kurt Kazuo, 1958-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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