3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

It is a common idea that, at its best, Italian opera can induce all manner of sensations in us and even remind us of what it means to be human. It can be hard, however, to articulate what enables it to do so. In this course we consider a cluster of operas by Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini for which there was incredible demand in the 1800s and examine the concrete musical and textual features that allowed them to animate their characters and—in theory—structure the sentiments of their audiences. With attention to the realities of Italians in the 1800s we ask what it felt like to consume these works—in the street, at home or at the opera—and for whom. What lessons did audiences absorb, and why? For whom did these works resonate and whom did these exclude? While conceived with Italian audiences in mind, these operas soon became some of the foremost artworks to circulate around the world in the 1800s, from Buenos Aires to Calcutta to Paris. Thus, with these same questions in focus, across the second half of the course we start to articulate how, via this circulation, Italian opera contributed to what has been termed the “transformation of the world” in the nineteenth-century. No language or music prerequisites.