Not a question so much as a comment: I usually associate opera with hardcore music and singing. The recitative portion of the opera departs from that in an interesting way.

I’m actually interested in the type of education the composers had before they became the renowned men they are celebrated as today?  Did they grow up learning many instruments?  Or did they study composition at some private school in Europe?  Vienna perhaps?

In the reading, a man named Richard Wagner was considered an music, opera, and art critic although he never actually composed a work of his own. Should he still be considered someone of high regard in terms of opera?

Samantha Chiu

• In the text it is mentioned that Wagner created this new form of opera names music opera. It then goes on to say that “he always insisted on the distinction between music drama and ordinary “opera”. What is the difference between the two? (270)

I understand how heavily music affects the genre of Romantic Opera (as well as life itself), but I guess my question is how [opera creators like Giuseppe and Verdi] figured out how to make such significant musical strides in their creations? Was it just a feeling they had? An instinct, if any?

Is it possible to have a music drama for an opera that’s not romantically themed?  Can a modern and more realistic opera combine the same art that Wagner did and have it be a Gesamtkunstwerk?  On a completely irrelevant side note, I think it’s really cool that Lord of the Rings is pretty much based on The Nibelung’s Ring.  I view Tolkien as the father of modern fantasy, and therefore original, and it was weird to read that he too copied his source material from others.

I often find that as a result of my lack of musical knowledge, I am less able to recognize the extent of a performers talent than those who have been trained in the area. For this reason, is it not odd that Verdi, with his “commitment to the human voice”, would be more popular than Wagner who put a greater emphasis on emotional responses in his “music dramas”. I imagine that the general public would find it easier to me moved by Wagner’s emotional dramas than vocalists whose abilities were perhaps beyond their level of comprehension.

If the audience members watching an opera are not fluent or literate in the language it is performed in, which composer’s opera would be easier to follow and feel engaged with; Verdi or Wagner? I feel like Wagner would be more relatable not only the music, but the lyrics too, tell the story. There are no arias that would the action of an opera and possibly make it confusing whereas Wagner did not break up the action and incorporate music more to tell the story.

Are leitmovs necessary in an opera? Is it too suggestive? In an opera, what do you think is more important the word/lyrics or music?  P. 270

The article contradicts itself on the subject of leitmotivs.  They are initially described as “easily to ridicule” (270).  Later, leitmotivs “could state or suggest ideas in emotional terms, over and above the intellectual terms provided by mere words…[and] were guaranteed to impress audiences of the nineteenth century” (272).  Were leitmotivs considered art during Wagner’s time, or just nonsensical bits of music?  If they were considered art, why could they be easily ridiculed?