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Opera At Cal: Opera and Politics 1600-1900
*Official Syllabus will be e-mailed after the first class*
Facilitators:
Yvonne Eadon
Paul Paroczai
Rio Vander Stahl
Keith Watts
Contact: operaatcal@gmail.com
Course Description
“I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and
celebrate all the arts.”
--Franco Zeffirelli
This course will survey roughly 300 years of opera, from the first commercial operatic success of
Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in 1607 to Strauss’ 1911, Der Rosenkavalier. Opera began unassumingly
and developed into an epic, versatile and lasting art form that reveals changing social and political
movements. The course will show how connected politics, culture, and art have been throughout
antiquity. We will discuss large, overarching themes (such as the social relevance of art,
nationalism, religion, class, politics, etc.) through specific examples from the musical landscape.
Content will be focused through archetypal selections from 17th
-19th
century works, including
Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Magic Flute, Bizet’s Carmen, Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Wagner’s
Tristan and Isolde, and many others.
We will encourage discussion that tackles stigma you may have or have heard about opera. This
course will attempt to demystify any preconceptions that opera is an unapproachable medium,
showing its gradual aesthetic development and relationship to culture. You will learn to place
music in time periods based on the aesthetic qualities of the work, and to think critically about
music, politics, and society in an interdisciplinary and cohesive way. If you have ever wondered
anything about opera like, “why does it sound like that?”, “why does the fat lady always sing
last?” or “why is it that when someone gets stabbed they sing for ten more minutes before
dying?” then this course is for you. Though we will ask you to listen to recordings critically, no
musical knowledge is necessary to take this course.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
• Conduct analytical and interpretive discussions.
• Identify change in the aesthetic qualities of opera while looking at change in politics
and society throughout Europe.
• Learn to identify music based off of it’s sonic qualities
• Gain an overarching understanding of Opera and Politics’ interaction through history.
Required Texts (Selections will be provided)
Articles (to be announced and supplied online or on bspace) regarding:
-S. McClary, Georges Bizet: Carmen, Chapters 3 (“Images of race, class and gender in

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nineteenth-century French culture,” pp. 29-43) and 4 (“The musical languages of Carmen,” pp.
44-61)
-Selections from: P. Weiss and R. Taruskin, Opera: A History in Document, 2nd
ed.
(Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2007)
-Other articles potentially relevant to guest lecturers, speakers, or performers.
Required Listening
All clips will be either available on Youtube or uploaded to bSpace.
Grading Policies
Attendance is mandatory. Only two unexcused absences are permitted before failure, but all
absences will be considered in the attendance/participation portion of the grade. This is a
discussion-based course, so attendance/participation is our primary concern. Every week students
will write historical synopses of that week’s time period and assigned listening. These are
required, and will provide a backdrop for musical examples listened to and discussed in class.
They do not need to be more than a half page. Response papers are informal, but should cite any
sources they use. Listening responses should briefly state what it is (Aria, Recitative, Chorus,
etc.), composer, language, context within the opera, and any other relevant information, but not
exceeding one half page. Both responses should be e-mailed in the same document by 11:59 pm
the night before class. Altogether the synopses should be one page, double-spaced. Only one
response paper may be excused over the course of the semester—if you are absent you will still
submit your response via email by 11:59 pm. On occasion an alternative assignment may be
assigned as an optional replacement to the weekly response paper.
There will be two required events outside of classes to be selected from those presented by the
Opera at Cal program. These events will be designed to engage students further into a topic
covered in the course. Event dates and topics will be presented at the beginning of the course and
additional events may be added as the semester progresses.
One final write-up is required. It should be at least two pages double-spaced, and be a reflection
of the course themes as focused through one work studied this semester.
Finally, there will be an optional project at the end of the semester for students who are not able
to attend two outside events. This is an open-ended project meant to engage the student in a topic
further than was gone over in class, similar to the outside events. Final projects should display
more than three hours of work and must be proposed and approved.
Grading Breakdown
Attendance/Participation: 40%
Historical/Listening Summaries: 30%
Attendance of Outside Events: 20%
Final Write-up: 10%
Overarching Course Themes
-The changing social relevance of art.
-Art as class.
-Nationalism: von Weber, Verdi, Wagner and the creation of national identity.

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-Compositional techniques as a signifier of changing society.
-Romanticism and Pastoralism
-A composer’s relationship to text.
-The relationship between composer and librettist.
-Government’s relationship to the composer and art.
-Art as a tool to influence culture.
-Religion, romance, sexuality.
-Poverty and wealth: the importance of emotional and physical wealth; wealth’s relation
to status, “civilization”, and perceived good and evil.
“An Opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts
in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera
house.”
--Maria Callas
Submission Information:
1. Course Schedule
Each week we will explore the works of either one or two major composers in the opera timeline
and their relationship to history in Europe and the world.
Students are expected to come to class having completed assigned listening homework (with a
summary) and synopsis of politics of the time period. There will occasionally be a reading
selection (usually an article related to that week’s subject material), which must be read prior to
class. They should be prepared to discuss assigned material in combination with that presented to
them in class in respect to the political, historical, and musical themes of the course.
CLASS SCHEDULE SPRING 2012
1/25- introduction; course description; how to listen to opera/terminology
2/1- Peri, Dafne, Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, Cavalli, Giasone , and Lully, Cadmus et Hermione
2/8- Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, Handel, Rodelinda and Israel in Egypt, Julius Cesare?
2/15- Pergolesi, La Serva Padrona, and Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice
2/22- Mozart, Don Giovanni, La Nozze di Figaro, and Die Zauberflöte
2/29- Rossini, L’italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia, and La Cenerentola
3/7- Donizetti, Anna Bolena, and Bellini, I Puritani and Norma
3/14- Verdi, Rigoletto and La Traviata
3/21- Bizet, Carmen, and Musourgsky, Boris Godunov
3/28- Spring Break!! (no class)
4/4- Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Tristan and Isolde
4/11- (Wagner spillover) Verdi, Falstaff and Otello
4/18- Puccini, La bohème, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly
4/25- Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier and Salome
5/2- Makeup presentations, opera viewing, party!
2. (See above Learning Objectives)

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3. The class will be broken up into two portions: lecture and discussion. Though the exact times
and arrangements will change, generally the first hour will be made up of an interactive lecture
led by one of the student facilitators or guest lecturer. Guest lecturers might include highly
qualified students, professors, or even presentations by local opera singers. The second hour will
open up the class to discussion of the material that has been covered. In discussion we will try to
encourage students to compare the historical background they researched and listening they did
from home with the material just presented to them in class.
4. (See above Grading Policies and Grading Objectives)
5. The Instructor of Record will communicate with the decal facilitators throughout the semester
by way of meetings during office hours, frequent email updates, and occasionally sitting in on
meetings.