Watch How to Listen to and Understand Opera

2023
1 Season

For more than 400 years, opera has been one of the most popular performing arts. Professor Robert Greenberg can show you how you can learn to understand, appreciate, and even love opera in just 32 lectures. With this course, you will understand how opera is a unique marriage of words and music in which the whole is far greater than its parts.

How to Listen to and Understand Opera is a series that ran for 1 seasons (13 episodes) between November 1, 2023 and on The Great Courses

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Seasons

31. Verismo, Puccini, and Tosca, I

November 1, 2023

The final lectures examine opera verismo: its origins, character, and greatest exponent

30. Russian Opera, II

November 1, 2023

Two lectures on Russian opera trace the causes, history, and character of Russian musical nationalism. Glinka and his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila are discussed as the foundation of Russian opera leading the way for The Russian Five and the pinnacle of Russian nationalist opera, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

28. Late Romantic German Opera

November 1, 2023

In this lecture, Richard Strauss's opera Salome is discussed as an example of late romantic German opera. After an overview of Strauss's early life, we examine his psychopathological and erotic Salome and the reasons why it is one of the most controversial operas of all time.

26. Richard Wagner and Tristan und Isolde, I

November 1, 2023

Lectures 26 and 27 examine the contribution of the paradoxical Richard Wagner to operatic history. We look at Wagner's theories, his admiration for ancient Greek drama, and his invention of leitmotif. Schopenhauer's philosophy and its influence on Wagner's concept of music drama are also discussed. Finally, we examine Wagner's landmark opera Tristan und Isolde.

25. German Opera Comes of Age

November 1, 2023

In this lecture we learn how German opera owed its evolution to German folklore and the requirements of the German language. We see how it came into being with Mozart's The Magic Flute of 1791, and how it was indebted to the traditional German entertainment of singspiel. Weber's Der Freish

23. French Opera, I

November 1, 2023

In Lectures 23 and 24 we give an overview of the evolution of a distinctly French style; explain why and how French opera is different from Italian opera; and emphasize that operatic content, both musical and dramatic, is most often a function of the language, politics, and economic class of its consumers. French opera composers discussed include Jean-Baptiste Lully and Georges Bizet.

22. Verdi and Otello, IV

November 1, 2023

The Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and opera seria are the focus of Lectures 19 through 22. We learn how Verdi dominated the operatic scene in Italy for more than half a century by the power of his beautiful melodies and his focus on human emotions and psychological insight. Verdi's style is discussed with references to Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Otello.

18. The Bel Canto Style and Rossini's The Barber of Seville, II

November 1, 2023

Bel canto operas are based on comic, predictable plots and one-dimensional characters to indulge the contemporary Italian taste for pure entertainment. Our frame of reference is the landmark bel canto opera, The Barber of Seville, by the most important Italian composer of bel canto operas, Gioacchino Rossini.

15. The Rise of Opera Buffa and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, III

November 1, 2023

We see how comic opera, with its roots in popular folklore, developed separately from the opera seria of the aristocracy. We learn how the more accessible, populist opera buffa was championed by Enlightenment progressives. Opera buffa character types and conventions are discussed, and one of the greatest examples of opera buffa, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (1786), is examined.

12. The Growth of Opera, the Development of Italian Opera Seria, and Mozart's Idomeneo, IV

November 1, 2023

Lectures 9 through 12 review the main features of early opera and trace its growth from the early 17th century up to Mozart's Idomeneo of 1781. As opera became a public entertainment, its literary and dramatic substance deteriorated. We learn how the formulaic rigidity of opera seria led to vocal abuses, and how a new wave of reform created a model for the next generation of opera composers.

8. Invention of Opera and Monteverdi's Orfeo, IV

November 1, 2023

In Lectures 5 through 8 we review the Greek idea of music as it related to music of the Renaissance. We see the evolution of intermezzo as a precursor to the first real opera. We look at the role of the Florentine Camerata in the development of opera, and we examine in depth the first real opera, Monteverdi's Orfeo of 1607.

3. A Brief History of Vocal Expression in Music, I

November 1, 2023

Throughout the history of European music, style and form have changed constantly. Beginning in ancient Greece, we trace the history of vocal music through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We focus on the rise of popular secular music in a world hitherto dominated by the music of the Roman Catholic Church.

1. Introduction and Words and Music, I

November 1, 2023

In the first two lectures we develop a methodology for listening to and understanding opera. We are introduced to the concept of opera as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts in its combination of soliloquy, dialogue, scenery, action, and continuous music. We see how music can evoke what words cannot express; the composer is the dramatist.

Description

How to Listen to and Understand Opera is a series that ran for 1 seasons (13 episodes) between November 1, 2023 and on The Great Courses

Where to Watch How to Listen to and Understand Opera

How to Listen to and Understand Opera is available for streaming on the The Great Courses website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch How to Listen to and Understand Opera on demand at Amazon Prime and Amazon.