Mozart’s Operas and the Enlightenment 

莫札特歌劇與啟蒙

Instructor：Jen-yen Chen

Semester：Fall 2006

Credit：3

Seminar description: 

This seminar examines Mozart’s operas in the context of the Enlightenment movement which they reflect and indeed helped to shape.  It will give attention both to the musical style of these operas and to their political, social, philosophical, and spiritual dimensions.  Following a general introduction to the culture of opera in Mozart’s Vienna, the seminar will focus on four works:  Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte.

Requirements: 

Weekly class meetings will be devoted to discussions of assigned readings.  In addition, you should become familiar with the music of the four aforementioned operas by listening to them regularly.  Finally, at the end of the semester you’ll offer a presentation and write a seminar of 15-20 pages on a topic of your choice.

Textbooks/Recordings:

Daniel Heartz, Mozart’s Operas (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1991).

Full scores of Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte (Dover Editions).

CDs of Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte (performances by John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, on Deutsche Grammophon Archiv).

Preliminary Schedule of Class Meetings

◎Weeks 1-4:  The Background of Mozart’s Operas

Week 1.   Introduction

Reading:  Nicholas Till, Mozart and the Enlightenment, pp. 1-6.

Week 2.   Philosophical and Social Aspects of the Enlightenment

Reading:  Excerpts from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

Week 3.   Opera in Mozart’s Vienna

Reading: John Rice, “Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera,” in Music in Eighteenth-Century Austria.

Week 4.   Opera buffa in Mozart’s Vienna

Reading:  Mary Hunter, The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna, introduction.

◎Weeks 5-7:  Le nozze di Figaro (1786)

Week 5.   Literary and Musical Precursors of Le nozze di Figaro:  Pierre Caron-Augustin de Beaumarchais, Giovanni Paisiello).

Reading:  Daniel Heartz, Mozart’s Operas, chapter on Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia

Week 6.   Analytical Approaches to Le nozze di Figaro, I

Reading:  Alan Tyson, Mozart:  Studies of the Autograph Scores, chapter on the ordering of numbers in Act III; Charles Rosen, The Classical Style, sonata-form analysis of the Act III sextet

Week 7.   Analytical Approaches to Le nozze di Figaro, II

Reading:  David Lewin, “Figaro’s Mistakes” (Freudian analysis of the opening duet)

◎Weeks 8-10:  Don Giovanni (1787)

Week 8.   Mozart as Romantic and the Minor Mode

Reading:  Charles Rosen, The Classical Style, pp. 321-325

Week 9    Social Conflict in the Act I Finale of Don Giovanni

Reading:  Daniel Heartz, Mozart’s Operas, “The Iconography of the Ballroom Scene”

Week 10. Semiotic Perspectives on Don Giovanni

Reading:  Selections from Wye Jamison Allenbrook, Rhythm and Gesture in Mozart’s Operas

◎Weeks 11-13:  Così fan tutte (1790)

Week 11. Origins:  Antonio Salieri as the First Composer of Così fan tutte

Reading:  Selections from Bruce Alan Brown, Mozart:  Così fan tutte

Week 12. Social Hierarchy and Aria Types in Così fan tutte

Reading:  Selections from Mary Hunter, The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna

Week 13. Musical Beauty as Topos in Così fan tutte

Reading:  Mary Hunter, The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna, conclusion

◎Weeks 14-16:  Die Zauberflöte (1791)

Week 14. Mozart and Freemasonry

Reading:  Volkmar Braunbehrens, Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791, chapter on Freemasonry

Week 15. Die Zauberflöte and Religious Music

Reading: Jen-yen Chen, “Church Music, ‘Classical’ Style, and the Dialectic of Old and New in Eighteenth-Century Culture”

Week 16.  Brave New World:  Die Zauberflöte as Epitome of the Austrian Enlightenment

Reading:  Daniel Heartz, Mozart’s Operas, chapter on Die Zaub erflöte by Thomas Baumann

◎Weeks 17 and 18:  Presentations

Preliminary Bibliography

Allanbrook, Wye Jamison.  Rhythm and Gesture in Mozart’s Operas.

Braunbehrens, Volkmar.  Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791.

Brown, Bruce Alan.  Mozart:  Così fan tutte (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press).

Chen, Jen-yen Chen.  “Church Music, ‘Classical’ Style, and the Dialectic of Old and New in Eighteenth-Century Culture,” Selected Papers from the First Biennial Meeting of the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music, Washington, DC, 2004 (Steglein Press), pp. 26-43.

Heartz, Daniel.  Mozart’s Operas (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1991).

Hunter, Mary.  The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2001).

Jones, David Wyn.  Music in Eighteenth-Century Austria (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Lewin, David.  “Figaro’s Mistakes,” Current Musicology.

Rosen, Charles.  The Classical Style:  Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York:  W.W. Norton, rev. ed. 1995).

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.  The Social Contract.

Till, Nicholas.  Mozart and the Enlightenment:  Truth, Virtue, and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas (New York:  W.W. Norton).

Tyson, Alan.  Mozart:  Studies of the Autograph Scores (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press).