a nebraska Wesleyan Camerata: Experiencing Opera in Florence, Italy

The Italian term “camerata” is defined as “a group of individuals who enjoy similar interests and/or share a strong passion for a particular art form, and who get together often, meeting in a chamber (camera) to enjoy and talk about their loved art form.” This course will serve as a camerata devoted to the study of opera. The course will present the main elements of opera, how they have developed and changed throughout history, and the role of opera in Italian society.

Course Goals

As a result of your participation in this course, you will be able to:
1. Listen to opera, write about opera, and discuss opera intelligently––the development and improvement of critical listening skills. The tools that will help you sharpen your listening skills include:
     ➩ Knowledge of the structural elements that make up a musical composition.
     ➩ Development and consistent application of a vocabulary to describe these elements.
     ➩ Knowledge of historical, cultural, and sociological aspects of opera.
     ➩ Daily exposure to music.
2. Deepen your personal response to opera and develop an appreciation for the meaning of music in Italian culture. To accomplish this, it will be important for you to:
     ➩ Apply various frameworks of response to the study of opera in order to discover and deal with complexity.
     ➩ Learn to move from “gut reactions” to opera to a more informed, complex, and mature response.

Main Activities
1. Immersion in the live concert experience: attendance at 4 music concerts and 1 opera in Italy.
2. Written reaction papers to the concerts (50 points for each concert paper, 200 points for the opera paper). Formats for the papers will be discussed in class. Reaction papers are due 3 days after the concert takes place.
3. Guided journaling entries discussing course topics and listening assignments, generally worth 10 points apiece.
4. Daily participation in class: discussion, group projects and presentations, question and answer, dialogue with the class and the instructor, and short writing assignments. The daily participation grade will be 10 points.

Announcements

ATTENDANCE AT ALL PRE-DEPARTURE COURSES IS REQUIRED!

MUSIC 190 Pre-Departure Class No. 1
Thursday, April 23, 5-7 p.m., Emerson Recital Hall

MUSIC 190 Pre-Departure Class No. 2
Thursday, April 30, 5-7 p.m., Emerson Recital Hall

MUSIC 190 Pre-Departure Class No. 3
Thursday, May 23, 5-7 p.m., Emerson Recital Hall


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