Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention

A Teacher's Guide
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-77422-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 136 Seiten, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm

Reihe: Modern Musicology and the College Classroom

For many instructors today, teaching canonical dramatic repertoire can be a fraught proposition: from Don Giovanni to South Pacific, key works in the history of opera and musical theater present challenges related to gender, race, colonialism, class and more. Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention: A Teacher's Guide offers instructors a toolkit with which to productively confront the canon, directly engaging in the difficult conversations this repertoire can prompt. Informed by evidence from contemporary and historical context, librettos, and production history, instructors will be able to confidently help students consider best practices for the future.

This book presents fifteen case studies of exemplars from the opera and musical theater canon, which showcase a close study of the music and text in service of addressing the most provocative aspects. With nuanced explorations of each work, the authors offer a variety of pathways to draw connections between their content and the present day. Teaching Canonic Opera and Musical Theater with Intention is a vital resource for college-level music history and appreciation instructors that will enable them to teach canonic repertoire as part of contemporary curricula, and to help students engage critically with these works, their historical impact, and ongoing relevance.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Professional Practice & Development

Autoren/Hrsg.

Coppola, Catherine

Wells, Elizabeth A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Musicals
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikinstrumente Instrumentenunterricht & Lernanleitungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Opernmusik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I. Gender & Class

Don Giovanni: Beyond the Hashtag

Mozart

Carmen: Fate or Choice?

Bizet

Oklahoma!: Rewriting Race and Gender

Rodgers & Hammerstein

Company: Changing Perspectives on Marriage

Sondheim

My Fair Lady: Class and Colonialism

Lerner & Loewe  II. Race and Presumed Whiteness

Magic Flute: Whose Enlightenment?

Mozart

Aida: Race and Empire—“Caught Up in the Colors of the Story”

Verdi

Porgy and Bess: Who Tells the Story of Systemic Racism?

Gershwin & Gershwin

Show Boat: The Dynamics of the South

Kern & Hammerstein

West Side Story: Whose Stories?

Bernstein & Sondheim  III. Colonialism and History Rewritten

Madama Butterfly: Imperialism and Gender

Puccini

Tristan and Isolde: From Fierce Fighter to Transcendent Redeemer

Wagner

Giulio Cesare: Cleopatra Resists

Handel

The King And I: The Colonial Mask Comes Off

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Hamilton: A new era?

Miranda

Über Autor(innen)

Catherine Coppola is Permanent Lecturer in Music and Chair of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program at Hunter College of CUNY.

Elizabeth A. Wells is Professor of Music History and Musicology at Mount Allison University.