Teacher's Guide Cambridge Pre-U MUSIC Available for teaching ...

Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
libretto of Hedy (1895) was adapted by Anežka from Byron’s Don Juan and, like The Tempest, is a
passionate love story that culminates in a Liebestod. Anežka Schulzová was also the librettist of
Fibich’s two last operas. Šárka (1897) returned to a nationalist subject and was an immediate success
following its performance at the National Theatre in Prague. It is the only one of Fibich’s operas still
to be regularly performed. Finally The Fall Of Arkona (1899) deals with the early Christian history of
the Baltic Slavs.
Two further Czech composers, Leoš Janáek (1854–1928) and Vítzslav Novák (1870–1949) take
the history of Czech opera into the early twentieth century. Although Janáek’s Šárka was largely
complete by 1888, it was abandoned for some thirty years. The one-act romantic opera The Beginning
of a Romance (1891) used several Moravian folk dances in its score and was the only one of Janáek’s
operas to be performed before the turn of the century. Novák was a pupil of Dvoák but most of his
music (including all four of his operas) date from after 1900.
Poland, Hungary
In Poland the founder of a national style of opera was Stansław Moniuszko (1819–1872). Neither his
music, nor that of his disciple, Władisław eleski (1837–1921) is well known outside Poland. The
more familiar Polish composers such as Paderewski or Szymanowski, wrote no operas before 1900.
The most famous Hungarian composer of the nineteenth century was Liszt, but his only opera was
a very slight piece written early in his career. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries opera in
Hungary was dominated by style and approaches from abroad, notably from Italy; although some
operas were written with Hungarian texts a distinctive national style did not emerge until some time
after 1900.
Suggested Reading
(a) General information, brief biographies and synopses can be found in the following:
Holden, A.,
Kenyon, N. &
Walsh, S. The Viking Opera Guide. Viking 1993
(b) History of Opera
Parker, R. (ed) The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera. OUP 1994
Orrey, L. A Concise History of Opera. Thames & Hudson 1972
Kerman, J. Opera as Drama. Faber and Faber 1989
Dent, E. J. The Rise of Romantic Opera. CUP 1976
Abraham, G. A Hundred Years of Music. Duckworth 1964
Barbier, P. Opera in Paris 1800–1850. Amadeus Press 1995
Hibberd, S. French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination. CUP 2009
Huebner, S. French Opera at the Fin de Siècle. OUP 1999
Kimbell, D. R. B. Italian Opera. CUP 1991
Warrack, J. German Opera: from the Beginnings to Wagner. CUP 2006
Tyrrell, J. Czech Opera. CUP 1988
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