Education Guide The Flying Dutchman by ... - Edmonton Opera

Activity: Teacher Resource
Background: Leitmotif and the Composers Who Love Them
Long before the signature entrances of Indiana Jones, Jaws, and Darth Vader, there was
music that reminded audiences of a particular character, emotion, or theme. Short,
recurring motifs (from the French “motive” and translating as “short theme”) in
orchestral music began appearing in the 1700’s, although not in any extensive or
systematic way. Although these musical statements were usually short melodies, they
could be particular chord progressions or as simple as particular repeated rhythms.
Composers Carl Maria von Weber and Beethoven, among others, used this technique
(think of the opening movement in Beethoven’s fifth symphony – Beethoven’s
biographer suggested that the motif represents “fate knocking at the door.”)
The idea of a musical statement representing a particular feeling or theme was also used
by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie Fantastique, wherein the recurring motif represents
the love of the central characters, even though there are no singers on stage
representing those lovers. Berlioz called this idea the idée fixe.
While this idea had been around for a number of years before Richard Wagner arrived
on the scene, it is he who is most often associated with the term leitmotif (loosely
translated meaning “leading motif”). He used leitmotif extensively in his music,
especially his operas and it is from this usage that they have become so intrinsically
linked to his name. He used them to represent characters, ideas, thoughts and feelings
in his work, and in his longest work, Der Ring des Nibelungen (or the Ring Cycle), there
are dozens of motifs!
Since Wagner, many other composers have used this technique in their works: Sergei
Prokofiev uses it in Peter and the Wolf, Verdi gave his title character one in Aida, and
stirred audiences with the music threatening the entrance of the “bad guy” Scarpia in
Tosca. Today, leitmotifs appear constantly in movies and plays, and the term is even
used in literary studies!
While Wagner never named his leitmotifs, one of his students went to the trouble of
identifying in some of his works all the motifs and naming each one after its idea or
them, such as the “fate motif.” There are several important leitmotifs in the Flying
Dutchman, and we have reproduced some of them on the following page.
Education Guide
The Flying Dutchman
by Richard Wagner
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