Here are the group and individual activities for Day 11.
FEEDBACK:
Remember my two guidelines:
ACTIVITIES:
The following is taken from “The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Opera” by William Berger.
Composers:
“Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1757-1791): Mozart’s name, like Einstein’s, has become a popular byword for an almost otherworldly level of genius. His musical feats as a child prodigy alone would have guaranteed his legend. However, the Austrian Mozart has never been relegated to a place of incomprehensibility. Perhaps his greatest genius was his ability to make the most difficult music appear effortlessly written and spontaneous. He excelled in every genre of music he attempted (which was virtually all forms of music known in his time and place). Mozart began composing operas at the age of ten, works that already demonstrated musical maturity and sophistication. His childhood must have been both glamorous and dreadful as his composer-father Leopold Mozart marketed the boy around the many courts of Europe in search of patronage. As he grew into adulthood, Mozart added his keen insights into human nature into his operatic compositions, and his three operas composed to the brilliant librettos of Lorenzo da Ponte (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni,) and (Cosi fan tutte) remain paragons of what the genre can achieve.”
“Mozart was famously incapable of the social and professional niceties that would have ingratiated him more with colleagues and patrons and that could have provided him with a more comfortable life.”
On the separate piece of paper:
What similarities did you notice about Mozart and Bizet? What were some differences?
Bonus: Name the person who was Mozart’s librettist for three of his operas.
Journal Activity:
Additional group activities:
1. Continue work on your Opera Presentation (project) “Hansel & Gretel.” (Characters, plot, songs, etc.)
a. We will start presentations
b. You must have a typed libretto and give it to me before the presentation.
c. It must be five (5) minutes in length.
12/11/2002