Full Description
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.
Contents
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
