MHST 565 History of Opera
This course surveys the history of opera from the 17th century to the present. Its objective is to familiarize students with chronology, terminology, forms and repertoire pertinent to the development of opera as a musical and dramatic genre. Since the emphasis of the course is one of breadth rather than detail, students will be expected to listen to and read a significant amount of material on their own, including original documents, while individual classes will be devoted to representative examples of each stage of operatic evolution. In addition to reading and listening, there will be an independent term project that examines original literary sources , musical structures, current editions and bibliography.