Please respond to the following, using sources under the Explore heading and the textbook as the basis of your response: . Describe 2-3 major influences that Verdi, or Wagner, or Puccini exerted upon opera in terms of making it more innovative, realistic, and controversial.
Give a brief description of one composer’s opera and discuss how audiences may have reacted to the work. Use the text as a source and the weblinks listed below.
Manet was a flaneur (a man-about-town, a ladies’ man, a player) and his paintings, The Absinthe Drinker/The Philosopher (1859) and The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) were rejected for display by the Salon at the Louvre.
Identify one reason the Salon did this, and state whether you think his reputation was the cause and whether you would have rejected him as well.
Explain whether Manet’s Olympia was meant to shock the viewers of his time and why he did this.
Would the painting would have a similar impact today or would another painting of his be more shocking?
Opera and Society .Chapter 30 (pp. 999-1004), Wagner and Verdi; (pp. 1133-1134), Puccini; review the Week 5 “Music Folder”
Huizenga article and audio selections at http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/04/11/150420827/talk-like-an-opera-geek-how-verdi-wagner-and-puccini-got-their-grooves
Wagner video of a stage production (Tristan und Isolde) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEkTK6aKUM
Verdi video clip of stage production (Rigoletto) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5NEOh-XhyA
Puccini video clip of stage production (Tosca) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sSoKbv46zc
