Unit information: Russian Opera in 2011/12

Unit name	Russian Opera
Unit code	MUSI30102
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Fairclough
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of Music
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This course will look at the various ways in which Russian opera developed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, reflecting changes attitudes to 'Russianness', questions of Russian history, Russian musical nationalism and both cultural and political trends. Beginning with the 'first' Russian opera, Glinka's Life for the Tsar, we will explore Musorgsky's imposing historical operas, with their vocal and orchestral innovations and fascination with Russian medieval history, Borodin's overtly nationalistic Prince Igor, Rimsky-Korsakov's sparkling fairy-tale operas and Tchaikovsky's passionate settings of Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin and Queen of Spades. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the 19th-century burden of Tsarist censorship was replaced by a far more interventionist arts policy, and operas after 1917 reveal a far more obvious political bias. Among the numerous Soviet operas composed, we will focus on just three: Shostakovich's two completed operas, The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Prokofiev's War and Peace.

Aims:

This unit aims to acquaint students with a relatively little-studied area of Eastern European art music, drawing upon the research expertise of a member of academic staff. In addition to introducing a broad range of symphonic, choral and chamber repertoire, the unit will address political contexts for its creation and dissemination; sociological models for understanding its reception; aesthetic principles applicable in the post-Stalin era; and the spread of Soviet art-music to Soviet satellite states in the East, representing this repertoire and its changing status during the course of the second half of the 20th century from a strongly interdisciplinary perspective.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students will:

• Be familiar with a broad range of instrumental and choral repertoire produced in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in the second half of the 20th century

• Demonstrate a grasp of the complex socio-political contexts for the production and dissemination of this music

• Be familiar with musical and other agendas for reception of Soviet music

• Display a sensitivity to historical context in discussion this repertoire

• Be aware of appropriate research methodologies and their application

• Be able to participate, either as speaker or respondent, in seminar presentations

• Be able to plan and present an essay effectively

• Defend and critique arguments orally and in writing

And additionally (specific to Level H) to:

• incorporate a consistently strong grasp of detail with respect to content

• argue effectively and at length (including an ability to cope with complexities and to describe and deploy these effectively)

• display to a high level skills in selecting, applying, interpreting and organising information, including evidence of a high level of bibliographical control

• describe, evaluate and/or challenge current scholarly thinking

• discriminate between different kinds of information, processes, interpretations

• take a critical stance towards scholarly processes involved in arriving at historical knowledge and/or relevant secondary literature

• engage with relevant theoretical, philosophical or social constructs for understanding relevant works or traditions

• demonstrate an understanding of concepts and an ability to conceptualise

• situate material within relevant contexts (invoking interdisciplinary contexts where appropriate)

• apply strategies laterally (perhaps leading to innovative results)

Teaching Information

Seminars and lectures.

Assessment Information

3000-word essay (50%); 2-hr examination (50%)

NB the essay and examination questions will be specific to this level, as will the assessment criteria.

Reading and References

Paul Hillier, Arvo Pärt. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Alexander Ivashkin, ed. A Schnittke reader. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Charles Bodmin Rae, The music of Lutoslawski London: Boston [Mass.] Faber, 1994.

Boris Schwarz.: Music and musical life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981 Enl. ed.. Ann Arbor, Mich.: ProQuest, 2004.

Schwinger, Wolfram. Krzysztof Penderecki :his life and work : encounters, biography and musical commentary. London: Schott, 1989

Adrian Thomas, Górecki. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.