How to Listen to and Understand Opera

Discover the great beauty and high artistic achievement of opera with this brilliant course by acclaimed musicologist Robert Greenberg.

Overview

Course No. 740

This 32-lecture journey through 400 years of operatic history will teach you to:

• Decode opera’s language – understand how music amplifies drama
• Recognize key styles – from Baroque to Verismo
• Appreciate masterworks – Mozart, Verdi, Wagner & Puccini
• Grasp cultural influences – how language and society shaped opera

Course Highlights:

✓ 400 years of operatic evolution in 32 engaging lectures
✓ In-depth analysis of 12 landmark operas
✓ Audio examples from legendary performances
✓ No prior musical knowledge required

Video Lectures

Section 1: Opera’s Foundations

01-02: Introduction to Opera (47 min / 45 min)
How music elevates drama beyond words

03-04: Vocal Music History (44 min / 47 min)
From ancient Greece to Renaissance polyphony

Section 2: Birth of Opera

05-08: Monteverdi’s Orfeo (46-47 min)
The first true opera (1607) and Florentine Camerata

Section 3: Classical Opera

09-12: Mozart’s Idomeneo (45-46 min)
Opera seria and Gluck’s reforms

13-16: The Marriage of Figaro (44-47 min)
Mozart’s comic masterpiece and Enlightenment ideals

Section 4: Bel Canto & Verdi

17-18: Rossini’s Barber (46 min / 48 min)
Bel canto style and Italian vocal virtuosity

19-22: Verdi’s Otello (45-46 min)
Psychological depth in Italian opera seria

Section 5: National Styles

23-24: French Opera (45-46 min)
Lully to Bizet – distinct Gallic traditions

25: German Opera Matures (48 min)
From Mozart’s Magic Flute to Weber

26-28: Wagner & Strauss (45-46 min)
Tristan und Isolde’s chromaticism and Salome’s scandal

29-30: Russian Opera (46 min / 42 min)
Glinka to Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov

Section 6: Verismo

31-32: Puccini’s Tosca (46 min each)
The pinnacle of realistic, emotional opera