Films for the Humanities and Sciences - Opera: Words and Music

Opera: Words and Music

This program uses three extracts from the opera Dido and Aeneas to examine the main musical language of opera—recitative, which gives priority to clear pronunciation of words, and aria, where poetic modifications are made to give the fullest emotional expression to the meaning of the words. The program also explores the difficulties involved in understanding lyrics sung by more than one person, and emphasizes the responsibility of the composer to set lyrics in such a way that audiences need not hear every word in order to comprehend the overall meaning of what is being sung. Produced by the Open University. (25 minutes)

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Item#: BVL6325
Copyright date: ©1994
DVD ISBN 978-0-7365-6529-5

Part of the Series : Understanding Music


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