Special Lecture: Introduction to Opera

Academic unit or major

Humanities and social science courses

Instructor(s)

Taro Yamazaki

Class Format

Lecture (Zoom)

Media-enhanced courses

-

Day of week/Period
(Classrooms)

1-2 Mon (W241) / 1-2 Thu (W241)

Class

-

Course Code

LAH.H213

Number of credits

200

Course offered

2020

Offered quarter

3Q

Syllabus updated

Jul 10, 2025

Language

Japanese

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

>Opera< is a unique genre of composite art, in which music and text, visual and audible elements are combined to describe human emotions and social aspects with themes such as love and death. The instructor picks up several representative works, explains ①their cultural, social and historical backgrounds o, ②how the words and music relate in each work, ③history of the genre from the aspects of formal developments, shows ④how the impression of the same work can vary through the difference of the musical and dramatic interpretation with visual and audio examples (DVDs and CDs). Through getting to know each work from various aspects students can feel that the theme, message and emotions that are handled in the opera are closely related to us who are living in this modern complicated society.

Course description and aims

By the end of the semester students will
1)realize the charm of this composite art genre that can express human emotion and social situation with a unique combination of words, music and visual elements.
2)see another aspect of European culture and history through the genre that was born in the aristocratic society in the 17th century, adapted to civil society (bourgeoisie) in the nineteenth century and still has appealing actuality for those who are living in this modern and global society.

Keywords

composite art, music, word, drama, culture and history of Eurpope

Competencies

• Specialist skills
• Intercultural skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

By carefully selecting several works from a number of opera works, getting to know a few works deeply, not shallow and wide, and tasting the whole of each work, you can feel the expanse and richness of the opera world in the background (this time). Will be based on Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", Puccini's "La Boheme", Johann Strauss II's "Die Fledermaus", and Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin"). As a concrete procedure, (1) analyze the script and music for each work, (2) consider the historical background that produced the work and the social message emitted by the work, and (3) compare and appreciate different performances and productions. Furthermore, (4) take a bird's-eye view of the history of how the form of opera has evolved.
This year's course under Corona infection is based on a double structure mixing (1) on-demand distribution (videos such as PPT created in advance by the instructor + watching all the performance videos of the opera inside and outside the class hours and submitting assignments) with (2) several live classes using ZOOM (including Q & A of instructors and students + presentations at breakout sessions + discussions).

Course schedule/Objectives

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

All Texts are given in classes by the instructor.

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Nothing in particular except the books in Japanese mentioned above.

Evaluation methods and criteria

The scores are based on assignments after classes (50%) and report papers during the quarter(50%) .

Related courses

• LAH.H309 ： Special Lecture: Music
• LAH.H211 ： World Literature 1
• LAH.H212 ： World Literature 2
• LAH.H210 ： Intercultural Studies: Europe and Latin America
• LAH.H110 ： Introduction to Foreign Languages 1
• LAH.H111 ： Introduction to Foreign Languages 2
• LAH.C101 ： Tokyo Tech Visionary Project

Prerequisites

Students must attend the first class as the number of participants needs to be limited.

Other

Those who don’t have any knowledge about opera are as welcome as great fans of opera, as long as they can follow basic attendance manner(which overlaps with that for seeing operas in a theater) and show enthusiasm and interests to participate in classes through reading reference books and prints, watching and listening to visual and audio materials, and writing assignments.