Faculty Sponsor

Katharina Uhde

College

Arts and Sciences

Discipline(s)

Music History

ORCID Identifier(s)

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9206-8533

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 5-1-2020

Abstract

My research is about Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni”. I am looking at this piece from a cultural, historical, and analytical perspective. My data for the historical and cultural perspectives is derived from careful investigation of article and book sources. More specifically, my research answers a question and fills a gap, namely, what makes Don Giovanni the quintessential Dramma Giocoso during the time period of Mozart following any and all rules in regards to aspects of Opera Seria and Opera Buffa which categorize it to be a Dramma Giocoso which current research has not yet addressed. In this paper however, I will be focusing only on the Opera Buffa perspective. My data for the analytical perspective is derived from musical analysis on several levels. I will be analyzing the comedic aria “Madamina, il catalogo e questo” and how from a music theory standpoint it represents a comedic aria, and from the standpoint of the plot it is both comedic yet tragic. My finding’s show that Mozart’s “Don Giovanni'' helps us to better understand how Mozart utilizes both aspects of Opera Buffa and Opera Seria to please his audience and gives them two types of highly desired genres by creating a new genre, Dramma Giocoso. It therefore deserves to be better known and understood by modern scholars and researchers and will serve future research on the music of Mozart.

Biographical Information about Author(s)

Anastasia Karnezis is a Junior Music Performance major at Valparaiso University. She plans to continue onto graduate school to get her masters in Opera Performance. Her interest in Mozart started in high school when she began singing his arias. She has always taken special interest in his operas and what makes them unique to Mozart. Due to this she decided to research Don Giovanni, an opera exemplifying Mozart's unique genre of Dramma Giocoso.

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