Opus Music Analysis

Grade: 10 –1
Subject: Music
Teacher: Mrs. D. Williams

Words and Meanings

✓ Opus: A creative work, especially a musical composition numbered to designate the order of a composer's works.

✓ March: A piece of music, usually in four beats to the bar, having a strongly accented rhythm.

✓ Overture: An instrumental composition intended especially as an introduction to an extended work, such as an opera or oratorio.

✓ Waltz: A ballroom dance in triple time with a strong accent on the first beat.

✓ Sonata: A composition for one or more solo instruments, one of which is usually a keyboard instrument, consisting of three or four independent movements varying in key, mood, and tempo.

✓ Aria: A solo vocal piece
In Grand Opera, all the words are sung and the music is supposed to be of the finest kind, to be played by large orchestras and sung by the best singers. In light opera, or operettas, some of the conversation is spoken and some is sung. The songs are of the kinds that become “popular songs”. Grand Operas are usually tragedies with unhappy endings and light operas are usually comedies with happy endings, though this is not always so. In Grand Opera, the leading members of the cast sing a certain number of arias, which are solo songs. There are recitatives, which are spoken words set to music but not actually songs. Usually there are large choruses that accompany the leading singers. Many operas have ballets, or dancing acts that are made apart of the story. Before the opera begins, the orchestra plays an overture that is made up of the best melodies used in the opera. The most popular writers of opera were an Italian, Giuseppe Verdi, whose operas include Aida, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, and several others that have remained popular for years. The most popular single opera is Carmen, by Georges Bizet, a Frenchman. Nearly all great composers wrote operas. The music is the most important thing in an opera; the writer of the words is seldom
The singer is a Grammy award winner. Her most popular recording is Sindarin, which is from the soundtrack The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In addition to the standard collection, Ms. Fleming has performed many world premieres, including André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire and Conrad Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons with the San Francisco Opera, and at the Metropolitan Opera, John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles. She also sang Carlisle Floyd's Susannah in its first productions at the Metropolitan Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In addition to her many appearances at New York's Metropolitan Opera, her voice has resounded throughout the distinguished venues of Paris' Opera Bastille and Palais Garnier, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Barb-ican, La Scala, Bayreuth, Vienna State Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Grand Theatre de Geneva, Glyndebourne, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Palau de la Mùsica Catalana in Barcelona, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and Carnegie Hall, among others.

Placido Domingo
This Spanish opera singer is another one of the most famous in the world. He is a tenor. One of Placido Domingo’s most famous recordings is in the movie Tristan & Isolde. He also made an appearance in the musical Moulin Rouge. Placido Domingo has done duets with a wide variety