humanities 18 Flashcards
first opera was a one-act jazz number called Blue Monday. It was among the first to mix the new style of jazz music in with what was considered classical music to create a category all its own, known now as a folk opera. Blue Monday was a flop
George Gershwin
Who wrote Porgy and Bess?
George Gershwin The characters were African American, and it was set in South Carolina. While Porgy and Bess was not popular at the time, it has since gone on to be one of the most well-known and widely performed operas in America. Gershwin also worked with his brother Ira on various musicals, including Lady Be Good, Show Girl, and Girl Crazy.
He was one of the best-known composers of the 20th century, and his work, particularly his musicals, is some of the best known in the world. He worked with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra as an assistant conductor
Leonard Bernstein
Which Leonard Bernstein opera was based on the book by Voltaire?
Candide
Leonard Bernstein’s works
The influence of jazz is seen more keenly in his operetta Trouble in Tahiti and its sequel A Quiet Place. The musical that Bernstein is most lauded for is West Side Story, where jazz music and the streets of New York bring Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to life. The story of Maria and Tony has been acted on stages worldwide since its inception.
Two pioneers to combine jazz with classical music were
Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin
Leonard: Trouble in Tahiti, A Quite Place, West Side Story, and Candide
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, Blue Monday, and Lady Be Good.
He was Russian ballet composer of the early 20th century.It has been said that the only thing consistent about him is his lack of consistency; he was constantly experimenting and pushing the rules of theater. His works were also deeply connected to a sense of Russian national identity
Igor Stravinsky
Stravinsky’s most famous ballet to build upon Russian nationalist pride
Pertrushka
In this ballet, Stravinsky actually used pieces of Russian folk songs, which at the time was shocking. Folk music and high culture, like ballet, were supposed to be separate, but Stravinsky fused them together to present an artistic synthesis of Russian identity.
In terms of harmony, Stravinsky was known for ________, the use of two or more keys at the same time.
polytonality
Stravinsky wrote the ballet so that different parts of the orchestra were playing in different keys at the same time. This radical idea became one of the defining traits of modern and experimental ballet, but it sure caused a stir when he first tried it. In fact, when Stravinsky premiered what has become his most famous ballet, ____________________ in 1913, people literally rioted after the first act. Police presence was required in the theater throughout the second act.
The Rite of Spring
In French Le Sacre du printemps
is remembered for defining an American sound. Part of this comes through his themes. Appalachian Spring, which premiered in 1944, tells the story of American pioneers in rural Pennsylvania. The ballet Rodeo, which came out in 1942, tells the tale of a brave, roping and riding cowgirl looking for love. And Billy the Kid, a ballet that premiered in 1938, follows the story of the famed American outlaw.
Aaron Copland
Copland made heavy use of American folk songs in these ballets, bringing popular and artistic culture together. These American folk heroes - the pioneer, the cowgirl, the outlaw - had never appeared in ballet before, and Copland is credited with developing a truly American style of ballet.
Like Stravinsky, he played around with tonality, altering the keys of his compositions and even occasionally incorporating atonality, the lack of any musical key. This system, in which the composer balances all twelve tones in European music equally to prevent a central key from forming, is one of the defining traits of modernist music.
Aaron Copland (American, modernism)
Russian composer from early 20th century. Made use of polytonality and themes from Russian folk songs
Igor Stravinsky
American composer from the 20th century. Used themes of pioneers and outlaws. Experimented with atonality.
Aaron Copland
A style of composition developed in the mid-20th century; focuses on challenging assumptions about what music is and how we experience it
Modern Experimental Music
used unorthodox rhythms, keys, and arrangements to create new sounds and set important precedents for later musicians.
Charles Ives
was focused on introducing entirely new sounds, such as the prepared piano and a piece of music in which the musicians were silent and the sound came from the immediate environment.
John Cage
The American composer of the mid-late 20th century, built upon the ideas of his predecessors by exploring the process and action of listening to music.
Philip Glass
East Asian music is based on a _________, a musical arrangement of an octave with five notes.
Pentatonic scaleIn
Western music, we have a heptatonic or seven-note scale
In ballet, ____ means ‘step of two’ or a dance performed by two people, often times one man and one woman.
Pas de deux
In ballet, ____means ‘round the leg’ and it describes a motion where you move your leg in a kind of semi-circle on the floor. I
Rond de jambe
In ballet, means ‘lifted up’ and refers to when a dancer stands up on his or her toes, though it’s typically female dancers who do this.
Releve
The Nutcracker
music by Tchaikovsky, choreography by Marius Petipa. The ballet tells the story of a little girl, sometimes named Clara, sometimes Marie, who gets a nutcracker at a family holiday party. Her jerk brother Fritz breaks it, and she’s disappointed but lo and behold, at the stroke of midnight, the thing comes to life and dances around.
For some reason that I’ve never understood, there’s a also a ton of mice, a creepy Mouse King, and a beautiful Sugar Plum Fairy, not to be confused with Princess Lolly from Candy Land. Though the ballet is now a staple of American Christmastime, it wasn’t very well received when it debuted in Russia back in the late 19th century.
Swan Lake
Tchaikovsky also composed Swan Lake, and it was first choreographed by Julius Reisinger, then reworked by none other than Marius Petipa and Lev IvanovThe main character (and principal dancer) is Odette, a young lass who has a spell cast upon her by an evil sorcerer, which makes her a swan by day and a human by night. Pretty relatable, right?
Odette is clearly the most beautiful swan around, but not surprisingly, would prefer to return to human form, which can only occur if some worthy young gent declares his love for her, ends bittersweetly
Sleeping Beauty
Tchaikovsky was also responsible for composing the music for The Sleeping Beauty, whose plot is virtually identical to the Disney film, though it was first performed in 1890, and the Disney cartoon didn’t debut until 1959.
Cinderella
had multiple ballet adaptations, but the most popular is from 1945, by Sergei Prokofiev.
Giselle
with music by Adolphe Adam; though Petipa was not the original choreographer, he’s credited with the version most audiences see today. The ballet’s title character is a reputed beauty with many admirers, one of whom is an engaged prince who goes to the trouble of disguising his true identity in order to win her over. Spoiler alert: That doesn’t go over well and Giselle will eventually die, leading to the ballet’s famous ‘white act’ where she and other dancers are dressed completely in white.
The role of Giselle is widely sought after by professional ballerinas and is known to be very demanding.
Coppelia
Ballet by Arthur Saint-Léon and Léo Delibes. The title character at first seems very similar in personality to Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She’s a lovely girl who prefers reading books to the company of other people. Once you realize she’s actually a life-sized doll that her master/father figure created, it becomes a little creepy, especially when you find out that Coppélia has attracted the attention of a local townsman, who is in love with her despite being engaged to someone named Swanhilda.
I’m a sucker for ridiculous names, and that one takes the cake. Swanhilda’s wildly jealous, even after she learns Coppélia’s actually a doll, but somehow she and Franz, the guy who can’t tell dolls from real people, end up happily together at the end. Coppélia isn’t as technically demanding, nor as visually stunning as Giselle or Swan Lake, but its silly plot makes it a lot of fun, a ballet comedy of errors, if you will.
Why did some of the early motion picture actors choose not to be credited for being in the film?
The first actors were stage actors who wanted extra income but didn’t want the stigma of being in a movie.
In comparison to the movies being produced early in the 20th century, what was different about the earliest attempts at film-making?
The first films were very short and were watched using a Kinetoscope.
If you were going to see a movie around 1905, where would you expect to go to view it?
Small nickelodeons showed short films that cost a nickel for admission.
Why is The Jazz Singer considered a milestone film in movie history?
It was the first feature length talkie, a film including dialogue synced with the film.
The development of sound in film brought with it a host of new challenges for movie makers. What were some of the challenges in making quality entertainment during the era of transition from silent movies to talkies?
It was challenging for writers to create engaging dialogue, for studios to use microphones effectively, and for actors to learn to speak lines articulately and fluently.
a prominent American dancer in the early 20th century Her style of dance was highly unique, guided more by her own imagination than a prescribed set of steps. desire to connect emotion to movement in dance would leave a huge influence on the dancers and choreographers to come. In regards to what she wanted for American dance, she said ‘let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance
Isadora Duncan
A pioneer of modern dance in the mid-20th century, she’s been called the Picasso of her art form. While we tend to think the modern just means current, in relationship to dance and other forms of art, it actually has a more particular meaning. Modern dance is certainly influenced by ballet but is more improvisational and also more relaxed in terms of costuming, with most modern dances performed barefoot instead of in pointe shoes.
Martha Graham
quickly become a solo performer in Martha Graham’s dance company and went on to form his own. Some might argue that his style was even more non-traditional than Graham’s; he did exciting, unusual things like collaborating with visual artists, musicians and architects to create his pieces and would go to incorporate different kinds of media and technology into his dances.
Merce Cunningham
Over in the world of musical theater, ________ was also making waves with his unique choreography. You might be familiar with his style of dance from musicals like Cabaret and Chicago. He was involved in dark, sexy, musicals set in jazz clubs.
Bob Fosse
His slick, stylized moves (complete with jazz hands!) were really different from what people were used to seeing in musical theater, which was that more Fred Astaire-style tap dance, but audiences seemed to embrace this bold new approach. He choreographed over 20 stage productions and feature films during his career and performed in several more.
Like most choreographers, ________ began her career as a ballet dancer. She was in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. A scholar and social activist as well, her choreography was heavily influenced by her travels and interest in the West Indies.
Katherine Dunham
best known for Revelations, an incredible work of choreography that chronicles the history of black Americans and pays tribute to their story through both music and dance. Though he is primarily associated with New York City, during his time in San Francisco, he hobnobbed with another influential African-American artist, the writer Maya Angelou.
Alvin Ailey
What makes Walt Disney’s work different from that of the other filmmakers discussed in this lesson?
He combined live action and animation.
Why was Hitchcock given the title, ‘The Master of Suspense’?
Because he was able to incorporate twisting plots and a fast paced style with clever camera angles.
first film, Citizen Kane, was also his first masterpiece
Orson Welles
His dramatic 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds terrified listeners who thought that the earth was really being attacked by Martians. The stunt earned Welles his first movie contract, and he made good in a hurry. His first film, Citizen Kane, has become a classic. With its unique use of the ‘deep focus’ lens, every aspect of this film stands out vividly, and meaning practically gushes out of each line and scene. Welles created other film masterpieces, too, including Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, and The Magnificent Ambersons.
