Music: Opera in Focus: Verdi and Wagner

Course Programme (may be subject to some modification)

1. Predecessors

The first class will look at the pre-existing systems of opera production in which Verdi and Wagner trained, and the main composers who provided foundations for their first works. Each had their own obvious local models, with Verdi drawing on Rossini and Bellini and Wagner on Weber. However the French form of Grand Opera also served as major reference point for both, with the top exponent Meyerbeer himself playing a key role in Wagner’s development in particular. Examples drawn from Rienzi and Les Vêpres Siciliennes will show the common links here.

2. Early work

Here we will explore the main operas with which Verdi and Wagner established their early personal styles: Nabucco and Tannhäuser. The receptions diverge enormously: the former launched Verdi to international acclaim while the latter brought Wagner middling recognition at best. However, there were already signs of affinity between the two, not least in their willingness to liberally blend history and fiction to create something of weighty significance.

3. National concerns

Nationalist revolutions spread across Europe during the middle of the century, especially around 1848 and 1849, and were brutally crushed by the authorities. Both composers were deeply affected by the idea of national unification, which left undeniable traces on works like La Battaglia di Legnano and Lohengrin (to say nothing of Wagner’s output prior to this). The initial failure of the revolutionary efforts impacted on their work as well, with Verdi reluctantly turning to less inflammatory topics in Luisa Miller and Wagner forced into ‘exile’ and focusing his attentions in more literary and theoretical directions.

4. Text and Music

Wagner used the period of exile to start formally setting out his ambitious ideas of a unified work of art, Gesamtkunstwerk. His theoretical ideas about how to create a more continuous form of musical drama in particular, unbroken by the traditional sections of arias and recitatives, was first put into practice in Das Rheingold, and became a primary defining feature of his mature work. But, as this class will show, Verdi was independently striving for something similar, with Rigoletto (premiering in the same year as Wagner’s treatise Opera and Drama) starting to break down the exact same boundaries. 

5. Drama

The vast majority of the output of both composers concerns the weightier kind of plot, featuring doomed love, curses, death, exile, and so on. This class will explore the shared themes in the two composers’ dramatic narratives, with particular focus on the familial element: so many of these operas revolve around the dynamics of parents with their children, and failing or inadequate fathers are a particular point of common ground, as we will see from both Die Walküre and Don Carlos.

6. Comedy

This class will focus on the limited attempts at comedy from the output of both composers. Verdi did not recover from the failure of Un Giorno di Regno until the end of his life with his turn to Falstaff, and Wagner underwent a similar trajectory from Das Liebesverbot to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. We’ll discuss what made both composers so averse to comedic approaches, and how their respective works handle the issue nonetheless.

7. Fame

The early 1870s saw both Wagner and Verdi at the pinnacles of success: the former now had the financial backing to finish his Ring cycle and create a purpose-built theatre for it, while the premiere of the latter’s Aida in Cairo shows the international reach of his reputation. Here we will discuss the fact that such heights of fame for both composers came with the unification of their respective nations, and we will explore the ways they both began rewriting their back histories to fit with the expectations of national icons.

8. Late work

Both composers experienced drops in productivity during the later 1870s as they approached old age. Wagner continued to write both prose and music, but Verdi stopped new work altogether and had to be persuaded (after extensive scheming from his publisher) to begin again. We will discuss the fact that, in spite of some major divergences in their lives at this point, their respective major late works (Otello and Parsifal) actually begin to show even more convergence in musical style than their previous operas.

9. Successors

The final two classes will focus on the afterlives of both composers, starting with the people who took up the challenge of following in their footsteps. We will discuss what Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss (among others) took from their respective forebears, and we will see how even the next generation already had more in common in terms of style and approach than we would normally expect from their different traditions.

10. Legacy

Here we will assess the afterlives of the two composers, in terms of their own reputations among audiences, critics, and musicologists, by turning to earlier works that really define the idea of their opposite styles: La Traviata, and Tristan und Isolde. Each has had a very different critical afterlife, and we will see how these different trajectories have obscured all the similarities that the course has outlined.

Dr Bruno Bower is a lively and enthusiastic tutor whose love of music is infectious. He is a musicologist, performer, composer, and music editor, as well as a highly experienced teacher. He has taught at Cambridge University, University of Surrey, Brunel University, and the Royal College of Music, and his innovative teaching methods have been recognised by Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Alongside his courses at Imperial, he currently teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 

He has written and presented on subjects as diverse as Gilbert and Sullivan, John Cage, and Victorian polymaths, and he is the General Editor for critical editions of music by Peter Gellhorn and Norman O’Neill, as well as editorial consultant on the AHRC-funded ‘Music, Migration and Mobility’ project at the RCM. He is also the principal oboist of West London Sinfonia and the cor anglais player for Chelsea Opera Group.

We asked last year's students to give anonymous feedback and this is what they told us:*

• "Well thought-out and clear."
• "Very very good. Full of infectious enthusiasm!
• "I have recommended Bruno's courses to anyone I know interested in Classical Music."

And overall all adult education students in 2023-2024 rated our courses as excellent with a score of 4.7 out of 5.

Thank you to everyone who completed the annual survey.

Rate Categories and Discounts

Standard Rate

• Available to all except those who fall under the Internal Rate or Associate Rate category.

Internal Rate

• Current Imperial College students and staff (incl. Imperial NHS Trust, Imperial Innovations, ancillary & service staff employed on long-term contracts at Imperial College by third-party contractors)
• People enrolling under our Friends & Family scheme
• Alumni of Imperial College and predecessor colleges and institutes, including City & Guilds College Association members
• Students, staff and alumni of the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Music and City, UAL and the City and Guilds of London Art School
• Students, staff and Governors of Woodhouse College and the IC Mathematics School

Associate Rate

• Austrian Cultural Forum staff
• Co-operative College members
• Francis Crick Institute staff, researchers and students
• Friends and Patrons of the English Chamber Orchestra
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Late enrolment

It is possible to enrol on many of our adult education courses after the course has already started. For non-language courses this is subject entirely to agreement by the tutor. For language courses it is subject to agreement by the language coordinator conducting level assessment. If you want to join a course late do bear in mind there might be work you will need to catch up on, particularly in language courses.

Friends and Family Scheme

This course is eligible for allowing Imperial College students and staff to share their discount with their friends and family.

Enrolment via the blue booking link is open. Early-bird discounts are available until the end of 30 September 2024

Enrolment and payment run through the Imperial College eStore. When enrolling:

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If you have any questions about the academic content or teaching of this course please contact the Course Tutor, Dr Bruno Bower, b.bower@imperial.ac.uk

If you have any questions about your enrolment or payment processes please contact the Programme Administrator, Christian Jacobi, eveningclass@imperial.ac.uk