This lecture focuses on opera and the operatic voice, from the Romantic period to the present. Professor Wright integrates a discussion of one of the most often-performed and famous operas in the Western canon, Verdi's La Traviata, with a discussion of vocal performance practice. For the latter, he uses recordings of singers from the early to late twentieth century as examples of different types of voices and the ways in which aesthetic values about the voice have changed throughout the past hundred years.

Reading assignment:

Wright, Craig. Listening to Music, chapters 26-28