Music- Project Proposal
The purpose of this assignment is to get you started on your semester-long opera project and to demonstrate your incipient understanding of the conventions and possibilities of the operatic form. In no more than 350 carefully chosen words, please propose an existing story to turn into an opera and defend your choice.
Good operatic stories have been made from many different types of source material, including:
- Ancient myths (Monteverdi, Orpheus)
- Historical events (Donizetti, Anne Boleyn)
- Folklore (Rossini, Cinderella)
- Spoken plays (Verdi, Othello)
- Short stories (Bizet, Carmen)
- Novels (Heggie, Moby Dick)
- Movies (Previn, Brief Encounter)
- Television shows (Thomas and Lee, Jerry Springer: The Opera)
The best proposals will be those that clearly explain (with at least one detailed example) why the elements of the chosen story would make for effective musical drama.
A more detailed assessment rubric is as follows:
A successful proposal is one that:
a. Clearly identifies a piece of source material
b. Succinctly provides reasons for its choice
c. Explains how at least one scene could make for effective musical drama
d. Is written in clear and error-free prose
Please upload your proposal by pasting its text into the submission box provided in the "Assignments" section of our course Blackboard page.