The Unknown Puccini *Online* *NEW*

Giacomo Puccini is among the most famous opera composers; four of his works are most beloved and often produced in the repertory. But many Puccini operas, all from his prime, are rarely done; even devoted operagoers may never have heard them. These include Fanciulladel West, La Rondine, and Suor Angelica. In this course, we’ll listen to – and watch – these three operas carefully, asking the question: are these overlooked masterpieces as glorious as, say, Boheme or Turandot? Or are there ways in which they fall short of the more famous works which account for their relative obscurity Instructor: Michael Frank

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Instructor

Mike Frank holds a PhD in literary theory from Cornell, but his interests extend to questions of interpretation and aesthetic analysis in literary and musical texts. He has taught writing and literature at Cornell, Williams, U. of Chicago, and Oberlin, and established the cinema studies program at Bentley where he also taught the BSO oriented music course that’s the model for some of his CCAE classes. A central preoccupation of his work is the relationship between formal analysis of artworks and the kinds of satisfaction they provide for actual audiences.