Drive My Car: sexual politics in words and music - Summer 2011

Featured on the 1965 album Rubber Soul, the Beatles’ song “Drive My Car” was co-written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The style looks back to classic rock-n-roll with a modal melody and blue-note inflections, and references Otis Redding’s bass-heavy version of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”[1] Examination of the lyrics as set by Lennon and McCartney shows a dynamic of power being established between the song’s narrator and a “girl.” This power play of the dominant female and the willingly subservient narrator who wishes to join her future plans is written into both the lyrics and the musical elements of the song.

Cosi Fan Tutte: Enlightened Minds versus Enlightened Hearts - Spring 2011

Introduction

Mozart and Da Ponte’s only original libretto features two couples who take a crash course in the School for Lovers. The cast consists of only six characters: two sisters, engaged to two best friends; and two philosophes, who lead the lovers through their 24-hour education. The cast is interconnected by similarities of gender, relationship status, occupation, and age. Mozart’s score and Da Ponte’s libretto delineate further

Le Nozze di Figaro and the issue of identity - Spring 2011

Analysis

As so often in Mozart’s operas, the theme of identity – mistaken, revealed, assumed – is employed and exploited in various ways in The Marriage of Figaro.  The characters deceive or spy on each other in disguise, manipulate the truth through their choice of disguise and revelation, and discover their own uncertainties about their reality.  Confusion is almost a counter theme to this idea: all the characters at some point in the opera are unsure or confused, whether through the agency of other characters or