Puccini Madama
Prelude [to Act I] of Madama Butterfly?
Could someone please analyze the Prelude [to Act I]* of the opera Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini for me?
I listened and analyzed the first minute or 1:30, but I couldn’t listen to the rest; I don’t know where to find it.
*E soffitto…e pareti…
@mamianka: Mamianka, you need to learn how to read more carefully. You also need to learn how to make less assumptions.
If you read correctly, I stated that I analyzed as much as I could by myself by using a mere preview I found. I could go rant the first minute off if you want me to without using any other answers. I’m telling the truth.
Not only that, I never said that this was homework either.
The opening is a fugal exposition.
The first and second violins begin with the subject in the tonic.
On the upbeat of measure 9, the violas enter in the dominant, along with the the second violins, who now switch voices.
On the upbeat of 2 measures after rehearsal number 1, the cellos and bassoons enter on the tonic, along with the violas, who now switch voices.
On the upbeat of 10 measures after rehearsal number 1, the cellos and bassons switch voices to enter in the dominant, along with the double basses.
The fugal exposition ends at rehearsal number 2.
Here we hear a four-note motif, starting on the dominant, which we shall call the B subject.
On the measure in which the curtain rises, we hear the opening subject again, this time played by the first and second violins in the subdominant and answered by the woodwinds in the subdominant.
At rehearsal number 4, we hear the B subject, likewise a fifth lower than the first time, thereby ending the whole thing on the tonic.
We could call this an ABAB form.
Or, we could call it a sonata movement lacking development.
The first AB portion serves as the exposition.
The second AB porition serves as the recapitulation, but with one slight twist: it’s a subdominant recapitulation.
Could Puccini have borrowed the idea from the Mozart C major sonata K 545?
madame butterfly
