Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Abstract

This thesis examines how opera functioned as a medium for articulating and negotiating national identity in the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Focusing on Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa (1904) and Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (1911), it explores how composers employed dramatic structure, linguistic choice, and musical language to construct culturally specific forms of expression within a rapidly shifting political and social landscape. Drawing on approaches from musicology and cultural history, the study considers how operatic works not only reflect national identity but actively participate in its formation.

Through analysis of libretto, language, and musical style, this thesis demonstrates that both Janáček and Bartók grounded their operatic idioms in folk traditions, vernacular speech patterns, and cultural practices of Central Europe. In Jenůfa, Janáček’s use of Moravian dialect, speech-melody, and village-centered narrative embeds identity within everyday social experience. In contrast, Bluebeard’s Castle employs a stylized, symbolist Hungarian idiom in which identity is expressed through psychological and allegorical means, supported by a musical language shaped by the structural principles of peasant music. Despite these differences, both works reveal the extent to which language and music function as interconnected systems of meaning in opera. By integrating folk-derived elements into text and score, Janáček and Bartók demonstrate how opera could serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural expression in early twentieth-century Central Europe.

Year of Submission

2026

Degree Name

Master of Music

Department

School of Music

First Advisor

Melinda Boyd

Date Original

2026

Object Description

1 PDF file (v, 64 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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