Dancing Through Opera History 1791-1901
Jan 18 '06 (Updated Feb 14 '06)
The Bottom Line Here we go again.
Beguine with Bellini
After Mozart pushed up the daisies in his unmarked pauper's grave, opera, along with much of Europe, had a bit of an upheaval. Unlike the French monarchy, not many opera composers lost their heads.
However the revolutionary ideals lead to a new form of opera- the rescue opera- where some hapless soul is rescued through human courage and idealism. This was a largely French form, yet the finest rescue opera is Beethoven's (1770-1827) Fidelio of 1805.
Generally however, after the exertions of Mozart Germany took a little rest from making waves in the operatic paddling pool with Fidelio and Weber's Der Freischutz being the only real lasting contributions, and cumbersome (though musically wonderful) singspiels at that.
The opera world's focus returned to Italy, with the development of bel canto, literally, beautiful singing which luxuriated in the beauty that the human voice can produce. Much of the repertoire nowadays is dismissed as endlessly pretty vocal lines regardless of any dramaturgical requirements in the inane libretto (libretto took a bit of a step backwards from Mozart's work with Da Ponte at this point). For many folk today, the ideals of bel canto can seem as artificial as bonsai or equestrian dressage and about as exciting.
Bel canto had three main composers, and all of them were Italian and they were the beginning of Italy's dominance of mainstream opera for just over a century, despite being perceived by the French as musically shallow and being despised by the Germans for being, well, Italians.
Donizetti (1797-1848) was one of the most versatile of the bel canto composers, being equally proficient in comedy (Don Pasquale) and high melodrama (Lucia di Lammermoor). Donizetti is an interesting chap, being one of the few great opera composers universally considered a nice guy, but his operas fell out of fashion almost the day after he died until the bel canto revival in the 1950s spearheaded by superstars like Callas and Sutherland who loved the opportunities bel canto music provided to show off in this new fangled recording industry. Donizetti himself never wrote for prosperity, and shortly before his death at age 51 he told people he was more than happy for his operas to die with him, as long as this young fellow named Verdi took over the Italian opera scene. He also wrote incredibly quickly- 73 operas- and, famously, when told that Rossini wrote Barber of Seville in just two (or three weeks, depending who is telling the story) he replied- "Ah, but I always knew Rossini was lazy."
Rossini (1792-1868) is my favourite of the bel canto school, with his mad knockabout farces. When he tried writing tragic drama it was never as successful, and when he tried writing for the Grand Opera (William Tell) the results could be dire- despite some occasional flashes of his talent. He was a supersonic worker but also followed his own strict formula, particular in the layout of his first acts. His two greatest comic operas- The Barber of Seville and Cenerentola (Cinderella) are still beloved by audiences today (despite him befalling the same fate as Donizetti until the 1920s). Mozart got the ball rolling with his ensemble writing, but Rossini picked up and ran to the touchdown with his dynamic (and often hysterically fast) confusion ensembles that still bring a smile to the face today (and inspire terror in the breathless singers that have to perform them). This was largely due to a uniquely Rossini device known as the Rossini Crescendo (crescendo means 'gradually getting louder' and is a common music marking) where he would pile line on top of line at ever increasing speed and volume until it exploded into glorious confusion. Rossini retired at 33, as one of the most wealthy composers the world has ever seen.
Bellini (1801-1835) wrote just ten operas- one for each year of his too-short professional life- quite startling when compared to his contemporaries who'd churn them out on a monthly basis. The beauty of Bellini (which is known in Italy as bellinissimo) is in his vocal lines. His choice of librettos are inane and his orchestration is bland, often falling back on a mere oom-pah-pah even in moments of great tragedy but he could spin out a vocal phrase like no one else could. His great triumphs were Norma and La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) which became signature roles of Callas and Sutherland respectively, and as such it is a brave (or foolhardy) soprano who'll tackle them today meaning Bellini has sort of unintentionally slipped from the repertoire. Bellini was, perhaps surprisingly, much admired by other composer including, even more surprisingly, Wagner. He was also one of the first truly 'Romantic' composers (romantic in the sense of the artistic movement)- he considered himself much more of a creative artist than opera composers had been previously in the role of artist/impresario/businessman. He did give his name to a wonderful peach-based cocktail, so it's not all bad news.
The bel canto school was also the end of the day in the sun for the baritone- after a few good years playing heroes they were now villains, fathers and pals as the tenor shifted into the leading roles (sopranos meanwhile were, and still are, unchallenged in the leading female stakes). Conductors were now a separate and important figure- Mozart, for example, conducted whilst playing the harpsichord. Orchestras were not only getting bigger, trombones and harps were starting to appear, but the writing was getting more detailed (with the exception of Bellini). Donizetti and Rossini both worked with strings providing a solid backing for the vocal line, with the woodwind providing florid decoration and accents, often with wonderful (and slightly frightening for the player) exposed solos which really made the opera pit woodwind sit up and work.
Some Stuff to Listen To:
Donizetti and Rossini are generally the more approachable of the opera composers- Bellini is more an acquired taste (and I admit I'm not quite there yet). Of Donizetti, I always prefer his comedies- Don Pasquale and The Elixir of Love over his melodramas, of which Lucia di Lammemoor is considered the greatest.
Rossini is beloved by opera novices for his catchy tunes and brilliant comic timing in both stagecraft and composition. The Barber of Seville should have a home in any CD collection (a high quality excerpts CD is a good idea- a lot of the recitative is dull, dull, dull). However his two other great comedies- The Italian Girl in Algiers and Cenerentola are also worth a listen after the Barber. His overtures are also fantastic- each of the comic operas above in addition to La Gazza Ladra and, of course, the William Tell overture (really the only good bit in the five hour opera that it was written for).
Bossa Nova with Berlioz
Over in Paris, the Grand Opera was becoming a genre in its own, heavily pursued by Meyerbeer (1791-1864) and Berlioz (1803-1869). Meyerbeer held Grand Opera in his iron fist and made his preferred format the rulebook- five long acts, lots of stage spectacle (he was fond of blowing up the stage) and most importantly the ballet (more for its soft porn aspect than any artistic concern). When Wagner opened Tannhauser in Paris it created an uproar for its ballet being in the wrong place. Sadly for dramatic progress, the ballet convention for the Paris Opera lasted well until the turn of the century, leading to a lot of insipid ballet music which does little except put a giant hold on the plot and action of an opera. Gluck inserted ballet into opera to serve a dramatic purpose, however Grand Opera inherited this and turned it into a soft porn spectacle and a chance for the costume designer to make some pretty frocks regardless of what opera was being performed.
The success of the Grand Opera- and despite loathing it every composer of the 19th Century wanted a hit in Paris for the dosh alone- is one of the best indicators that by the nineteenth century opera had become the cinema of the time and by no means the sole preserve of the nobility any longer.
Interestingly, especially considering folk like Andrew Lloyd Webber are descended directly from it, you'd be hard pressed to find Grand Opera on any stage today. It is built for forces simply too uneconomical for today's companies for starters, but also for spectacle people now go to the movies, not the opera. Also, a lot of the music (with some Berlioz exceptions) has not aged well. However it did give us the wonderfully decadent Paris Opera, designed by Garnier, which despite its somewhat overwhelming opulence is still one of the most magnificent opera houses in the world.
Some Stuff to Listen To:
Grand Opera is badly out of fashion, despite the occasional 'BERLIOZ RENAISSANCE!!!' which is trumpeted by the musical press around a revival of his work every few years then promptly dies a quick and quiet death. As opera companies begin to dwindle both in size and budget, Grand Opera in its current form is only going to become rarer and rarer. Only the biggest houses- in budget and stage size- can really afford to do it, such as the Met in New York. Without the onstage volcanos and Atlantis crumbling into the orchestra pit, most Grand Opera isn't worth your time.
Opera would now take its biggest split yet between Italy and Germany (Paris would continue to fart around with Grand Opera, whilst London would import whatever was the rage at the time). In the Italian Camp was Verdi, in the German Camp was Wagner. Wagner is so big a subject he'll be tackled in the next thrilling installment, so let's hit up Verdi instead.
Varsoviana with Verdi
(a Varsoviana was a mid nineteenth-century slow dance popular at balls, and supposedly Polish in style)
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) totally dominated the Italian opera scene for his entire professional life, knocking out hit after hit after hit (28 operas in all), many of which are still performed with regularity today. He took the ideas of the bel canto school to exciting (and often melodramatic) new places, but it was also a case of being in the right place at the right time. In his heyday, Verdi stood for a unified Italy and his name became an acronym- Viva Emanuele Re d'Italia- for those rallying the cause of a unified nation. For reasons not understandable to us, removed by history, his music managed to speak to the diverse Italian population in a way like no music ever had before. He was also more impresario than romantic fop Bellini, maintaining total control over his productions, and travelling all over Europe to see them, which also meant that by the time he died in 1901 he was amazingly wealthy.
When he did die, he received the biggest state funeral Italy had ever thrown, hundreds of thousands of Italians lined the streets to see his cortege then burst into the Slave Chorus from Verdi's first hit- Nabucco- the famous Va' pensiero. Legend has it that after an initial success, then flop, the 27year old Verdi was plunged into depression by the death of not only his wife, but his children from illness. On his desk was the libretto for Nabucco, and in the absolute depth of his depression, he was looking at the front cover when a breeze blew open the script at the words for the Slave Chorus and inspiration hit Verdi.
From 1842-1853 he worked like the wind, pushing out sixteen operas. These works were more in the bel canto tradition but began to show the hints of something even more despite the generally terrible stories (Attila, Ernani). There was then a big slow-down for Verdi with only six operas in the next eighteen years- but what corkers they were. This is when Verdi entered National Hero Status, and opera leapt forward even more- becoming more flowing with arias flowing seamlessly from the drama without pause, recitative was now like a simpler, clearer aria in itself (no more harpsichords!) and vocal fireworks were always there for a dramatic purpose. From this period we get the most popular of Verdi's works- La traviata, Rigoletto and the wonderful despite an incomprehensible libretto Il trovatore. Trov aside, this was the best time for the Verdi stories as he used Victor Hugo (Rig), Dumas (Trav) and Shakespeare (Macbeth).
He then entered his third period- his most epic to date- which ended with grand Aida of 1871. His libretto however went backwards to the complicated and banal. Musically however, he'd leapt to another plane in conveying drama through music with works like Don Carlos, Un ballo in maschera and Simon Boccanegra. After Aida, Verdi didn't write anything for sixteen years, but travelled Europe keeping tabs on his productions and counting his money. But then a sudden burst of creativity shortly before his death resulted in the clever and complex, and again musically light years ahead of what he'd done, Otello and his only comedy- Falstaff (and he returned to the good stories- with Shakespeare providing Othello and the Merry Wives of Windsor respectively). By this time the music was non-stop, the drama moved continuously and there was none of the stop-start-stop form of recitative-aria-ensemble left whatsoever.
From the very beginning of his output, Verdi also discovered something else quite revolutionary, in that the bunch of people loitering around upstage could actually service a greater purpose in the drama. The Chorus had been around since Monteverdi, where it was more or less exactly the Greek Chorus ideal, and in Mozart's operas they're usually only onstage for about ten minutes out of three hours, but suddenly Verdi made his chorus work for their money. They didn't take this entirely kindly. The Chorus, along with the orchestra, was suddenly becoming its own important entity in opera and now chorus members actually may need to act and spend a lot more time learning the notes and words.
This is something that is still resisted by many choruses around the world. The Paris Opera chorus still moves in a single body, comes onstage and sings without having many physical demands. By contrast, over at the English National Opera they positively flutter with hyperactive over-acting.
Unlike his much-loathed contemporary Wagner (more on him next time), Verdi never made much of a big deal of the orchestra. They were just there, second to the drama onstage. However by the time he was writing his last few operas, as opposed to the helter-skelter early period where the ink on the second flute part would still be wet on opening night- his orchestration was masterly in its own discreet way.
Verdi's other great contribution to the world of opera in general was being an iron-fisted tyrant in rehearsal. Italian Opera had the reputation of being a little slipshod, due to the high turnover of new work being demanded by the public, with under-rehearsed singers and re-using sets and costumes with little attention to whatever work was being performed. Singers often didn't bother learning all the words, instead sometimes making them up as they went along. Verdi screamed, swore, stamped and sometimes hit his performers into submission- demanding they not only learn their part thoroughly but study the entire full score to understand the dramatic and musical scope of the entire opera (a concept completely foreign at the time, still treated with suspicion by certain singers today). It must have made an impression, as lost amongst the cello players at the premier of Otello was a young Arturo Toscanini- who would become the twentieth century's first megastar conductor and infamous for his Verdi-esque tantrums.
Following Mozart, Verdi joins the pantheon of the Three Great Men of Opera. Unlike Mozart, he has never gone out of fashion and it is a brave major opera company in the world today who doesn't program at least one Verdi winner in their season.
Some Stuff to Listen To:
Verdi wrote some of the biggest tunes in opera, and many of them are well known even to people who've never set foot inside an opera house. Verdi once famously said that if he were an amateur, La traviata would be his favourite opera, but if he were a professional it would be Rigoletto. Aida is beloved of stadium promoters around the world and Otello is a role beloved of tenors of a certain age.
Some of the hit tunes worth a look which I can think of off the top of my head:
From Aida there is the Triumphal March and Celeste Aida.
From La traviata there is the robust drinking song known as the Brindisi, and the heroine's soprano showpiece Sempre libera.
Rigoletto has the chest-thumping testosterone tenor aria La donna e mobile and the beautiful soprano favourite Caro nom.
Il trovatore may have one of the silliest stories around, even by Verdi's standards, but it's the home to the beloved Anvil Chorus.
In Otello there is Iago's sinister Credo and its dramatic finale when Otello discovers that he has killed the woman he loves.
Some Dancing Partners
Voice Types are explained in that handy-dandy link.
Part One of this thrilling series is just there, waiting for your sweaty-fingered click.
As is Part Three and Part Four
Part Five
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