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Opera in the Late Seventeenth Century

1. Venice
   
   
   1. This city continued to be the main center for Italian opera
      
      
   2. Singers became the main attraction
      
      
      1. Famous singers were highly paid
         
         
      2. Composers began to write arias expressly for specific singers
         
         
   3. Librettists wrote more verses in aria forms, but composers often expanded even brief lines of dialogue into arias as well
      
      
   4. The number of arias in an opera grew from ca. twenty-four in the middle of the century to sixty in the 1670s
      
      
      1. The favorite aria form was strophic
         
         
      2. Also common were two- and three-part arias in forms such as AB, ABB, and ABA
         
         
      3. Many arias had refrains
         
         
   5. Several aria types evolved
      
      
      1. Some borrowed characteristics of instrumental forms, such as marches and gigues
         
         
      2. Bass lines were sometimes ostinatos, and after 1675 running bass lines were common
         
         
      3. Continuo arias were arias with continuo accompaniment, although the orchestra might have had ritornellos
         
         
   6. Venetian opera was exported
      
      
      1. Carlo Pallavicino (1630–1688) was one of many composers who brought Venetian opera to Germany
         
         
      2. Agostino Steffani (1654–1728), one of the best opera composers of his time, worked in Munich and Hanover and influenced later composers (ex. 10.3, Un balen)
         
         
         1. HWM, ex. 10.3, shows the coloratura passages and modest dimensions of his style
            
            
         2. Typical features of the period are a motto beginning, in which the voice announces a short subject that will be developed later in the aria, and the running-bass accompaniment
            
            
2. Naples
   
   
   1. This city was home to the new style that would become predominant
      
      
   2. Composers in Naples were more concerned with musical elegance and intrinsic effect and less with the drama
      
      
   3. Recitatives were short and expressed quick changes of feeling in two styles:
      
      
      1. Recitativo semplice was more speechlike, conveying dialogue or monologue with only basso continuo accompaniment
         
         
      2. Recitativo obbligato (later also called recitativo accompagnato or strumento) emphasized tense moments in the drama and was accompanied by the orchestra, which portrayed and reinforced the emotions
         
         
      3. Recitativo arioso (aria-like recitative) was a blend of recitative and aria
         
         
   4. Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725)
      
      
      1. Favored the da capo aria
         
         
         1. Da capo means "to the head," the words at the close of the second section that tell the performers to repeat the first section
            
            
         2. Used for contrasting two sentiments
            
            
      2. Example: NAWM 66, Mi rivedi from La Griselda (1721)
         
         
         1. The "A" section portrays Griselda's dejection after being sent home by her husband, King Gualtiero (You see me again . . . shepherdess) in C minor
            
         2. The "B" section portrays her joy at returning home (Yet there is . . . the same), modulating from C minor to E-flat major
            
            
         3. An opening ritornello is not repeated before the return to the "A" section (repeat of "A" section is indicated as "Dal segno" instead of da capo)
            
            
         4. A ritornello also closes the aria
            
            
         5. This form of the da capo aria was popular in the 1720s
            
            
3. France
   
   
   1. Although Italian operas were produced in France, French genres of staged music evolved separately
      
      
   2. French national traditions
      
      
      1. Ballet had flourished since Ballet comique de la reine (1581)
         
         
      2. Classical French tragedy, such as works by Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) and Jean Racine (1639–1699), demanded that poetry and drama be given priority on stage
         
         
      3. Court ballet was a substantial musical work
         
         
         1. Some portions were danced
            
            
         2. Solo récits similar in style to the air de cour were sung by nondancers
            
            
         3. Polyphonic choruses opened each act
            
            
         4. At the end of the evening the leading nobility, including the king, took part in a grand ballet
            
            
   3. Louis XIV
      
      
      1. Danced in professional ballets and played the guitar as a young man
         
         
      2. Continued to dance in public after ascending the throne
         
         
      3. Created the Royal Academy of Dance in 1661 (see vignette in HWM)
         
         
   4. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687)
      
      
      1. Biography
         
         
         1. Born in Italy, came to Paris at the age of fourteen
            
            
         2. Member of King Louis XIV's vingt-quatre violons du roy (the twenty-four member string orchestra of the king)
            
            
         3. In 1672 became the virtual musical dictator of France when his Académie Royale de Musique was granted a monopoly on sung drama
            
            
      2. Composed instrumental dance pieces to be added to Italian operas
         
         
      3. Also composed overtures, dances, and vocal numbers for court ballets
         
         
      4. Invented the genre, comédie-ballet, a play with dances and songs
         
         
         1. Example: NAWM 67, Ballet des nations from Le bourgeois gentilhomme (1670)
            
            
         2. Scored for five-part string orchestra
            
            
         3. Characters from the commedia dell'arte tradition
            
            
         4. Entrée
            
            
            1. an allemande
               
               
            2. accompanies the entrance of the dancers
               
               
            3. Dotted rhythms, characteristic of the French overture
               
               
         5. Chaconne, a dance form from Latin America
            
            
            1. Usually based on a pattern of chords in major mode
               
               
            2. This example also has a ground bass
               
               
      5. Lully's sung dramas
         
         
         1. To libretti on mythological plots by Jean-Philippe Quinault
            
            
         2. Frequent long interludes with dancing and choral singing, popular with French audiences
            
            
         3. Dances from the sung dramas so popular they were often arranged into suites
            
            
         4. Recitative in the French language was difficult, but Lully adapted it as récitatif simple, using shifting meter to declaim the dialogue and récitatif mesuré, which was more songlike, for example, NAWM 68b, Armide (1686)
            
            
            1. The orchestra introduces the scene
               
               
            2. Armide finds she is unable to kill Renaud, who had freed her captives, because she has fallen in love with him
               
               
            3. The recitative is in mixed duple and triple measures, allowing accented syllables to fall on downbeats
               
               
            4. An air (aria) follows the recitative
               
               
      6. French ouverture, a two-part movement before ballets, was established by Lully and used by other composers for the rest of the Baroque era
         
         
         1. The first section is slow and stately, with a homophonic texture, and marked by dotted rhythms
            
            
         2. The second section is faster, with some fugal imitation but with a serious character
            
            
         3. Example: NAWM 68a, Armide (Overture)
            
            
            1. Each section is repeated, in keeping with the genre's origin as an allemande
               
               
            2. Five-part string orchestra, based on the twenty-four violins of the king
               
               
               1. One "violin"
                  
                  
               2. Alto and tenor "violins" tuned like modern violas
                  
                  
               3. Bass violins tuned a step lower than the modern cello
                  
                  
               4. Sometimes two oboes and a bassoon also played with the orchestra
                  
                  
   5. Lully's followers in France
      
      
      1. Continued to compose his style of opera
         
         
      2. Incorporated some Italian features, such as da capo arias
         
         
      3. Expanded the scenes of the divertissement into the opera-ballet (e.g., L'Europe galante by André Campra)
         
         
4. England
   
   
   1. Masque was an aristocratic entertainment similar to French court ballet
      
      
      1. Milton's Comus (1634) with music by Henry Lawes (1596–1662) is the best known
         
         
      2. Cupid and Death (1653) with music by Matthew Locke and Christopher Gibbons included many dances, songs, and choruses
         
         
   2. Stage plays without music were banned 1649–60, making opera more appealing, but most of these were plays with music (semi-operas). After the Restoration (1660), interest in staged music declined
      
      
   3. John Blow (1649–1708)
      
      
      1. An organist and composer for Westminster Abbey and the Royal Chapel
         
         
      2. His masque (really an opera), Venus and Adonis, combines Italian cantata with French and English styles
         
         
   4. Henry Purcell (1659–1695) was a student of Blow and held posts in London
      
      
      1. His output includes sacred choral music and some instrumental music
         
         
      2. Dido and Aeneas (1689) was composed for a girls' boarding school
         
         
         1. The libretto is an adaptation of Vergil's Aeneid
            
            
         2. The work has four principal roles plus a small orchestra (strings and continuo)
            
            
         3. It is in three acts, taking up only about one hour
            
            
         4. It begins with a French overture in the style of Lully
            
            
         5. Choruses intermingle with solos
            
            
         6. Recitatives are sensitive to English text declamation
            
            
         7. Arias (e.g., NAWM 69, When I am laid in earth) are on a ground bass
            
            
            1. Preceded by recitative with a stepwise descent to portray impending death
               
               
            2. Dido's aria (lament) sung over a descending ground bass line, a technique associated with laments in Italian opera
               
               
            3. Followed by a chorus, With drooping Wings, using the descending figure again
               
               
      3. Incidental music
         
         
         1. Purcell wrote instrumental music for forty-nine plays
            
            
         2. Some of Purcell's incidental music for plays was so extensive that the result is an opera in the English sense
            
            
         3. Examples are The Fairy Queen (1692), The Indian Queen (1695), and The Tempest (1695)
            
            
   5. After Purcell, English audiences preferred the products of foreign composers and no national tradition of opera developed
      
      
5. Germany
   
   
   1. Hamburg opera (1678–1738)
      
      
      1. The first public opera house outside Venice
         
         
      2. Most productions translations or imitations of Italian operas
         
         
   2. Singspiel ("sing-play"), the German version of opera, using spoken dialogue instead of recitative
      
      
      1. When composers wrote recitative, it was in Italian style
         
         
      2. Arias were influenced by both French and Italian styles
         
         
      3. Strophic songs in popular German styles also sometimes appeared
         
         
   3. Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739) wrote more than a hundred operas for Hamburg
      
      
      1. His style incorporated both Italian and German elements
         
         
      2. His librettos were similar to those of Venetian opera
         
         
      3. His more virtuoso arias were even more brilliant than Venetian arias
         
         
      4. His slower arias were broad and expressive, but not like Italian bel canto
         
         
      5. He favored polyphonic textures for accompaniments
         
         
      6. He also set farces to music, which point to the beginnings of German comic opera
         
         

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