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Chapter
14
The Invention of Opera
Outline
  1. Forerunners of Opera
    1. Opera (Italian for "work") defined
      1. Union of versified play (Italian libretto, "little book"), drama, and music
      2. Continuous or near-continuous singing
      3. Staged, with scenery, costumes, and action
    2. Renaissance antecedents
      1. Pastoral drama
        1. Play in verse, interspersed with incidental music and songs
        2. Stories of idyllic love in rural settings
        3. First staged in 1471: Favola d'Orfeo (The Orpheus Legend)
        4. The earliest opera composers borrowed heavily from this genre.
      2. Madrigal
        1. Solo madrigals and madrigal cycles had simple plots and expressed emotion.
        2. Best-known was L'Amfiparnaso (The Slopes of Parnassus, 1594) by Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605).
      3. Intermedio (pl. intermedii) was the most direct antecedent.
        1. Musical entrtainment before, after, and between the acts of plays
        2. There were usually six for each play.
        3. Subjects were pastoral, allegorical, or mythological.
        4. For special occasions they could be very elaborate, including chorus, dance numbers, costumes, and staged effects.
      4. Intermedi for La pellegrina (The Pilgrim Woman)
        1. Spectacular intermedi created for the 1589 wedding in Florence of Grand Duke Ferdinand de' Medici of Tuscany and Christine of Lorraine (see HWM Figure 14.1)
        2. Several artists worked on this production that would be involved in the earliest operas.
          1. Emilio de' Cavalieri, composer and choreographer
          2. Ottavio Rinuccini, poet
          3. Jacopo Peri, singer-composer
          4. Giulio Caccini, singer-composer
        3. Florentine count Giovanni de' Bardi conceived of the unifying theme—the power of ancient Greek music.
        4. The music was elaborate (see HWM Example 14.1).
        5. Vittoria Archilei was a featured singer (see HWM Figure 14.2).
    3. Greek tragedy as the model
      1. Scholars put their theories of music's role into practice.
      2. Andrea Gabrieli set only the choruses for Oedipus Rex (1585), using a homophonic declamatory style.
      3. Giralamo Mei (1589-1594)
        1. He believed that all the text was sung.
        2. He concluded that Greek music consisted of a single melody sung by a soloist or a chorus with or without accompaniment.
      4. The Florentine Camerata
        1. A group of scholars in Florence who discussed literature, science, and the arts.
        2. The host was Count Bardi.
        3. Members included Vincenzo Galilei (ca. 1520-1591), theorist and composer, son of the famous astronomer, and Giulio Caccini (ca. 1550-1618).
      5. Vincenzo Galilei's Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna (Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music, 1581)
        1. Argued against counterpoint and madrigalisms
        2. The solo melody was ideal for emotional expression.
        3. The term for accompanied vocal melodies of this era, including the type described by Galilei, is monody.
      6. Caccini's Le nuove musiche (1602)
        1. Collection of songs (arias) in monody and solo madrigals
        2. The introduction describes ornaments and their use.
        3. Ornamentation enhances the message of the text.
      7. Example: Vedrò 'l mio sol (NAWM 67 and HWM Figure 13.9)
        1. This madrigal from Le nuove musiche was premiered in Bardi's Camerata.
        2. The accompaniment is a basso continuo containing one of the earliest examples of figured bass.
        3. Each line of poetry is set as a separate phrase ending in a cadence.
        4. The melody is shaped to the natural declamation of the text.
        5. Ornaments enhance the message of the text.
  2. The First Musical Stage Works
    1. Dafne (1598)
      1. Poetry by Ottavio Rinuccini, music by singer-composer Jacopo Peri (see HWM Figure 14.3)
      2. Premiered at the palace of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602), who hosted the Camerata after Bardi moved to Rome
      3. Only fragments of the music survive.
    2. Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo (Representation of the Soul and Body, 1600)
      1. A musical morality play
      2. Music by Emilio de' Cavalieri
      3. Longer than any previous staged musical work
  3. L'Euridice (1600)
    1. Creation
      1. Music by Peri, libretto by Rinuccini, and directed by Cavalieri
      2. Produced for the wedding of Maria de' Medici and King Henry IV of France
      3. Caccini also set this libretto to music.
        1. Caccini's setting is more melodious and lyrical.
        2. Peri considered his setting to be better suited for drama.
        3. Some of Caccini's music was sung in the production of Peri's version.
      4. The settings by Peri and Caccini are the earliest surviving complete operas.
    2. The story demonstrates music's power to move the emotions.
      1. Orfeo (Orpheus) causes denizens of the underworld to weep through his music.
      2. He persuades the underworld to restore his wife, Euridice, to life.
    3. Recitative style (see HWM Source Reading, page 314, HWM Example 14.2, and NAWM 68b).
      1. Peri invented a new idiom later known as recitative.
        1. A speech-song that was halfway between oratory and song
        2. Notes of the basso continuo are held while the voice moves freely through consonances and dissonances.
        3. The voice simulates the free declamation of poetry.
        4. Consonances occur on all stressed syllables.
      2. HWM Example 14.2 shows that Peri violates the rules of counterpoint in order to create a speech-like effect.
    4. Types of monody in Peri's L'Euridice
      1. Aria (NAWM 68a)
        1. Strophic form
        2. Tuneful and rhythmic
        3. Introduced by a brief sinfonia, an ensemble piece that serves as a prelude
        4. The ritornello (Italian for "small return") is an instrumental refrain that follows each stanza.
        5. In this aria, the ritornello echoes the sinfonia.
      2. Recitative (NAWM 68b)
        1. The bass chords have no rhythmic profile.
        2. The voice imitates the inflections and rhythms of poetic speech.
        3. Peri heightens the expressivity of the recitative at dramatic moments through the use of rests, dissonances, chromaticism, and unusual harmonic progressions.
  4. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607)
    1. The first work to show the full potential of opera (see HWM Biography, page 317, and HWM Figure 14.4)
    2. Creation
      1. Commissioned for performance in Mantua
      2. Striggio is the librettist.
        1. The subject is the same as in L'Euridice.
        2. He organized the drama into five acts, each centered around a song by Orfeo and ending with a chorus that comments on the situation.
    3. Monteverdi specified instruments in his score.
      1. Recorders, cornetts, trumpets, trombones, strings, and continuo
      2. A regal, a buzzy-sounding reed organ, portrays the underworld.
    4. Monody styles
      1. Arias are strophic, but strophes are varied to reflect the text (strophic variation).
      2. Recitative style varies depending on the situation in the drama.
    5. Ensembles and choruses provide contrast, with ritornellos as division points.
    6. Structure of Act II (see HWM Figure 14.5)
      1. It begins with a series of cheerful celebrations (e.g., NAWM 69a, Orfeo's strophic aria).
      2. The tonality changes to Aeolian (A minor) when a messenger delivers news of Euridice's death from a snake bite (NAWM 69c).
      3. Joy and grief alternate as Orfeo's companions continue celebrating, not having heard the news.
      4. The messenger's melody recurs as a refrain throughout the act.
    7. Orfeo's lament (NAWM 69d, HWM Example 14.4)
      1. It begins with expressions of grief, por­trayed by built-up phrases and dissonances.
      2. It ends with Orfeo's resolve to retrieve Euridice from the underworld, portrayed by the descending line.
  5. Monteverdi's Later Works
    1. L'Arianna
      1. Commissioned by Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in 1608
      2. Only a fragment survives, Arianna's Lament.
      3. Staged in other cities after its premiere (as was L'Orfeo)
    2. Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (The Combat of Tancred and Clorinda, 1624)
      1. Narrative poem with music for singing and mime, accompanied by strings with continuo
      2. Most of the narration is sung by tenor in recitative.
      3. The tenor and soprano mime to their short speeches and the narrative.
      4. Instrumental interludes suggest action (e.g., horses and sword fighting).
      5. Passages in stile concitato (excited style), which uses repeated notes to convey agitation (this technique would be widely imitated by others)
    3. Operas for public theaters in Venice
      1. Ritorno d'Ulisse (Return of Ulysses, 1640), based on Homer's Odyssey
      2. L'Incoronazione di Poppea (Coronation of Poppea, 1643)
        1. Based on a historical subject, Roman emperor Nero's second marriage, rather than myth
        2. Often considered Monteverdi's masterpiece because of its expressiveness
        3. NAWM 70, a scene in which Poppea pleads with Nero to stay with her, shifts between simple recitative, aria, and a style midway between them, recitativo arioso, or arioso.
  6. Spread of Italian Opera
    1. Florence after L'Euridice
      1. The court preferred ballets and intermedii for celebrations of important events.
      2. Francesca Caccini (1587-ca. 1645): La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcine, 1625)
        1. She was the highest-paid musician employed by the grand duke of Tuscany.
        2. Daughter of Guilio, she sang with her sister and stepmother in a concerto delle donne rivaling that of Ferrara (see HWM Chapter 11).
        3. Now considered an opera, it was originally billed as a ballet.
        4. Musical elements include an opening sinfonia, recitatives, arias, choruses, instrumental ritornellos, and chorus.
        5. The staging was elaborate (see HWM Figure 14.6).
    2. Rome became the center for opera development in the 1620s.
      1. The range of topics expanded to include epics, saints' lives, and comedy.
      2. Stage effects were spectacular (e.g., flames consuming devils).
      3. Recitative and aria became more clearly defined.
        1. Recitative became more speechlike.
        2. Arias became melodious and were usually strophic.
      4. Other musical elements
        1. Vocal ensembles
        2. Extended finales for each act, including choral singing and dancing
      5. Two-part instrumental sinfonias introduced the operas.
        1. The first part is a slow chordal section.
        2. The second part is a lively imitative canzona.
        3. This two-part form became standard for the opening movements of seventeenth-century opera.
      6. Castrato singers
        1. Men who had been castrated before puberty sang treble parts in church because women were not permitted to sing in church.
        2. In Rome, women were not permitted on stage, so castrati sang the treble roles.
        3. Castrati later sang outside of Italy as well, but only in male roles.
    3. Venice
      1. The first public theaters
        1. 1637: Teatro San Cassiano opened as the first public opera house.
        2. By 1678, there were nine stages devoted to opera.
        3. Visitors who celebrated carnival season from December 26 to Lent attended operas in public theaters.
      2. Librettos
        1. Stories for librettos were chosen for their dramatic content and opportunity for special effects.
        2. Sources for plots included mythology, classic epics, and Roman history.
        3. A three-act structure replaced the earlier five-act convention.
        4. Choruses and dances were limited due to financial constraints.
      3. Musical style
        1. Recitative and aria became further delineated.
        2. Arias became very lyrical, with persistent rhythmic motives and simple harmonies.
        3. There were more arias per act.
      4. The main composers were Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) and Antonio Cesti (1623-1669).
      5. Singers commanded high fees and had music written especially for them (see HWM Innovation: The Operatic Diva, pages 324-5, and HWM Figure 14.8).
    4. Italian opera abroad
      1. Italian operas were performed in Paris in the 1640s.
      2. No known performance of Italian opera in England in the seventeenth century, but a copy of a Cavalli opera reached England
      3. Austria became a major center of Italian opera.
        1. Cesti composed operas for the archduke of Tyrol and for the imperial court at Vienna.
        2. 1654: Venetian-style opera house built for the archduke of Tyrol
        3. Cesti's most famous opera, Il pomo d'oro (The Golden Apple, 1667), was performed at the emperor's wedding in Vienna.
    5. Italian opera at midcentury
      1. Many style features established during this era would remain standard for Italian opera over the next two hundred years.
        1. Concentration on solo singing
        2. Separation of recitative and aria
        3. Use of varied styles
        4. Singers and spectacle replaced drama as the focus of interest.
      2. Cesti's Orontea
        1. Composed in 1656 for Innsbruck
        2. Popular throughout Italy and German-speaking lands
        3. The plot concerns love at first sight across social levels, not myth or history.
        4. The libretto interweaves comic and romantic scenes.
      3. Recitative style (NAWM 71a and HWM Example 14.5)
        1. The definitive style for the next hundred years
        2. Used for most of the action
        3. Many repeated notes, with modulating harmonies
      4. Aria style (NAWM 71b and HWM Example 14.6)
        1. Strophic with some modification
        2. Smooth, diatonic melody with easy rhythms
        3. Violins accompany the voice throughout.
  7. Tension between Drama and Spectacle
    1. Opera began as an effort to place drama at the center of a staged musical performance, but solo singing and spectacle soon overcame this effort.
    2. Later composers would seek to reform opera, bringing drama to the fore again.
    3. Current theatrical productions face the same tension between drama and spectacle.
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