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Chapter
28
Opera and Musical Theater in the Later Nineteenth Century
Composer Biographies

Giuseppe Verdi

Born: October 9/10, 1813, Roncole (Parma), Italy

Died: June 27, 1901, Milan

Return to Just Listen: Era : Composer

In his own words....

"For dramatic effectiveness, it seems to me that the best material I have yet put to music is Rigoletto. It has the most powerful situations, it has variety, vitality, pathos; all the dramatic developments result from the frivolous, licentious character of the Duke. Hence Rigoletto's fears, Gilda's passions, etc., which give rise to many dramatic situations, including the scene of the quartet, which so far as effect is concerned, will always be one of the finest our theater can boost."

Italian operatic composer. He was the leading figure of Italian music in the nineteenth century and made important contributions to the development of opera.

In the third part of Nabucco , Verdi's first operatic success, the chorus of Hebrew slaves sings of their homeland: "Go, my thoughts on golden wings. . . . " For an Italian in 1842, the predicament of the Israelites in Egypt was a clear reference to Italian suffering under Austrian domination, and this chorus became a rallying cry for the Risorgiamento—the struggle for a unified and independent Italy. Its composer, Giuseppe Verdi, became a national hero (and eventually an honorary senator). Even today, the first notes of this moving chorus can bring a crowd to its feet singing, and Verdi is claimed as "Italy's Composer."

Verdi was born in the small village of Ron-cole in the province of Parma. His family—moderately well-off landholders, despite Verdi's continued references to childhood poverty—recognized and encouraged his talents early on, and he received a good basic education in the nearby town of Busseto. He studied in Milan, and returned to Busseto to take the position of musical director for the town. Although his success at operatic composition soon took him all over Europe, he loved nothing better than to return to his small farm outside of the town.

Verdi is best known for the operas from his middle years, Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and La traviata (1853) and his three final works, Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893). In these works, as in all his operas, Verdi attempted to balance the art of bel canto, which he had inherited from Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini, with the demands of the drama. Because of this, his works present characters that are vocally exciting and at the same time emotionally engaging. Verdi's orchestra and chorus also played a vital role. No composer has so dominated the Italian stage as Verdi did, and his works are still a mainstay of the operatic repertoire throughout the world.

Works

  • 28 operas, including Macbeth (1847), Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore ( The Troubadour , 1853), La traviata ( The Lost One , 1853), Un ballo in maschera ( A Masked Ball , 1859), La forza del destino ( The Force of Destiny , 1862), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893)
  • Vocal music, including a Requiem Mass (1874)

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Musical Examples

 

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Links

  • A Brief Biography
    From the Classcial Music Pages, this page provides a biography from The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music and a brief bibliography
  • Works and Recommended Recordings
    This page from the ClassicalNet site provides a list of Verdi's most popular works along with recommended recordings and links to other sites. Other recordings, with audio samples, are available at Classical Insites.
  • Verdiana
    This beautifully designed site presents an illustrated hypertext chronology of Verdi and his works. Many photographs of Verdi and important people in his life are included, and you can learn about many of his operas and their history.
  • La Traviata: A Study Guide
    A good introduction to this Verdi masterpiece. The author focuses on the historical background of the opera and the Dumas novel on which it is based. The essay also introduces the Franco Zefirelli film of the opera, and provides some hints for watching opera.

 

Richard Wagner

Born: May 22, 1813, Leipzig

Died: February 13, 1884, Venice

Return to Just Listen: Era : Composer

In his own words....

"True drama can be conceived only as resulting from the collective impulse of all the arts to communicate in the most immediate way with a collective public...Thus especially the art of tone, developed with such singular diversity in instrumental music, will realize in the collective artwork its richest potential—will indeed incite the pantomimic art of dancing in turn to wholly new discoveries and inspire the breath of poetry no less to an undreamed-of fullness. For in its isolation music has formed itself an organ capable of the most immeasurable expression—the orchestra."

German opera composer, conductor, and musical writer. Wagner changed the concept of opera by viewing it as a "total art work" ( Gesamptkunstwerk ).

It is telling that Richard Wagner's artistic beginnings lie in both music and drama. At the age of fifteen he wrote his first play and a year later his first musical composition. He was largely self-taught in music, although he did study privately when he was a university student in Leipzig. His career centered almost exclusively on the theater, and he wrote his first opera at the age of twenty, while serving as chorus master at the opera theater in Würzburg. His first great success came with Rienzi in 1842, followed soon after by The Flying Dutchman (1843), Tannhäuser (1845), and Lohengrin (1850).

Wagner fled Germany after the political upheavals of 1848, spending the bulk of this time in Zurich writing the text for his Ring Cycle, as well as a number of books on music. The most famous is the two-volume Opera and Drama, in which he set out his new ideas on reforming opera. The most infamous is his Jewishness in Music , a virulent antisemitic diatribe. In 1862 he returned to Germany, settling in Bavaria under the patronage of young Ludwig II. Here Wagner completed Tristan und Isolde, a tale of forbidden love made all the more fitting by the fact that he was at that time having an affair with Cosima von Bulow, daughter of Franz Liszt and the wife of Tristan's conductor, Hans von Bulow. In 1866 Wagner returned to Switzerland and continued work on the Ring, taking time out to compose a completely different type of work, the comedic Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg .

As each part of the Ring Cycle was finished and performed, Wagner became more and more determined to create a theater capable of realizing the complicated lighting and staging he envisioned. Once again, Ludwig stepped in. In 1874 he committed to building just such a theater in Bayreuth. Two years later, Wagner's complete cycle of four music dramas was presented there. While an artistic success, it was a financial disaster, and Wagner had to turn his efforts to recouping his losses. Out of this effort grew his final music drama, Parsifal—a tale of love and redemption. It premiered in 1882; Wagner died that winter while on a trip to Venice.

It is no overstatement to say that Wagner changed the face of opera. From his earliest works, he began to break away from the structure of separate numbers to one of continuous drama (he ultimately called them music dramas rather than operas). Other composers were heading in this direction, but none so relentlessly as Wagner. Perhaps more important was his concept of the "total art work," in which the composer controlled all the elements of the dramatic production and put them to work in projecting the drama. Musically, this was reflected in the idea of the Leitmotif, a musical theme that stands for a person, thing, or idea. Wagner's music dramas are seamless webs of these musical ideas, with the music itself telling as much of the story as the action on the stage.

Perhaps due to the uncompromising nature of Wagner's musical ideals, or perhaps due to the difficulty of his politics and personality, he served (and still serves) as a polarizing figure in music. His admirers (often devotees) carried his legacy into the twentieth century, while his detractors either went in opposite directions or made use of some of his ideas while distancing themselves from him as much as possible. Although Wagner's place in history is established, the judgment of that position will be a source of controversy far into the future.

Works

  • 13 music dramas (operas), including Rienzi (1842); Der
    fliegende Holländer     ( The Flying Dutchman , 1843); Tannhäuser
    (1845); Lohengrin (1850); Tristan und Isolde (1865); Die
    Meistersinger von Nürnberg     ( The Meistersingers of Nuremberg ,
    1868); Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of the Nibelung ),
    consisting of Das Rheingold ( The Rhine Gold , 1869), Die
    Walküre     ( The Valkyrie , 1870), Siegfried (1876), and
    Götterdämmerung     ( The Twilight of the Gods , 1876); and Parsifal (1882)
  • Orchestral music, including Sigfried Idyll (1870)
  • Piano music; vocal music; choral music

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Musical Examples

 

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Links

  • A Basic Biography
    Biographical article extracted from The Grove Concise Dictionary
    of Music     . This site also contains a bibliography and picture gallery.
  • Works and Recommended Recordings
    A list of works, sources, and recommended recordings from the Classical Net site.

 

Georges Bizet

Born: October 25, 1838, Paris

Died: June 3, 1875, Bougival, France

Return to Just Listen: Era : Composer

French opera composer. Bizet is best known for his opera Carmen.

Georges Bizet's life was short and full of difficulties, a fact that seems at odds with the enduring success of his final work, Carmen. Bizet was born into a musical family, where he received a good early training that led to his entrance into the Paris Conservatory at the age of nine. Bizet did well in his studies, developing his skills as a pianist (he impressed Franz Liszt with his playing) and as a composer. At the age of seventeen he composed his Symphony in C, a meticulous and effervescent work that was never heard until 1935. His studies at the conservatory were capped in 1858 with his receipt of the Prix de Rome, which allowed Bizet three years of financial support to concentrate on composition.

Bizet's years in Rome were not very productive, and resulted in few works—only four of which survive. One, his opera Don Procopio, was not produced until 1906. Upon his return to Paris he turned down a teaching position at the conservatory, wishing instead to concentrate on his writing. He found moderate success in 1863 with his opera Les pêcheurs de perles, but his next work, La jolie fille de Perth, saw only eighteen performances.

Bizet's final years were marked by more problems: ill health and forced service during the Franco-Prussian war took their toll on the composer. In 1875, he completed a work that should have been his great triumph and the beginning of an illustrious career, his opera Carmen. In this opera, Bizet shows both a sure dramatic hand and mastery of the musical demands of the genre. The story of Carmen, however, proved too much for the Parisian audience (especially in a theater designed to appeal to families). Set in Spain and dealing with the exotic culture of the Gypsies, the story presented Bizet with the opportunity to create a rich musical score full of foreign flavor then in vogue. But the plot's exploration of sexual desire, moral ambiguity, and a brutal murder insured a brief and controversial run. Bitterly dejected by this supreme blow, Bizet's health deteriorated quickly, and less than three months later he died of a heart attack. Ironically, only five years later the work returned to the Parisian stage after a series of successes in Vienna, Brussels, London, and New York. It has, from that time on, remained one of the best loved of all nineteenth-century operas.

Works

  • Orchestral music, including incidental music of L'arlésienne (The Woman of Arles, 1872) and the Symphony in C (1855)
  • Operas, including Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers, 1863), La jolie de Perth (The Fair Maid of Perth, 1867), Djamileh (1872), and Carmen (1875)
  • Piano music; vocal music

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