Chapter 14 Presentation 2012

8/2/2019 Chapter 14 Presentation 2012

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Opera

Opera (Italian for work) defined as:

union of versified play (Italian libretto, little book), drama,and music Continuous or near-continuous singing Staged, with scenery, costumes, and action Originally a Court entertainment


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Forerunners of operaRenaissance antecedents

Pastoral drama Play in verse, interspersed with incidental musicand songs.

Stories of idyllic love in rural settings The earliest opera composers borrowed heavilyfrom this genre.


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Forerunners of opera

Madrigal Solo madrigals and madrigal cycles (or madrigalcomedies) had simple plots and expressed emotion.

Madrigal cycles (ex by Orazio Vecchi) drew on stock

characters of commedia dellarte (ex. Pantalone orGratiano)


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Forerunners of operaRenaissance antecedents (contd)

Intermedio (pl. intermedii ) was the most direct antecedent.

Musical entertainment before, after, and between theacts of plays There were usually six for each play. Subjects were pastoral, allegorical, or mythological. For special occasions they could be very elaborate,including chorus, dance numbers, costumes, and stagedeffects.


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Spectacular intermedi created for the 1589 wedding inFlorence of Grand Duke Ferdinand de Medici of Tuscany and Christine of Lorraine:Several artists worked on this production that would beinvolved in the earliest operas.

Emilio de Cavalieri , composer and choreographerOttavio Rinuccini , poetJacopo Peri , singer-composerGiulio Caccini , singer-composer


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Greek tragedy as the model

Scholars put their theories of musics role into practice.

Giralamo Mei He believed that all the text was sung. He concluded that Greek music consisted of a single melodysung by a soloist or a chorus with or withoutaccompaniment.

Forerunner of opera


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The Florentine Camerata

A group of scholars in Florence who discussed literature,science, and the arts. The host was Count Bardi. Members included Vincenzo Galilei (ca. 1520 1591),theorist and composer, son of the famous astronomer,and Giulio Caccini (ca. 1550 1618), composer/singer.


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Vincenzo Galileis Dialogo della musica antica et della

moderna (Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music, 1581) Argued against counterpoint and madrigalisms The solo melody was ideal for emotional expression. The term for accompanied vocal melodies of this era,including the type described by Galilei, is monody .


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A Florentine critic wrote in 1581:

Why cause words to be sung by four or fivevoices so that they cannot be distinguished,when the ancient Greeks aroused thestrongest passions by means of a single voicesupported by a lyre? We must renouncecounterpoint and the use of different kinds of instruments and return to simplicity


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Greek tragedy as the model Caccinis Le nuove musiche (1602)

Collection of songs (arias) in monody and solo

madrigals The introduction describes ornaments and their use. Ornamentation enhances the message of the text.


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Caccini, Le Nuove musiche

Caccini wrote: Sprezzatura is that charm lent to a song by a fewfaulty eighth or sixteenth notes on various notes, togetherwith those [similar faults] made in the tempo. These relievethe song of a restricted narrowness and dryness and make itpleasant, free and airy, just as in common speech eleganceand variety make pleasant and sweet the matters beingspoken of. Similarly, the passaggi , trilli and other likeornaments, which can at times be scattered here and there in

each affect. There are many things used in good singing stylethat are written in one way but, to be more graceful, areeffected in quite another


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NAWM 67, Caccini Vedr l mio sol This madrigal from Le nuove musiche was premiered in

Bardis Camerata.

The accompaniment is a basso continuo containing oneof the earliest examples of figured bass.

Each line of poetry is set as a separate phrase ending ina cadence.

The melody is shaped to the natural declamation of thetext.

Ornaments enhance the message of the text.


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First musical stage works

Dafne (1598) Poetry by Ottavio Rinuccini, music by singer-

composer Jacopo Peri Premiered at the palace of Jacopo Corsi (1561

1602), who hosted the Camerata after Bardimoved to Rome

Only fragments of the music survive.


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First musical staged works

Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo(Representation of the Soul and Body, 1600)

A musical morality play Music by Emilio de Cavalieri Longer than any previous staged musical work


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Euridice (1600)

Music by Peri, libretto by Rinuccini, and directedby Cavalieri

Produced for the wedding of Maria de Medici and

King Henry IV of France Caccini also set this libretto to music.

Caccinis setting is more melodious and lyrical. Peri considered his setting to be better suited for

drama. Some of Caccinis music was sung in the production of

Peris version.


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Euridice The settings by Peri and Caccini are the earliest

surviving complete operas. The story demonstrates musics power to move

the emotions. Orfeo (Orpheus) causes those in the underworld

to weep through his music. He persuades Charon to ferry him to the

underworld and then the gods of the underworldto restore his wife, Euridice, to life all throughsong (particularly through lots of ornamentation).


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Euridice

Recitative style Peri invented a new idiom later known as recitative.

A speech-song that was halfway between oratory andsong

Notes of the basso continuo are held while the voicemoves freely through consonances and dissonances. The voice simulates the free declamation of poetry. Consonances occur on all stressed syllables.

Read p. 314: Source reading from the preface toEuridice

Example 14.2 shows that Peri violates the rules of counterpoint in order to create a speech-like effect.


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Monteverdis LOrfeo The first work to show the full potential of opera

Commissioned for performance in Mantua Striggio is the librettist.

The subject is the same as in LEuridice . [inspirationfrom Classical antiquity emphasis on noble anddivine]

He organized the drama into five acts, each centeredaround a song by Orfeo and ending with a chorus that

comments on the situation. Use of special scenic effects Use of virtuoso singers


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Monteverdis LOrfeo

Monteverdi specified instruments in his score. Recorders, cornetts, trumpets, trombones, strings,

and continuo A regal (reed organ) portrays the underworld.

Monody styles Arias are strophic, but strophes are varied to

reflect the text (strophic variation). Recitative style varies depending on the situation

in the drama.


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Monteverdis LOrfeo

Ensembles and choruses provide contrast,with ritornellos as division points.

Structure of Act II It begins with a series of cheerful celebrations

(e.g., Orfeos strophic aria). The tonality changes to Aeolian (A minor) when a

messenger delivers news of Euridices death froma snake bite .

Joy and grief alternate as Orfeos companionscontinue celebrating, not having heard the news.


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Monteverdi, LIncoronazione di Poppea

Operas for public theaters in Venice LIncoronazione di Poppea (Coronation of Poppea,

1643) Based on a historical subject, Roman emperor Neros

second marriage, rather than myth Often considered Monteverdis masterpiece because of

its expressiveness but unsure what Monteverdi

actually wrote!


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Opera in Florence

Florence after LEuridice The court preferred ballets and intermedii for

celebrations of important events.


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Opera in Rome

Rome became the center for operadevelopment in the 1620s.

The range of topics expanded to include epics,saints lives, and comedy.

Stage effects were spectacular (e.g., flamesconsuming devils).

Recitative and aria became more clearly defined. Recitative became more speechlike. Arias became melodious and were usually strophic.


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Opera in Rome Other musical elements

Vocal ensembles Extended finales for each act, including choral singing

and dancing Women not permitted to sing, so castrati sang treble

solos Two-part instrumental sinfonias introduced the

operas. The first part is a slow chordal section. The second part is a lively imitative canzona. This two-part form became standard for the opening

movements of seventeenth-century opera.


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Opera in Venice

Venice The first public theaters

1637: Teatro San Cassiano opened as the first public

opera house. By 1678, there were nine stages devoted to opera. Impressario began to play important role in

development of opera Emergence of the diva and the prima dona Read pp. 324- 5 on Singer -power and Singer-worship

the Diva


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Opera in Venice -- midcentury

Recitative style The definitive style for the next hundred years Used for most of the action

Many repeated notes, with modulating harmonies Aria style

Strophic with some modification Smooth, diatonic melody with easy rhythms Violins accompany the voice throughout.


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Opera outside of Italy

Italian opera abroad Italian operas were performed in Paris in the

1640s. No known performance of Italian opera in England

in the seventeenth century, but a copy of a Cavalliopera reached England


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Italian opera in mid 17 th century

Many style features established during this erawould remain standard for Italian opera over thenext two hundred years.

Concentration on solo singing Separation of recitative and aria (as established in

Venice) Use of varied styles Singers and spectacle replaced drama as the focus of

interest.


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England

Influence of the masque Courtentertainment (cf. intermedio) Ben Jonson,Inigo Jones

Dance, staging (machinery), sets, text, music(as afterthought!)

Purcell (see pp. 374-376): composed semi-operas (ex. Fairy Queen )


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Purcell, Dido and Aeneas Purcells only true opera 1689: unsure for whom it was written: Josias

Priests girls school or court? Symbolic of Glorious Revolution (1688)?? Read the commentary! Notice the use of the ground bass in the lament

relationship between voice and bass Word painting melody, harmony, rhythm,

tonality, ground bass


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Tension between Drama and Spectacle

Opera began as an effort to place drama atthe center of a staged musical performance,but solo singing and spectacle soon overcamethis effort.

Later composers would seek to reform opera,bringing drama to the fore again.

Current theatrical productions face the sametension between drama and spectacle.

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Chapter 14 Presentation 2012

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