Week 40: Opera, quintessential art of the 17th century (part II)
1. Stuff done this week
- Long time since I blogged. Bernice and I have been looking for a new house, after we sold our two apartments. We have found this great location close to the sea (10 minutes by bike) and "Madesteyn Park" (across the road). The build will start in the second quarter of 2018. Here is a link to the site. We are both so excited and we believe it will be a great place to raise Mano. Now we have to find a temporary place until it is finished and we can move in.
- Reading about Opera in A History of Western Music (Burkholder et al., 2014), chapter 14. Please find my notes below.
- Practicing an instrumental version of "Red Wing", a traditional tune, on mandolin. My mandolin teacher provided me with this lovely version by Mark Howard to practice by ear; check it out on Spotify.
- I have strated to write this tune down in music notation, to practice this skill more.
2. Listening done this week
Finding out about Italian Opera, I cam across this beautiful aria by the contemporary composer Patrick Cassidy. It is based on the sonnet "A ciascun'alma presa" from Dante Alighieri's "La Vita Nuova" (The New Life), which is a tome of poems dedicated to Dante's love Beatrice Potinari.
Vide Cor Meum - Patrick Cassidy
Italian/English translation of the libretto:
Chorus: E pensando di lei - And thinking of herMi sopragiunse uno soave sonno- Sweet sleep overcame meEgo dominus tuus - I am your masterVide cor tuum - See your heartE d'esto core ardendo - And of this burning heartCor tuum - Your heart(Chorus: Lei paventosa) - (Chorus: She trembling)Umilmente pascea. - Obediently eats.Appreso gir lo ne vedea piangendo. - Weeping, I saw him then depart from me.La letizia si convertia - Joy is convertedIn amarissimo pianto - To bitterest tearsIo sono in pace - I am in peaceCor meum - My heartIo sono in pace - I am in peaceVide cor meum - See my heart3. What I have learned
The First Operas
Count Bardi of the Florentine Camerata moved to Rome in 1592 and nobleman Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602) continued sponsoring the new monodic music, the proto-opera. Participants Ottavio Rinuccini (poet) and Jacopo Peri (singer-composer) were convinced that Greek tragedies were sung entirely. They set out to recreate the genre in modern form. In 1600 Peri set Rinuccini's drama "L'Euridice" to music.
In many respects it is a tribute to the emotional power of music itself: through music Orpheus makes the denizens of the underworld weep and persuades them to return him his deceased wife Euridice. The production also included sections of another setting of the libretto by Caccini, who would not allow his singers to perform music written by others. The piece was performed at the wedding of Maria de' Medici to King Henri IV of France. Historically this is regarded as the first performance of the earliest form of opera.
Caccini's contribution was melodious and lyrical, being closely based on arias and madrigals of the Nuove Musiche. Peri claimed his style was better suited to the drama, because he had found a way to emulate speech: the recitative style. The notes of the basso continuo were kept steady, while the voice moved freely through both consonances and dissonances. The effort to imitate speech made it necessary to stray from the rules of counterpoint and to allow for dissonances.
The various styles of monody that developed like the aria, madrigal, and recitative, quickly made their way into all kinds of music, both secular and sacred. It was a useful for musical theater, because it effectively conveyed everything from narration to dialogue to soliloquy with dramatic effect.
Claudio Monteverdi
Italian Baroque era composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) may not have been the originator of opera as new music genre, but certainly was the first person to fully actualize its potential (Burkholder et al., 2014, p: 315).
Monteverdi's first opera, "L'Orfeo", was commissioned by Frencesco Gonzaga, heir to the throne of Mantua, and produced at the court in 1607. Monteverdi based the work on "L'Euridice" in subject and mixture of styles, but included an even wider range of contrasting styles and genres to shape the music and drama. Alessandro Striggio, the librettist organized the drama in 5 acts, each centered around a song by Orpheus and ending with a vocal ensemble that comments on the situation, much like the chorus in a Greek tragedy.
Monteverdi drew heavily on his experience in writing madrigals: expressive text-setting and intense drama. He also used a wider range of instruments than Peri had used. The score, published in 1609, calls for recorders, cornetts, trumpets, trombones, strings, double harp and several continua instruments, including a regal (organ).
Monteverdi followed Peri in using several kinds of monody from songlike aria to recitative. In addition, Monteverdi included many duets, dances and ensemble madrigals and ballettos, thus providing a range of styles to reflect the varying moods in the drama. The ritornellos and choruses help to organize scenes into schemes of almost ceremonial formality.
"L'Orfeo" was so successful that Duke Conzaga commissioned a second opera, "L'Arianna", from Monteverdi for the next year. It won great renown, but only a fragment has survived: "Arianna's Lament".
Near the end of his life Monteverdi wrote three operas for the new public theaters in Venice. Only two have survived: "Il ritorno d'Ulisse" (The Return of Ulysses, 1640) and "L'incoronazione di Poppea" (1643). The latter is often considered to be Monteverdi's masterpiece, for it surpasses Orfeo in depiction of human character and passions.
I wrote an essay about this composer in April 2017, which you may be interested to read.
The Spread of Italian Opera
Operas were expensive productions and therefore remained relatively rare. They continued to be produced in Florence and Mantua, however, and their popularity slowly spread to other cities like Rome, Venice, Paris and Innsbruck.
Rome
The center for development in opera moved to Rome in 1620. There, opera singing increasingly fell into two clearly defined types: recitative and aria. The recitatives were more speechlike than Peri's or Monteverdi's, and the arias were melodious and mainly strophic. They also included vocal ensembles and extended finales for each act. Many Roman operas open with a sinfonia in two parts, then a slow chordal section and then a lively imitative canzona. Women were prohibited from the stage in Rome, so female roles were played by castrati.
There is a very informative BBC-series on the background and the role of the castrato in Italian Baroque opera (part 2 in particularly made me cringe!!):
CASTRATO, BBC Documentary Part 1 of 6
Venice
In 1637 a new step in the history of opera was taken in Venice: Teatro San Cassiano was opened. Now, opera was no longer just available to the aristocracy, but also to the general public. Venice, through its Carnival, had a reputation for freedom from religious and social restraints. Carnival brought various audiences to the opera. Wealthy merchants opened or supported opera houses, for which anyone could buy admission tickets.
Francesco Cavalli (1602 -1676), a pupil of Monteverdi's, and Antonio Cesti (1623 - 1669) were among the leading Venetian opera composers. The Venetian librettists drew themes from mythology, epics of Homer, Virgil and Roman history. Plots were chosen with an eye for diverse emotions, dramatic conflicts and fantastic stage effects.
In my imagination it could have looked like the example below, which is the prologue from Francesco Cavalli's "Giasone", performed by the Cappella Mediterranea orchestra.
It relates the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece, and premiered at the Teatro San Cassiano, on 5 January 1649, during carnival. Here we see Amore (love, i.e. Cupid) and Sole (sun, i.e. Apollo). Sole sings an aria about the gloriousness of the day because Jason will start his quest for the golden fleece, with the Argonauts. Sole is also elated that will marry his descendant Medea and so he lets forth his brightest light. In the following recitative, Amore chides Sole because no one has asked her for permission for this marriage. She had intended for Jason to marry Queen Isifile. The two are already married and have had twin children. After Amore's aria, they argue over this problem for the remainder of the prologue without resolution and they intend to fight one another (Wikipedia, 2017).
Il Giasone, by Cappella Mediterranea (2017)
Three acts rather than five were now typical. Choruses and dances were eliminated for financial reasons. The separation of recitative from arias, begun in Rome, was further developed; the number of arias per act increased and they became very melodious, with graceful, flowing phrases supported by simple harmonies. This became the standard all over Europe and also influenced instrumental music.
Aside from the composer, drama and the spectacle, the singers were very important in attracting public, especially women and castrati. Handsome sums were payed for the most popular singers; they often payed twice to six times that which the composer received. The phenomenon of the operatic diva emerged, like Anna Renzi.
Opera abroad
From Venice, opera spread through Italy and further; operas were staged in Paris in the 1640's. Austria became a center of Italian opera. Operas may have been staged as far as England.
Italian opera at mid-century
By middle of the seventeenth century, Italian opera had acquired the main features it would maintain without essential change for the next two hundred years:
- solo singing, rather than ensembles and instrumental music
- separation of recitative and aria
- use of varied styles
4. Sources
BURKHOLDER, J, GROUT, D. and PALISCA, C. (2014) A History of Western Music, 9th edition, New York: W.W. Norton.
primohomme (2010) CASTRATO, BBC Documentary Part 1 of 6, Youtube, viewed 18th of October 2017,<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ZAraf5wMc>.
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