SINGING THEATER: A BRIEF HISTORY
NOTE: Definitions of many of the words in bold may be found in the Glossary.
Opera, light opera, operetta, musical theater, all are names used for the marriage of words and music; drama that is mostly sung or drama through music. The music is a partner; it does not merely accompany the drama, it contributes to it. Furthermore, it is staged and, compact discs and DVDs notwithstanding, must be seen live to be appreciated to its fullest.
The text is written as a libretto ("little book" in Italian), a form which can easily be set to music. Some composers write their own words, but most work with a librettist. The team of Gilbert and Sullivan is the classic example of the collaboration between a composer and a librettist. The source of the story may be an historical or mythical event, a book, a play or a poem. Sometimes the story is original or uses a variety of sources. The plot does not usually advance in the way that of a play does. During lengthy arias, in which the characters express their emotions, the action often stops and time stands still. This means the story must be much more condensed than that of a play.
In all cultures, drama was linked to religious ritual and later developed into an art form or entertainment in its own right. Greek drama used a musical accompaniment which was integrated into the poetry of the drama, and plays were accompanied by strings and pipes. The words were sung or half-spoken. Dance was also part of the drama. (The word 'orchestra' means dancing place in Greek and refers to the space in front of the stage where the dancers and chorus performed.)
In Italy, by the end of the fifteenth century, it was the custom to perform short musical dramas, with themes related to those of the main entertainment, during the intermissions of spoken plays. These intermedi were accompanied by small orchestras and dealt with serious subjects. What comedy there was occurred in pastorals, which consisted of dialogue interspersed with songs and choruses, and dealt with simple country folk; thus the name.
In 1576, a group men from Florence, Italy, formed a group known as the Camerata. (One of the members of the Camerata was Vincenzo Galilei, father of the famous scientist, Galileo Galilei.) Their purpose was to try to recreate their concept of original Greek drama, words spoken or sung to a single line of music, like our present-day recitative. A 'Greek' chorus which commented on the action, was an important element. To these men the words and music formed a union. They laid down three principles:
The text must be understood: the accompaniment must be very simple and not distract from the words.
The words must be sung with correct and natural declamation, as if they were spoken, and must avoid the rhythms of songs.
The melody must interpret the feeling of the text.
Opera as we know it started during the Italian Renaissance.
The earliest work we would call opera for which the score survives is Jacapo
Peri's 1600 Euridice. Early performances were accompanied
by a small orchestra, but the parts for the instruments were not written out
separately as they now are. There was an indication of chords for the harpsichord
or lower strings (the continuo); the other instruments followed the
vocal line. Like its Greek predecessor, the chorus was on stage throughout,
in unobtrusive positions, commenting on and explaining the action.
The earliest opera composer whose works are still regularly performed is Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Monteverdi's earliest opera, La favola d'Orfeo, was first performed in Mantua, Italy, in 1607, the year in which Jamestown, Virginia was founded. These early operas were performed in private homes. The audience sat surrounding the singers and were in close contact with them, almost part of the action. The first public opera house was built in Venice in 1637 and, for the first time, the general public was able to see opera. The early theatres were modeled on those of ancient Greece. Later the seats were arranged in galleries around an open area which was used for the players; this open area was later filled with seats. Finally, the stage was moved to the open end of the horseshoe and enclosed behind a proscenium arch. With this change, the audience was separated from the players, and the intimacy of the earlier productions was lost. (The present practice of producing opera movies or videos goes one step further; there is no interaction between the singers and the audience at all!)
Later, boxes were created in the lower galleries for those who could afford to rent them, and what we now call the orchestra was for the bourgeoisie; the upper gallery was for the working class. While modern theatres have fixed seats in what is now the orchestra section, until fairly recently the chairs were movable and could be taken out so the area could be used for balls and other functions. Early operas were usually based on history or mythology, and they attempted to amaze and stupefy the audience by fantastic stage effects. The machinery used to create these was very elaborate. The only light was candlelight.
Until the nineteenth century, almost every opera could be classified as an opera seria (serious opera), or opera buffa which is literally, though not always in practice, comic opera. Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) introduced opera to the court of Louis XIV of France, writing what he called tragédie en musique. In England, Henry Purcell (1659-1995) wrote operas such as The Fairy Queen based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Dido and Ćneas based on the Ćneid by the Latin author Virgil. Purcell was followed by George Frideric Handel (1685-1750) who, although born in Germany, spent most of his productive years in England. He used standard Italian opera seria forms, and his libretti are in Italian. (The word opera was first used as we do now in England in 1658.) The English equivalent of Italian opera buffa was ballad opera, exemplified by The Beggar's Opera by John Gay (1685-1732), using traditional songs set to music by Pepusch. It introduced the character Macheath, now most famous for his song Mack the Knife in Kurt Weill's twentieth-century version of the story. Such ballad opera was the ancestor of operettas such as those of Gilbert and Sullivan. Spain saw the advent of the zarzuela. Still popular in Spanish-speaking countries, it is beginning to be performed in the United States. The first known opera performance in the Americas was in 1701, at the viceregal court in Lima, Peru. It was La purpura de la Rosa by Torrejón y Velasco.
Opera buffa
Early operas often contained comic scenes. When these scenes were eliminated,
a separate genre, opera buffa, emerged. Opera buffa started
in Naples, then spread to Rome and further north. With its humble roots, comic
opera used more ordinary language, often in local dialects, and also used
many of the stock characters and situations of the Italian commedia
dell'arte. Requiring fewer spectacular effects, it was less expensive
to produce than opera seria and, appealing to the lower classes, the
price of admission was usually less. Unlike its counterparts in other countries,
Italian opera buffa never used spoken dialogue.
Comic opera is not necessarily of the slapstick variety. The term refers to the type of character and the setting, rather than the story elements. Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) is the quintessential late opera buffa, almost pure comedy with little sentimentality. On the other hand, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (1786), which he called an opera buffa, has a psychological depth, drama and pathos not found in Rossini's work. It is opera buffa become high art.
The
Neoclassical period in history once more looked back to the clarity, reason
and humanism of the Greeks. It was the age of Rousseau and the American and
French Revolutions. The most important librettist of the eighteenth century
was Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782). Born in Italy, he studied law but
preferred poetry. His reputation as a librettist grew, and he was invited
to Vienna to become Court Poet. His works were usually based on those by Latin
and Greek authors. While he wrote only about 27 libretti, his influence was
greater than this number would suggest. Over 800 operas were written using
these 27 libretti! Each was set to music by many composers; one, Artaserse,
exists in almost 90 settings! (Audiences insisted on new music each season
but welcomed familiar stories over and over, not unlike the many versions
of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, including the musical West Side
Story.) Metastasio's operas were heard from London to Saint Petersburg
and Naples, and his influence on the medium was profound. He wrote that his
aim in life had been to "instruct mankind in a pleasing way". Compared to
most of his contemporaries he was a true poet and he warned: "When music vies
with the poetry to take the principal role [in opera], it achieves the destruction
of both". Opera became the medium by which people could learn and experience
pleasure at the same time.
The
most important composer of this period was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
the composer of The Magic Flute. He was a musical prodigy as
a child and managed to compose an incredible amount of music of all kinds
in his tragically short life. His operas are among the most popular ever written,
the first true one, La finta semplice, was composed when he
was only twelve. Many legends have grown up about his life and death, but
we can only say with certainty that he was not killed by Salieri.
NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH DEVELOPMENTS
During the nineteenth century, although Italian opera was still popular in
all of Europe, each country started to develop its own characteristic form.
This was the period of the Romantic Movement, exemplified in Britain
by the poet Lord Byron and, in France, by the author Victor Hugo who defined
romanticism as "a certain vague and indefinable fantasy". Romanticism dealt
with intensity of feelings, with dark themes, and with hints of the supernatural
and grotesque. Stage sets ran to ruined castles.
Italian Opera
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the emphasis was on bel
canto; or 'beautiful singing'. Bel canto refers to a style
of singing which involves the use of legato (long, flowing, lyrical lines).
It can be used in operas of all eras. During the same period, the trend was
towards bravura and coloratura ornamentation — the story and
the words were considered less important than elaborate musical effects. This
type of singing is sometimes confused with bel canto. Rossini wrote operas
requiring bel canto — Cinderella
is an example — and was one of the first to use the lower-voiced mezzo-sopranos
in leading roles.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century the trend was toward large-scale spectacles as exemplified by the operas of Giuseppe Verdi such as Aďda. Most of the operas of Verdi are examples of what is termed Grand Opera. This always has all of the words set to music, that is, with no spoken dialogue.
German Opera
Under the influence of Italian opera, the German Singspiel was born.
At first this term was applied both to works which were sung throughout and
those which employed spoken dialogue. Today the term refers only to the latter.
From this developed such operettas as Die Fledermaus and Countess
Maritza.
French Opera
French opéra comique also has spoken dialogue. (First used in the eighteenth
century, the term does not necessarily indicate a comedy.) The original version
of Bizet's tragedy, Carmen, with spoken dialogue, is an opéra
comique. The theatre in which Carmen was first given was the Opéra-Comique.
(The name of the London theater in which Gilbert and Sullivan's early operas
appeared was the Opera Comique.)
Finally, the unique contribution of the United States to Singing Theater is the musical which is dealt with separately.
Singing Theater is truly an audio-visual art form. A staged work is a total collaborative effort, combining the music, the plot, and the spectacle provided by the sets, staging, costumes, and dances. Above all, it is the special sound of the human voice singing which makes it the ultimate performing art form. The final result is much more than the sum of its parts. It is a total emotional experience.
See also the articles on OPERETTA and AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE.
Revised February
2006
Please credit Lyric Opera San Diego when using
these articles.