Music 4.1
Adams is best known for his political opera, Nixon in China. He wrote this piece to commemorate Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972. The three acts of the opera follow the American presidential party through their meeting with Mao-Tse Tung and the party members' reflections on the political experience. The music follows the libretto in a free-flowing, natural way that is reminiscent of the Romantic era style, although not as tonal sounding.
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Another famous composer in this genre was Guiseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901). Aida (1870), one of his most popular operas, is still regularly performed today. Aida was premiered in celebration of the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, Egypt, in November 1870. This opera is about an Egyptian commander, Radamès, who falls in love with an Ethiopian slave girl named Aida. In the true spirit of grand opera, it is a love story that is doomed from the start: Amneris, the Pharaoh's daughter, is also in love with Radamès.
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Around 1850, the period in Italian history known as the Risorgimento, meaning "resurgence," began. It was a time of rising national pride and political unrest, which eventually led to the unification of Italy — then a region of independent provinces — into one state. The composer Giuseppe Verdi became an unwitting politician with the success of his opera, Nabucco (1842). "Va Pensiero," a chorus sung by Hebrew slaves in the opera, was adopted as a rallying cry by the Italian people in their fight for freedom.
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Ballad operas were usually comic and political, often using popular music and real-life themes instead of myths. The most famous ballad opera is The Beggar's Opera (1728) by John Gay. The main characters are criminals from the lower class who expose the corruption of the aristocracy.
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Besides inventing an entirely new form of opera — the music drama — Richard Wagner forever changed the concert experience. He had a special opera house built in Bayreuth to produce his works alone. Previously, the opera had been just as much a social gathering as a musical event. Wagner thought, however, that this detracted from the experience of the music itself and, therefore, from his artistic vision. So, at Bayreuth, he ordered the lights dimmed during each performance to discourage talking, and lowered the orchestra out of sight, into the modern "pit," that is now standard in opera houses everywhere.
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By stretching the voice to its outer limits, Mozart is able to show rage in the music and at the same time give the soprano a chance to show off with wonderful vocal acrobatics. This is why many soprano singers consider being able to sing this piece the highest of achievements. Mozart must have had this in mind when he conceived the role for his sister-in-law, the soprano Josepha Hofer.
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By the 18th century, people were used to the idea of public concerts. Taking its cue from Venice, Vienna became a hotbed of musical activity, and opera was at the center. The great reformer of opera, Gluck, arrived in Vienna in 1750, and Mozart wrote his treasured opera, The Marriage of Figaro, while living there.
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During the intermedi, the performers usually enacted a mythological or pastoral story unrelated to the main play.
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Have you ever wondered where modern soap operas got their name from? Look no further than the story that follows. The story of Mozart's The Magic Flute is ripe with melodrama, suspense, and emotion. The Queen of the Night, the female lead in The Magic Flute, is mad, very mad, as the opera begins. She has just found out that the man she sent to save her daughter has made a grave mistake. Instead of coming home, Tamino (her daughter's new lover) and Pamina (her daughter) have joined forces with Sarastro, the man who appears to have taken them hostage. Why would they do such a thing? It turns out that things are not what they seem. Sarastro is really the good guy in the story and the Queen of the Night is evil. Why? Sarastro has captured Pamina in order to free her from the influence of her evil mother. This is why the Queen of the Night seeks revenge. In the Queen of the Night's famous aria, she challenges her daughter Pamina to kill Sarastro. If Pamina refuses, she'll be disowned by her mother forever. How does the music amplify the wild desperation of this rageful woman?
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Hearing someone sing like the Queen of the Night can be quite amazing — Mozart has found a way to express a feeling in a way that plain speech couldn't. The layer that the music adds to the drama is what makes opera truly special.
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His most elaborate music drama, Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly known as the Ring Cycle, is actually a cycle of four operas. It was inspired by Nordic myths and is an allegory about the human quest for power. The Ring Cycle broke records in opera length — it takes four nights to perform, lasting at least 15 hours, and often longer!
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If the aria that you heard was the perfect way to stop time and explore a complex emotional state, recitative is the composer's way to move the plot along at a reasonable pace the rest of the time. By writing certain parts in a simple, speech-like way, composers can move through lots of text in a short amount of time when they need to. This gives them more freedom to write long, beautiful arias when the dramatic action calls for them.
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In 1924, the popular composer Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924) died just before completing Turandot, which was to be his last great opera. Almost immediately, some critics declared, "Opera is dead!" Why? These critics were worried that 20th century operas were getting too abstract and difficult for audiences to understand. This was partly because many composers were no longer writing in a tonal style, as Puccini had done.
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It is true that Puccini's operas continue to be among the most popular in the repertory. One favorite is Madame Butterfly, which tells the story of an American soldier who falls in love with a Japanese woman during World War I.
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Many 20th century opera composers have been influenced by music outside of the Western classical music tradition. Philip Glass has been inspired by such diverse elements as rock and roll and North Indian classical music. His popular opera, Einstein on the Beach, is less traditional than Nixon in China in that it doesn't tell a story from start to finish. The libretto only loosely refers to Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), the brilliant scientist who inspired the opera.
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Many critics have praised Giulio Cesare (1724) by Handel for transcending the limits of the genre with its combination of deft vocal writing and dramatic intrigue. In the opera, Cleopatra is saved from the clutches of her evil brother, Ptolemy, by the heroic Caesar.
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One of the other important seventeenth-century operas that is still regularly performed is Dido and Aeneas (1689) by Henry Purcell. Adapted from the Aeneid by Virgil, it tells the story of Dido and Aeneas, two star-crossed lovers. Dido, queen of Carthage, kills herself after she learns that Aeneas has left her because he is fated to become the founder of the Roman Empire. The most famous aria from this opera is Dido's Lament: "When I am laid in earth."
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One way that the libretto is unusual is that performers are called upon to recite numbers and solfège syllables over and over again in an abstract way. There is also no aria or recitative in the traditional sense — just sections that flow from one to the next. What about Einstein? He's portrayed as an elderly man who plays extended violin solos throughout. (In real life, Einstein was a very good amateur player.)
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Opera had a shaky start in America — the audiences were often frustrated by the language barrier, establishing and maintaining an opera house proved to be a demanding challenge both financially and artistically. After many years of pioneering the first long living succesful opera company, the Hammerstein Opera Company opened their Manhattan Opera House in 1906 in New York City.
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Political upheavals everywhere laid the foundation for democratic thought. The middle class was growing and began to demand entertainment with their newfound purchasing power. In Venice, in particular, "carnival" season attracted huge crowds to popular operas, many people lining up to see the same production several times. What was it like to go to the opera back then?
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Sometimes arias can be taken to extremes. There's an old story in opera that a character will stop to sing a 5-minute aria about how his life is in danger and he must run away immediately. Meanwhile, he's stuck in song! Time is suspended so that a character may fully explore a complex emotion or analyze a difficult situation.
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The opera of the 19th century was not at all the formal, ultra-polite event that we associate it with today. The audience was full of hecklers, card players, and even mid-evening nappers! In this lesson, we will look at opera in its historical context. How has opera, as a cultural event, changed over the centuries? Let's rewind to when opera started and see.
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The section of the aria you just heard challenges the limits of the human voice. The soprano must sing a high F (three F's above middle C) a staggering seven times in this piece! (That's the note sitting on the space three ledger lines above the staff.)
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What is the highest sound you've ever heard? Maybe a squeaking mouse? A shrieking piccolo flute? We know that the Queen of the Night is furious when her voice starts to sound almost inhuman because it's so high! The queen sings these notes in emphatic staccato, which makes them sound like, well — a magic flute!
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While opera flourished in Vienna, other cities around Europe began to develop national forms that would be solidified in the next century. As an example, the production of The Beggar's Opera in London in 1728 was so successful that audiences starting rejecting operas that weren't from England.
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While still picking up the pieces from the French Revolution (1789), Paris took over as the premier opera city in the 19th century. The grandiose Paris Opera House, L'Opéra in French, hosted countless productions of operas from all over Europe. Beginning construction in 1861, it took fifteen years to build! The Palais Garnier, as it is now called, seats two thousand people and has seventeen stories, seven of them underground. This theatre was also the inspiration for the hit musical, Phantom of the Opera.
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William Tell (1829) by Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868) is a good example of early grand opera. It tells the story of the 14th century revolutionary William Tell, a leader of the Swiss resistance against their Austrian overlords.
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It was the year ____. A small group of artists, musicians, and poets was huddled in the house of Giovanni de Bardi (1534 - 1612), deep in conversation. They were looking for a solution to a problem in the arts. Individual art forms seemed too separate; musicians didn't act, and actors didn't sing. Visual artists, furthermore, painted or sculpted without a performance element at all. Could a new art form be conceived that would unite all of the arts?
1573
In ______, the first public opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, opened in Venice. It was a landmark event because it moved musical concerts outside of the homes of the aristocracy and into the public sphere.
1637
When the doors to the first public opera house opened in _____, it was a major sensation. Never before had there been any kind of musical concert open to the public. The aristocracy was used to elaborate private concerts; indeed, opera had originally been conceived as royal entertainment. But the world was changing and growing, and opera grew along with it.
1637
The first operas to reach America were the popular ballad-operas of England. In ____ New York City received its first opera performance in a theatre called the Nassau Street Theatre. From New York the spread of opera reached cities like New Orleans and Boston, which gave performances of German, Italian, and French operas. In 1853 opera reached the west coast via an Italian opera troupe led by a couple named Signor and Signora Bianchi.
1750
How many sections in the song have high staccato notes? (followed by power/forte chords)
3
An alternative to opera seria was opera buffa. Grown out of the commedia dell'arte of the 17th century, the opera buffa plays were pure comic relief. Opera buffa poked fun at society, exposing the tension between the upper and lower classes. There were usually _ main characters in the cast.
6
A catchy, tuneful melody Full accompaniment; a large part of or the entire orchestra
Aria
Mythological stories have always very popular in opera, especially the story of Orpheus, which has been set to music countless times. In 1762, the composer _________ ________ (1714 - 1787) tried his hand at this tale with Orfeo ed Euridice.
Christoph Gluck
______ is generally regarded as the first opera. Written by Jacopo Peri (1561 - 1633) to a text by Ottavio Rinuccini, it was performed for the marriage of Maria de Medici and Henri IV of France in 1594. The score has unfortunately been lost, but scholars know that it sought to revive the spirit of ancient Greek theatre.
Dafne
A group of artists, musicians, poets, and intellectuals whose meetings led to the birth of opera at the beginning of the 17th century.
Florentine Camerata
When the _________ __________ met, it was the late Renaissance, just on the brink of the Baroque era. Ancient Greek and Roman culture was all the rage. The group discussed how the Greeks had put on plays that were enhanced with singing. Inspired by the artistic achievements of the past, the Florentine Camerata resolved to re-create the "sung drama" of the Greeks.
Florentine Camerata
Created in the 1650s, a musical composition that introduces an opera. It follows the three-part form, slow-fast-slow.
French overture
Lully is also responsible for creating the______ _________, an opera prelude that the orchestra would play before the opera began. The French overture was very stately, marked by its opening slow, dotted rhythm.
French overture
Opera was born in ___, but quickly spread throughout Europe.
Italy
A famous example of opera buffa is The Marriage of Figaro by ______ (1750 - 1791). In this opera, the servant Figaro hopes to marry his sweetheart Suzanna, but is thwarted by his boss, Count Almaviva, who tries to seduce her as well!
Mozart
Written by the composer Wolfgang Amadeus ______ (1750 - 1791) and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder (1751 - 1812), The Magic Flute is a fanciful fairytale story, complete with plot twists and turns.
Mozart
In 1607, the first large-scale opera production was mounted. None of the smaller productions that had been attempted, including those by Peri, told a unified story with music and words as well as ______ did. ________ tells the mythological story of Orpheus, the god of music who tragically loses his love, Euridice, to the underworld.
Orfeo
Like the founders of opera, __________ ________ felt strongly that the music should express what the characters are feeling, and that the text should match the music. One of the ways he made sure of this was by writing the libretti to his operas himself.
Richard Wagner
1607: Monteverdi: Orfeo 1637: First public opera house opens in Venice Lully's tragedie-lyriques
The 17th century
Opera seria: tragic opera Opera buffa: comic opera 1762: Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
The 18th Century
Bel canto style of singing Grand opera Music drama
The 19th century
Atonality Minimalism Popular music influence
The 20th century
A man is being chased by a menacing snake. Suddenly, three women appear and save him from certain death. In exchange for their goodwill, he has to save a princess from the clutches of an evil man. As he sets off, the three ladies give him a magic flute, which he can use to call for protection. He is told that he must return the princess to her distraught mother immediately. Can he do it? Sounds like some outrageous plot for a romance movie, right? It's actually the premise for one of the most famous operas in history, ____ ________ _______.
The Magic Flute
___________ operas were generally intense dramas, sometimes performed in just one act. They often featured rural characters and a melodramatic plot. What else was happening in the opera world around this time?
Verismo
The structure of the piece is loosely as follows: A _______ B _______ — high, staccato notes A _______ B _______ — high, swirling arpeggios, followed by high staccato notes.
Verse, Refrain, Verse, Refrain
A solo voice piece in an opera with a strong melody line.
aria
It was the last opera that Mozart ever wrote, and some critics say it was his best. In this activity, we will examine a dramatic _____ from The Magic Flute. Remember divas? This _____ is a wonderful opportunity for a talented soprano to show off her voice.
aria
The singspiel's counterpart in England was known as the ______ ________.
ballad opera
In Italy, the ___ ______ style took over from opera seria. In the ___ ______ style, beautiful tone was more important than making a dramatic impact with the voice. Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868), the composer of William Tell, wrote in this style. He is considered the forerunner of Italy's most beloved opera composer of the 19th century, Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901).
bel canto
Meaning "beautiful singing" in Italian, a highly embellished singing style that was popular in early 19th-century opera.
bel canto
18th-century male singers who were castrated as boys in order to keep a high voice through adulthood.
castrati
With the rise of opera, there was a demand for bigger and more elaborate productions. Celebrity singers virtually ruled the stage. The ______, in particular, commanded huge audiences and wowed the public with their spectacular singing ability.
castrati
An aria sung in a highly embellished style. A coloratura is a type of soprano singer who specializes in singing in this style.
coloratura aria
Lucky for the soprano, Mozart reserves the acrobatics for extended sections where she doesn't have to sing words, only syllables. This aria is an example of ________ aria. Popular in the 18th century, _________ arias were full of scalar passages and trills.
coloratura aria
Until the 19th century, the public opera house more closely resembled a baseball stadium than a concert venue! People brought snacks, played cards, and carried on loud conversations. It was not necessarily impolite — instead, going to the opera was seen as an opportunity to socialize at an important _______ ______.
cultural event
A three-part aria, where the third part is a repetition of the first.
da capo aria
Opera seria all had moral, heroic themes based on ancient Greek texts. Usually in three acts, opera seria followed a predictable formula that alternated arias and recitatives. Despite its moral reforms, opera seria was criticized for having too many solo numbers, which turned into shameless displays by virtuoso singers. The __ _____ ____ was a defining feature of this style.
da capo aria
In the first 15 seconds alone, Mozart builds the drama by having the strings play four sudden, tutti chords with a dynamic marking of _______.
fortepiano
A serious or tragic opera where the text is entirely set to music.
grand opera
Not even a century passed before opera returned to its extravagant ways! Poor Gluck would have been stunned at what the 19th century brought for opera. With ____ ______, the most important thing was spectacle. Most ____ ______ had enormous casts and elaborate sets, not to mention highly dramatic themes.
grand opera
Music that was performed in between acts of a play during the Renaissance.
intermedi
When the Florentine Camerata met, they were inspired partly by the ________ that had been popular during the Renaissance Era.
intermedi
A recurring theme for individual characters and situations, especially in a Wagner opera.
leitmotif
If there was a song that played every time you entered a room, what would it be? Wagner could probably write one for you. He gave all of his characters in his later operas identifying tunes. He called a character's theme a _________. _________ illustrate in music how a character is feeling, or they might be accompanying music for an intense situation in an opera scene.
leitmotif
text of an opera
libretto
Referring to music written with a repetitive, rhythmic element and very gradual changes in harmony.
minimalist
Yet, almost a century after Puccini's death, opera is alive and well, although in a different way than he might have imagined. Important late 20th century American composers include John Adams and Philip Glass, both _________ composers.
minimalist
Created by Richard Wagner, an opera that has continuous music throughout with a primary goal of symbolizing the drama.
music drama
The composer Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) wasn't satisfied with mere opera — his grand vision was to create a total work of art that combined music, dance, drama, and art into one magnificent whole. He called it Gesamtkunstwerk, meaning "total artwork" in German. In English, Wagner's idea is known as ____ ______.
music drama
The 19th century saw the rise of _______. In opera, as in other art forms, different countries developed their own styles. Not surprisingly, Italy led opera fashions, as it had from the beginning of the art form.
nationalism
Italian comic opera of the 18th century.
opera buffa
Like the musicians who started opera seria, Gluck was concerned that opera was losing its artistic value. He was especially worried that composers of opera seria were writing too many showy pieces for singers to show off with. In the same way, characters in ______ _______ were becoming stereotypical, and productions were losing their fresh wit. So Gluck decided to try something new. Instead of composing to impress large audiences, he tried to write in a style that expressed "beautiful simplicity."
opera buffa
Serious or tragic opera of the 18th and early 19th centuries, most commonly using texts by the librettist Metastasio. The arias and recitatives alternated in a predictable way.
opera seria
Towards the end of the 18th century, some musicians felt that opera was heading in the wrong direction. Sure, the shows were entertaining to watch, but did opera teach any moral lessons? The prolific librettist Metastasio tried to give opera a shock to its system with his sobering ______ ______ productions.
opera seria
As we saw in the last activity, the singspiel and the English ballad opera became popular in the 18th century. Like opera buffa, they were intended for ______ audiences. They could also be easily understood because they were sung in the language of their audiences German and English. Opera seria, in contrast, was always sung in Italian.
popular
A style of singing that closely approximates speech; recitative usually has little orchestral accompaniment.
recitative
But, as you might imagine, it would be difficult to listen to the Queen of the Night rage on for hours at a time. Mozart, like other composers of the day, agreed with you. For this reason, operas include another very important style of singing: ________.
recitative
Unaccompanied _______: a solo harpsichord or lute Accompanied _______: brief orchestral phrases in between singing
recitative
The difference between a _________ and an ______ is rather like the difference between an everyday conversation and a heartfelt emotional confession. When an operatic character sings in _________, it's usually to move along the action of the play. But when a character sings an ______, it's time for her to stop and reflect on what has just happened.
recitative, aria
After the changes brought by opera seria, Gluck's ideas ignited a second reform in the history of opera. He did away with the ____ _________ which broke up the action in the opera, and took out excessive ornamentation in arias. His goal was to make drama the most important aspect of an opera, not the singers who performed it.
secco recitative
Meaning "dry recitative," a type of recitative with very little accompaniment; for example, quick, broken chords played by a harpsichord.
secco recitative
A melodic or harmonic pattern that repeats at successively higher or lower pitches.
sequence
As the Queen gets more and more excited, her voice seems to be rising in pitch, which Mozart achieves partly through a _________. Listen to the next clip while following along with the words and music below.
sequence
Originating in Germany, the singspiel was a type of opera that had both _____ and ________, rather than the continuous singing found in most Italian opera. Like The Magic Flute, singspiels usually had some kind of fantasy theme and exaggerated the idea of good vs. evil.
singing and speaking
Although The Magic Flute has recitative, it technically is a ________.
singspiel
17th-century French opera in five acts, usually with a mythological theme.
tragedie-lyriques
In France, operas became sumptuous displays in the court of King Louis XIV. The composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 - 1687) created operatic productions that were based on French ballets. Court composer to Louis XIV, Lully wrote ________-________ on mythological themes. These operas were always in five acts, along with a prologue that paid tribute to Louis XIV.
tragedie-lyriques
Instead of singing just high staccato notes, the soprano must produce swirling _______ followed by high staccato notes! The Queen of the Night sings this phrase to drive home her cruel threat to disown her daughter:
triplets
Three rhythmic notes in the time of two, indicated with a number 3; for example, a triplet of three eighth notes equals two standard eighth notes.
triplets
Meaning "realism" in Italian, a musical style popular in 19th-century opera that used everyday characters capable of feeling real emotions and experiencing the hardships of real life.
verismo
Verdi wrote his early operas in the bel canto style but later adopted the ___________ aesthetic.
verismo
