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Ch21 – Opera & Vocal Music in the Early Classical Era.pptx
- 1. CHAPTER 21 Lecture Slides A History of Western Music TENTH EDITION by J. PETER BURKHOLDER DONALD JAY GROUT CLAUDE V. PALISCA © 2019 W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
- 2. OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD Italian Comic Opera • Neapolitan comic opera (originated in Naples, aimed at middle-class audience) • terms for comic opera: opera buffa, giocoso, dramma comico, commedia per musica • plots entertained and served moral • centered on ordinary people, present day • dialogue set in rapidly delivered recitative with continuo • Arias - typically in galant style, witty musical setting fits text, moves drama forward • Intermezzo - two or three segments performed between acts of a serious opera • originated in Naples and Venice ca. 1700 • comic characters given own separate story
- 3. La serva padrona (The Maid as Mistress, 1733) by Pergolesi (1710–1736) • opera in miniature, only three characters • Uberto (bass), rich bachelor • his maid, Serpina (soprano) • social hierarchy questioned • Serpina’s aria “Stizzoso, mio stizzoso” • da capo aria • Uberto is planning to go out but Serpina, the maid, thinks it is much too late. She lectures him and tells him to hush and not speak. OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 4. Opera buffa: Comic opera • distinctive style in 18th century • full-length opera, 3 acts, 6+ singing characters • lifelike dialogue, observations of everyday life • ensemble finales with all characters brought on stage • comic opera derived from galant style - periodic phrasing, tuneful melodies, simple harmonies, accompaniment OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 5. Opera Seria – serious opera • Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782) - court poet in Vienna, 1729 • His dramas were set to music hundreds of times; Galuppi, Gluck, Mozart • heroic operas that present conflicts of human passions • stories based on Greek and Latin tales • opera that promoted morality through entertainment • conventional cast: two pairs of noble lovers surrounded by other characters • dramas extol virtues of self-control • 3 acts, alternating recitatives and arias • recitatives develop action through dialogues and monologues • arias: dramatic soliloquy by principal characters • occasional duets, few larger ensembles, rare choruses • orchestra serves mainly to accompany • Musical interest centered in the arias • da capo arias, favored form, first half of the century OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 6. Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783) - great master of opera seria • music and opera director, court of the elector of Saxony in Dresden • Italian musical style (after spending many years Italy) • majority of his 80 operas use Metastasio librettos • “Digli ch’io son Fedele” (Tell him that I am faithful) from Cleofide (1731) (NAWM 110) • natural rhythms, inflections of text • perfect embodiment of galant style Faustina Bordoni (1700–1781), Hasse’s wife • title role of Cleofide, starred in most of Hasse’s Dresden operas • universally admired, success in Venice, Munich, Vienna, London • known for her fluent articulation, trills, embellishments, expressive power OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 7. Opera in Other Languages • France • Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) – Swiss philosopher, writer, and composer • argued merits of Italian opera • praised emphasis on melody, emotion through melody • Le devin du village (The Village Soothsayer, 1752) – French one-act opera • blends Italian and French styles • most popular, frequently performed opera of 18th century • “J’ai perdu tout mon Bonheur” (NAWM 111), opening air OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 8. Opera in England during the Classical Period • ballad opera: opera in the local language • dialogue interspersed with songs, new words to borrowed tunes • The Beggar’s Opera (1728), libretto by John Gay (1685–1732), music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667– 1752) • mocked London society • modern urban thieves and prostitutes and their crimes • poetry and music sometimes opera • incongruous juxtapositions of conventions create humor • “My heart was so free” (NAWM 112a) • “Were I laid on Greenland’s coast” (NAWM 112b) OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 9. Germany and Austria • Singspiel (German for “singing play”) - opera with spoken dialogue, musical numbers, comic plot • English ballad operas translated into German • Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804), principal composer, 1760s and 1770s • Singspiel tunes published in German song collections • lasting popularity, became folk songs • important precursor of German-language musical theater Romantic Era German opera OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 10. Opera Reform - Changes in the Classical Era that reflected Enlightenment thought and sought to make opera more “natural” Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) • Gluck’s Reform operas - Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), Alceste (1767) • strongly affected by reform movement in 1750s • resolve to remove abuses that had deformed Italian • music serves the poetry, advances the plot • lessen contrast between aria and recitative • Gluck’s operas were models for subsequent works, especially in Paris • Chorus of Furies in Act II of Orfeo ed Euridice (NAWM 113) • music molded to the drama • recitatives, arias, choruses, intermingled in large unified scenes OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 11. OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD Role Voice type Vienna premiere cast 5 October 1762 Revised Italian version Parma cast 1769 Conductor: Gluck Revised French version Paris cast 1774 Orfeo alto castrato (Vienna premiere), soprano castrato (Parma premiere), haute-contre (high tenor, French premiere) Gaetano Guadagni Giuseppe Millico Joseph Legros Amore soprano (en travesti) Marianna Bianchi Felicita Suardi Sophie Arnould Euridice soprano Lucia Clavereau Antonia Maria Girelli-Aguilar Rosalie Levasseur Chorus and dancers: shepherds, shepherdesses, nymphs, demons, Furies, happy spirits, and heroines
- 12. Song and Church Music • songs for home performance were composed and published in nations • growing interest in amateur music-making • accompaniment for keyboard • simple, syllabic, diatonic, strophic • distinctive secular genres in different regions • France, romance: strophic song, sentimental text, expressive melody • Britain, ballads: printed on broadsides, texts sung to familiar tunes • late 18th century Scottish and Irish folk songs • Lied, German song (Before Schubert) • second half of the century, more than 750 collections of Lieder • strophic, lyric poems; simple and expressive • syllabic settings, melody easy to sing • important composers: Telemann, C. P . E. Bach OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD
- 13. Church music • composers conformed to prevailing secular style, such as the musical idioms and genres of opera • Church composers same as leading opera composers • Pergolesi’s Stabat mater (The Mother Was Standing, 1736) • setting of medieval Marian poem, Jesus’s crucifixion • exuberant melody and dramatic scene-painting • one of the most popular and frequently printed sacred works the century OPERA AND VOCAL MUSIC IN THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD