MUS 5960 Dr. Alicia Wallace Southeastern Oklahoma State University Department of Music

1. Opera and Music Drama in
the Nineteenth Century
20
Chapter

2. Golden Age
of Opera:
1800-1850

3. Opera in the Romantic Era
The Roles of Opera
• new opera theaters erected all over western Europe
• Houses run for profit by an impresario (the opera house
business manager)
• backed by government funding or private support
• attended by upper and middle classes
• opera throughout elite and popular culture
• excerpts and complete scores published, voice and piano
• performed in salons by amateurs at home
• selections transcribed for piano
• overtures and arias on concert programs

4. 19th Century Opera singers
• focus on Italian Bel Canto technique
• bel canto = beautiful singing in Italian
• Ornate and elegant operatic singing style of
19th century Italy
• Embellished melodies
• Described as a “circus act” in the business
• Takes a lifetime to learn!
• Many musical elements are implied by
tradition (fermatas on high notes, rubato)
• Began with Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti
• Star Opera singers paid more than
composers
• Female Stars – Jenny Lind, Pauline Viardot,
and many more!
Opera in the Romantic Era

5. Nationalism
• French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars: spread
concept of a nation
• unified group of people, national identity
through shared characteristics
• intentionally created; social and political goals
• nation and state
• foundation for unification: common language,
literature, music, other arts
• presence of national elements in opera
• use of exoticism, evocation of a foreign land or
culture
Opera in the Romantic Era

6. French Grand Opera
◦ Opera remained most prestigious genre
throughout nineteenth century
◦ French opera under Napoleon
◦ since late seventeenth century, opera centered in
Paris, shaped by politics
◦ Napoleon restricted theaters, only three presented
operas
◦ the Opéra: focused on tragedy, most prestigious
◦ Opéra-Comique: operas with spoken dialogue,
many with serious plots
◦ Théâtre Italien: operas in Italian
◦ other Paris theaters featured variety of stage works
◦ defeat of Napoleon, monarchy restored
◦ government sponsorship for the Opéra continued;
1821, new theater built
◦ Théâtre Italien: operas by Rossini

7. French Grand Opera

8. • Grand opera = serious
opera, sung throughout,
with spectacular staging,
sets, ballets and large
choruses
• designed to appeal to
newly well-to-do
middle class
• spectacle as important
as music
• librettos on romantic
love, context of
historical conflicts
• ballets, stage machinery,
choruses, crowd scenes
• early examples:
Rossini’s Guillaume Tell
French Grand Opera

9. Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)
• librettist and composer: leader of grand opera
• Robert le diable (Robert the Devil, 1831), Les
Huguenots (1836)
• defined new genre of grand opera, set pattern for
musical treatment
• Les Huguenots 1836
• five acts, enormous cast, ballet, dramatic scenery
and lighting effects
• St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572
• new view of history, influenced by 1789 and
1830 revolutions
• closing scene of Act II
• deep personal feelings with crowd scenes,
public ceremonies
• impact of grand opera
• Meyerbeer’s approach admired and emulated
• genre spread to Germany, London, and
elsewhere
• profound influence on Richard Wagner
French Grand Opera

10. Berlioz, Les Troyens/The Trojans
(1856–58)
• five-act opera, libretto by Berlioz based on Virgil’s Aeneid
• drew on grand opera and French opera tradition
• “epic opera”: story of a nation, passions of individual
characters
• 4 hours long!!!
• Cassandre - ’s aria
• Cassandre calls upon the Trojan women to join her in death, to
prevent being defiled by the invading Greeks. A group of
women unite with Cassandre to die. Greek soldiers come and
Cassandre defiantly mocks them, then suddenly stabs herself.
The remaining women scorn the Greeks and commit mass
suicide.
French Grand Opera

11. • Opéra comique
• spoken dialogue instead of recitative
• less pretentious than grand opera, fewer
singers and players
• Straight-forward comedy or serious
drama
• Ballet
• Romantic ballet introduced by Marie
Taglioni (1804–1884)
• performed in Paris, London, St.
Petersburg
• helped establish ballet tradition in
Russia
• music composed after choreography
French Grand Opera

12. • Exoticism – evoking feelings and settings from distant
lands or foreign cultures
• Realism – depicting reality of everyday life, including
common people and their concerns
• several operas exploited interest in exoticism in France
• French composers used exoticism during the 19th
century
• Bizet’s Carmen (premiered at Opéra-Comique, 1875)
• originally classified as opéra-comique
• exoticism and realism combined
• set in Spain, Spanish flavor embodied in Carmen
• Carmen: character outside normal society, dangerous and
enticing
• « L’amour est un oiseau rebelle » (Love is a rebellious bird)
• three authentic Spanish melodies
• rhythm of Cuban dance
Bizet’s Carmen and Exoticism

13. • Opera invented and
popularized in Italy
• more opera houses than any
other region
• forty or more new operas
produced every year
• dozens of composers wrote
operas
• Classics of Italian opera
• Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti
were performed throughout
Italy and other nations
• most famous arias became
popular tunes
• by midcentury, these operas
were part of core repertory,
staged repeatedly
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

14. Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
one of the most popular and influential
composers of his generation
• born in Pesaro, Italy
• 1806 entered Bologna Conservatory
• 1810, first opera commission
• 1815, musical director of Teatro San Carlo in
Naples
• 1824, director of Théâtre Italien in Paris
• retired at age forty, disappeared from operatic
scene
• major works: 39 operas, including Tancredi,
L’italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello,
La Cenerentola, Mosè in Egitto; Stabat mater,
Petite messe solennelle, other sacred vocal
works; smaller vocal and instrumental pieces
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

15. Rossini’s Operas
• best known today for his comic operas
• reputation during his lifetime rested on serious operas
• blended opera buffa and opera seria
• bel canto singing style (Beautiful Singing)
• elegant, effortless technique, agility, flexibility, control
• long lyrical lines, florid embellishment
• general style
• catchy melodies, snappy rhythms, clear phrases
• coloratura melodies, vocal display, expressivity, depiction
of character
• spare orchestration supports singers – all about the voice
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

16. • Rossini’s The Barber of
Seville/Il Barbiere di
Siviglia (1816)
• Premiered in Rome, Italy
• opera buffa with bel canto
tradition
• chaotic plot: secret messages,
drunken brawls, mistaken identity
• Una voce poco fa
• Rosina’s entrance aria (cavatina)
• conveys character through
changes of style
• cantabile: appropriate to
narration, comic patter,
elaborate embellishments
• cabaletta: reveals Rosina’s true
nature; vocal leaps, rapid
passage work
• masterful combination of bel
canto melody, wit, comic
description
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

17. Rossini’s serious operas
• wider range in delineating characters, capturing
situations, conveying emotions
• Guillaume Tell (1829) (William Tell)
• written for the Paris Opéra; over 500 performances
during composer’s lifetime
• a new kind of tenor - Gilbert Duprez (1806–1896), high
C in full voice (chest voice), Guillaume Tell, Paris, 1837
• first time on operatic stage
• composers wrote for his type of voice
• timely theme of rebellion; subjected to censorship
• choruses, ensembles, dances, processions,
atmospheric instrumental interludes;
• founding example of French grand opera
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

18. Rossini’s Opera Overtures
• gems of the orchestral repertoire
• Guillaume Tell overture/William Tell Overture
• musical depiction of a storm
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

19. Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835)
• Born in Catania, Italy (Sicily)
• came to prominence after Rossini retired
• dramas of passion, fast, gripping action
• action built into arias; lyrical moments in recitatives
• long, sweeping, highly embellished, intensely
emotional melodies
• ten serious operas include:
• La sonnambula (The Sleepwalker, 1831)
• Norma (1831)
• “Casta diva” (“Chaste goddess”) from Norma, aria -
cavatina
• subject reflected fascination with distant times, Italian
yearnings for freedom
• vocal line: constant motion, deeply expressive,
unpredictable
• follows Rossini’s scene pattern
• chorus plays important role, creates continuous action
• I puritani (The Puritans, 1835)
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

20. Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
• Major works: oratorios, cantatas, chamber and church music, 100
songs, several symphonies, 70 operas
• most enduring works:
• serious operas: Anna Bolena (Milan, 1830) Lucia di
Lammermoor (Naples, 1835)
• opéra comique: La fille du regiment (Paris, 1840) –
French Comic Opera
• buffo operas: L’elisir d’amore (Milan, 1832), Don
Pasquale (Paris 1843) – Italian comic opera
• melodies capture character, situation, or feeling
• constantly moves drama forward, sustained dramatic tension
Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
• based on novel by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
• set among Scottish highlands, culture fascinated Romantics
• “mad scene” in last act, unbroken flow of events, numerous entrances
and tempo changes
• flexible adaptation of Rossini’s scene structure; model for Giuseppe
Verdi
Early Romantic Italian Opera (Bel Canto)

21. Verdi’s Operatic Tradition
The Late Italian style

22. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
 1813 – Born in Northern Italy
 Studied in Milan privately after being rejected from the
conservatory
 1838 – Commissioned to write operas in Milan
 1842 Nabucco launched him as star composer, next eleven years busiest of his
career
 1845 – Fame and Success in Italy
 His operas were mainstream, not “extreme” like Wagner
 Opera as business, unlike Wagner’s view
 memorable melodies moved the general public
 Nationalism and Politics
 Verdi supported, identified with Italian Risorgimento
 camouflaged patriotic messages in historical dramas
 oppressed characters and tyrants, operas of 1840s

23. Verdi’s Major Works
 dominant figure in Italian music
for fifty years after Donizetti
 major works: 26 operas,
including Nabucco, Macbeth, Luisa
Miller, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La
traviata, Les vépres siciliennes,
Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in
maschera, La forza del destino,
Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and
Falstaff; Requiem and other Latin
sacred choral works, and two
volumes of songs

24. Verdi’s Approach to Opera
• operas are works of theater
• vivid characterization, sharp contrasts, fluid and concise
dramatic and musical structure
• captures characters, feeling, situations in memorable
melodies
• easy to follow, regular phrasing, plain harmony
• Librettos of Shakespeare and others
• fast action, striking contrasts, unusual characters, strong
emotional situations
• focused on tragic plots
• wrote with singers in mind
• singers subordinate to composer and the work
• took more time to compose
• better paid for each new opera
• improved copyright laws, royalty income
• sales from published scores
• Used conventions of Rossini, Bellini, and especially

25. Verdi’s Operatic Style
 Memorable operatic
melodies
 Bel Canto ideals of “beautiful
singing”
 Double aria form
 Cavatina – slow first movement
 Cabaletta – faster second
movement
 Recitative
 Verdi focused less on the recitative
as dialogue (unlike Mozart and
other opera composers)
 Ensembles
 Ensembles become the vehicle for

26.  Premiered in Venice at Teatro alla Fenice - 1851
 Libretto in Italian based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi
s’amuse (The King amuses himself)
 Set in 16th century Northern Italy
 Cast of Main Characters
 Duke of Mantua (tenor), seducer of
women
 Rigoletto (baritone), the Duke’s court
Jester
 Gilda (soprano), Rigoletto’s secret
daughter
 Sparafucile (bass), the assassin
 Maddalena (contralto), the assassin’s
sister
Verdi’s Rigoletto 1851

27. Verdi’s Rigoletto 1851
 Musical characterization, dramatic unity, melodic invention
 central characters delineated by contrasting styles
 Rigoletto, declamatory arioso style
• Duke of Mantua, tuneful arias
• Gilda, moves between two extremes
• “La donna è mobile,” Duke’s charming aria
• waltz rhythm, makes him seem irresistible
• Quartet from Act III, four characters sing different styles
• Duke: seductive, lyrical song
• Maddalena: coquettish laughs
• Gilda: dramatic style
• Rigoletto: arioso style

28. Verdi’s La Traviata (1853)
La traviata
• one of first tragic operas set in the present
• setting and subject, link opera to realism
• focus on singing, drama most important, composer in
control
• cadenzas written out
• stark contrasts, strong emotions, catchy melodies
• Plot –
• Violetta – a famous courtesan
• Alfredo – a bourgeois from a rich family
• Alfredo fallas for Violetta, they have a
relationship, but then separate
• She falls ill with tuberculosis
• He rushes back to her, but it’s too late, she
dies in his arms
• Violetta, Alfredo, and Chorus (Duet with Chorus)
Brindisi « Libiamo »
• Violetta’s death aria « Addio del passato »

29. Verdi’s Later Operas
• Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball;
Rome, 1859)
• La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny,
1862, revised 1869)
• Aida (1871)
• Otello (1884; produced in Milan, 1887)
• Falstaff (Milan, 1893)
• scenes from Shakespeare’s The Merry
Wives of Windsor and Henry IV
• opera buffa, ensemble transformed
• comedy speeds to climaxes in finales
• culminates in a fugue for entire cast

30. Viva Verdi!
Verdi’s reception
• phenomenal success in his lifetime
• by 1850s, operas performed more
often than any other Italian
composer and revived in twentieth
century
• more operas in permanent repertory
than any other composer
• 1859 Verdi’s name becomes
associated with the Italian
Nationalist Movement
• He becomes a national hero for the
rest of his life
• 1896 Verdi starts building a home for
retired musicians
• 1901 Verdi dies, Italy mourns

31. Viva Verdi!

32. • Interaction between music and
literature developed fully
• Singspiel root of German opera
• elements from French opera
• intensified genre’s specific
national features
Semper Opera in Dresden, Germany
German Opera before Wagner

33. Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
• German Opera Composer
• Der Freischütz (The Free Shooter, first
performed in Berlin, 1821)
• established German Romantic opera
• plots drawn from medieval history, legend, fairy
tale
• supernatural incidents intertwined with human
protagonists
• triumph of good is form of salvation, redemption
• importance to physical and spiritual background
• musical styles and forms draw directly from
other countries
• folklike melodies, distinctly German element
• more equal role for the orchestra; use of
chromatic harmony, orchestral colors
German Opera before Wagner

34. Weber’s Der Freischütz 1821
• Wolf’s Glen Scene (finale of Act II)
• elements of melodrama,
spoken dialogue with
background music casting of
bullets exploits resources of
orchestra
• Setting by Carl Wilhelm
Holdermann for the Wolf’s Glen
Scene in Weber’s Der
Freischütz as performed at
Weimar in 1822. In the magic
circle, Caspar casts the magic
bullets, while Max looks around
with growing alarm at the
frightening apparitions aroused
by each bullet cast.
German Opera before Wagner

35. Nationalism, Exoticism, & Authenticity
• Cultural Nationalism - Germany and Italy, sense of nationhood
 national identity through the arts
• Nationalism in music - composers cultivated melodic, harmonic
styles associated with their own ethnic group (i.e. the use of
native folk songs and dances)
• Authenticity - search for independent native voice important in
Russia
• European traditions felt as a threat to homegrown
musical creativity
• national style, sign of authenticity, core personality
• Exoticism - Cultures and sounds of foreign lands were attractive
to some parts of Europe (France)
• borrowed actual melodies, stylistic features
• common in later nineteenth century

36. Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
• One of the most influential musicians of ALL
time
• born in Leipzig, Germany
• early 1830s, began writing operas;
positions with regional opera companies
• 1848–49 fled Germany and settled in
Switzerland, wrote his most important
essays
• 1864, support from King Ludwig II of
Bavaria (Mad Ludwig)
• 1870, married Cosima von Bülow,
daughter of Franz Liszt
• major works: thirteen operas, notably
Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser,
Lohengrin, the four-opera cycle Der Ring
des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal

37. Wagner’s Writings
• Writings and ideas
• The Artwork of the Future (1850), Opera and Drama (1851, revised 1868) -
saw himself as Beethoven’s true successor
• Gesamtkunstwerk (total or collective artwork)
• absolute oneness of drama and music
• vision of new union, music and dramatic text called music drama
• called his works opera, drama, or Bühnenfestspiel (Stage Festival)
• core of drama is in the music
• orchestra conveys inner aspects of the characters and the scenes
• sung words articulate outer aspect
• traditional hierarchy reversed
• orchestral web is chief factor, vocal lines part of musical texture
• other writings address literature, drama, political moral topics
• Gesamtkunstwerk could help reform society
• art not undertaken for profit
• controversial views on nationalism, anti-Semitism

38. Wagner’s Early Operas
Wagner’s Early operas
• Der fliegende Holländer
(The Flying Dutchman,
1843), tradition of
Weber
• libretto by Wagner
• based on Germanic
legend
• hero redeemed through
unselfish love of heroine
• themes from overture
recur throughout

39. • Lohengrin (1850)
• medieval legend, German folklore
• suffused with nationalism, aspiring
to universality
• recurring themes further developed
• Overture to Act I is popular and
played alone on orchestral concerts
still
WAGNER’S EARLY OPERAS

40. Wagner’s Ring Cycle
• The Ring Cycle - cycle of four operas, librettos by Wagner
• Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)
• Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold, 1857)
• Die Walkürie (The Valkyrie, 1857)
• Siegfried (1874)
• Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods, 1874)
• stories from medieval German epic poems, Nordic legends
• love, people’s willingness to abandon it for worldly ends
• gold “ring” from the river Rhine brings limitless power to
wearer
• curse placed on the ring, brings wearer misery and death
• curse is fulfilled in course of the four dramas
• Rhine maidens reclaim the ring

41. Rhine maidens in the 1876 Bayreuth premiere of the Ring cycle were
each held up and moved about by a machine that gave the illusion that
they were swimming beneath the Rhine. The watery set and stage
effect matched the wave-like music Wagner wrote for them.
WAGNER’S RING CYCLE

42. Wagner’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus

43. ■ Wagner’s Opera House
• first complete performance of the
Ring Cycle was here
• theater built to Wagner’s
specifications
• orchestra was larger, louder
 singers needed more powerful,
intense voices
WAGNER’S BAYREUTH FESTSPIELHAUS

44. Wagner’s Ring Cycle
• the Leitmotif (leading motive)
• later dramas organized around numerous themes,
motives
• each associated with particular character, thing, event,
or emotion
• first appearance of the leitmotif and repetition establish
association
• may recall an object, object itself not present
• varied, developed, transformed as plot develops
• unify scene or opera through repetition
• characterized by particular instruments, registers, harmonies,
keys
• complete correspondence between leitmotives and
dramatic action

45. Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
• Tristan und Isolde (1857–59)
• Beginning of the move away from common tonality and
the beginning of the Modern Era in Western Classical
Music
• Prelude Act I
• desire, inexpressible yearning: chromatic harmony,
delayed resolutions
• first chord (F–B–D#–G#), “the Tristan chord”
• four successive dissonant sonorities “resolve” into
dissonance
• Night and Day metaphor for Death and Life
• Tristan and Isolde can only be together during the
night/death
• music as secular religion
• plot as backdrop to musical manifestation of character’s
inner emotions
• Tristan und Isolde, monument of music as secular religion

46. Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
• Wagner’s influence
• more written about Wagner than any other musician
• operas as drama affected virtually all later opera
• use of leitmotives imitated by many composers
• standard practice for film and television music
• many musicians became Wagnerians
• “Wagnerism” term used from politics to aesthetics