The Complete Opera Book Part 1

The Complete Opera Book.

by Gustav Kobbe.

Schools of Opera

There are three great schools of opera,--Italian, French, and German.

None other has developed sufficiently to require comment in this brief chapter.

Of the three standard schools, the Italian is the most frankly melodious. When at its best, Italian vocal melody ravishes the senses.

When not at its best, it merely tickles the ear and offends common sense. "Ada" was a turning point in Italian music. Before Verdi composed "Ada," Italian opera, despite its many beauties, was largely a thing of temperament, inspirationally, but often also carelessly set forth. Now, Italian opera composers no longer accept any libretto thrust at them. They think out their scores more carefully; they produce works in which due attention is paid to both vocal and orchestral effect. The older composers still represented in the repertoire are Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. The last-named, however, also reaches well over into the modern school of Italian opera, whose foremost living exponent is Puccini.

Although Rameau (1683-1764), whose "Castor and Pollux" held the stage until supplanted by Gluck's works, was a native of France, French opera had for its founder the Italian, Lully; and one of its chief exponents was the German, Meyerbeer. Two foreigners, therefore, have had a large share in developing the school. It boasts, however, many distinguished natives--Halevy, Auber, Gounod, Bizet, Ma.s.senet.

In the French school of opera the instrumental support of the voice is far richer and the combination of vocal and instrumental effect more discriminating than in the old school of Italian opera. A first cousin of Italian opera, the French, nevertheless, is more carefully thought out, sometimes even too calculated; but, in general, less florid, and never indifferent to the librettist and the significance of the lines he has written and the situations he has evoked. Ma.s.senet is, in the truest sense, the most recent representative of the school of Meyerbeer and Gounod, for Bizet's "Carmen" is unique, and Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" a wholly separate manifestation of French art for the lyric stage.

The German school of opera is distinguished by a seriousness of purpose that discards all effort at vocal display for itself alone, and strives, in a score, well-balanced as between voice and orchestra, to express more forcibly than could the spoken work, the drama that has been set to music.

An opera house like the Metropolitan, which practically has three companies, presents Italian, French, and German operas in the language in which they were written, or at least usually does so. Any speaker before an English-speaking audience can always elicit prolonged applause by maintaining that in English-speaking countries opera should be sung in English. But, in point of fact, and even disregarding the atrocities that masquerade as translations of opera into English, opera should be sung in the language in which it is written. For language unconsciously affects, I might even say determines, the structure of the melody.

Far more important than language, however, is it that opera be sung by great artists. For these a.s.similate music and give it forth in all its essence of truth and beauty. Were great artists to sing opera in Choctaw, it would still be welcome as compared with opera rendered by inferior interpreters, no matter in what language.

Opera Before Gluck

Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" (Orpheus and Eurydice), produced in 1762, is the oldest opera in the repertoire of the modern opera house. But when you are told that the Grand Opera, Paris, was founded by Lully, an Italian composer, in 1672; that Italians were writing operas nearly a century earlier; that a German, Reinhard Keiser (1679-1739), is known to have composed at least 116 operas; and that another German, Johann Adolph Ha.s.se, composed among his operas, numbering at least a hundred, one ent.i.tled "Artaxerxes," two airs from which were sung by Carlo Broschi every evening for ten years to soothe King Philip V. of Spain;--you will realize that opera existed, and even flourished before Gluck produced his "Orpheus and Eurydice."

Opera originated in Florence toward the close of the sixteenth century. A band of composers, enthusiastic, intellectual, aimed at reproducing the musical declamation which they believed to have been characteristic of the representation of Greek tragedy. Their scores were not melodious, but composed in a style of declamatory recitative highly dramatic for its day. What usually is cla.s.sed as the first opera, Jacopo Peri's "Dafne," was privately performed in the Palazzo Corsi, Florence, in 1597. So great was its success that Peri was commissioned, in 1600, to write a similar work for the festivities incidental to the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria de Medici, and composed "Euridice," said to have been the first opera ever produced in public.

The new art form received great stimulus from Claudio Monteverdi, the Duke of Mantua's director of music, who composed "Arianna" (Ariadne) in honor of the marriage of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy. The scene in which _Ariadne_ bewails her desertion by her lover was so dramatically written (from the standpoint of the day, of course) that it produced a sensation. The permanency of opera was a.s.sured, when Monteverdi brought out, with even greater success, his opera "Orfeo," which showed a further advance in dramatic expression, as well as in the treatment of the instrumental score. This composer invented the tremolo for strings--marvellous then, commonplace now, and even reprehensible, unless employed with great skill.

Monteverdi's scores contained, besides recitative, suggestions of melody. The Venetian composer, Cavalli, introduced melody more conspicuously into the vocal score in order to relieve the monotonous effect of a continuous recitative, that was interrupted only by brief melodious phrases. In his airs for voice he foreshadowed the aria form, which was destined to be freely developed by Alessandro Scarlatti (1659-1725). Scarlatti was the first to introduce into an opera score the _ritornello_--the instrumental introduction, interlude, or postlude to a composition for voice. Indeed, Scarlatti is regarded as the founder of what we call Italian opera, the chief characteristic of which is melody for the voice with a comparatively simple accompaniment.

By developing vocal melody to a point at which it ceased to be dramatically expressive, but degenerated into mere voice pyrotechnics, composers who followed Scarlatti laid themselves open to the charge of being too subservient to the singers, and of sacrificing dramatic truth and depth of expression to the vanity of those upon the stage.

Opera became too much a series of show-pieces for its interpreters.

The first practical and effective protest against this came from Lully, who already has been mentioned. He banished all meaningless embellishment from his scores. But in the many years that intervened between Lully's career and Gluck's, the abuse set in again. Then Gluck, from copying the florid Italian style of operatic composition early in his career, changed his entire method as late as 1762, when he was nearly fifty years old, and produced "Orfeo ed Euridice." From that time on he became the champion for the restoration of opera to its proper function as a well-balanced score, in which the voice, while pre-eminent, does not "run away with the whole show."

Indeed, throughout the history of opera, there have been recurring periods, when it has become necessary for composers with the true interest of the lyric stage at heart, to restore the proper balance between the creator of a work and its interpreters, in other words to prevent opera from degenerating from a musical drama of truly dramatic significance to a mere framework for the display of vocal pyrotechnics. Such a reformer was Wagner. Verdi, born the same year as Wagner (1813), but outliving him nearly twenty years, exemplified both the faults and virtues of opera. In his earlier works, many of which have completely disappeared from the stage, he catered almost entirely to his singers. But in "Ada" he produced a masterpiece full of melody which, while offering every opportunity for beautiful singing, never degenerates into mere vocal display. What is here said of Verdi could have been said of Gluck. His earlier operas were in the florid style.

Not until he composed "Orpheus and Eurydice" did he approach opera from the point of view of a reformer. "Orpheus" was his "Ada."

Regarding opera Gluck wrote that "the true mission of music is to second the poetry, by strengthening the expression of the sentiments and increasing the interest of the situations, without interrupting and weakening the action by superfluous ornaments in order to tickle the ear and display the agility of fine voices."

These words might have been written by Richard Wagner, they express so well what he accomplished in the century following that in which Gluck lived. They might also have been penned by Verdi, had he chosen to write an introduction to his "Ada," "Otello," or "Falstaff"; and they are followed by every successful composer of grand opera today--Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Ma.s.senet, Strauss.

In fact, however much the public may be carried away temporarily by astonishing vocal display introduced without reason save to be astonishing, the fate of every work for the lyric stage eventually has been decided on the principle enunciated above. Without being aware of it, the public has applied it. For no matter how sensationally popular a work may have been at any time, it has not survived unless, consciously or unconsciously, the composer has been guided by the cardinal principle of true dramatic expression.

Finally, I must not be misunderstood as condemning, at wholesale, vocal numbers in opera that require extraordinary technique. Scenes in opera frequently offer legitimate occasion for brilliant vocal display. Witness the arias of the _Queen of the Night_ in "The Magic Flute," "Una voce poco fa" in "The Barber of Seville," "Ah! non giunge" in "Sonnambula," the mad scene in "Lucia," "Caro nome" in "Rigoletto," the "Jewel Song" in "Faust," and even _Brunnhilde's_ valkyr shout in "Die Walkure"--works for the lyric stage that have escorted thousands of operatic scores to the grave, with Gluck's gospel on the true mission of opera for a funeral service.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

(1714-1787)

Gluck is the earliest opera composer represented in the repertoire of the modern opera house. In this country three of his works survive.

These are, in the order of their production, "Orfeo ed Euridice"

(Orpheus and Eurydice), "Armide," and "Iphigenie en Tauride"

(Iphigenia in Tauris). "Orpheus and Eurydice," produced in 1762, is the oldest work of its kind on the stage. It is the great-great-grandfather of operas.

Its composer was a musical reformer and "Orpheus" was the first product of his musical reform. He had been a composer of operas in the florid vocal style, which sacrificed the dramatic verities to the whims, fancies, and ambitions of the singers, who sought only to show off their voices. Gluck began, with his "Orpheus," to pay due regard to true dramatic expression. His great merit is that he accomplished this without ignoring the beauty and importance of the voice, but by striking a correct balance between the vocal and instrumental portions of the score.

Simple as his operas appear to us today, they aroused a strife comparable only with that which convulsed musical circles during the progress of Wagner's career. The opposition to his reforms reached its height in Paris, whither he went in 1772. His opponents invited Nicola Piccini, at that time famous as a composer of operas in the florid Italian style, to compete with him. So fierce was the war between Gluckists and Piccinists, that duels were fought and lives sacrificed over the respective merits of the two composers. Finally each produced an opera on the subject of "Iphigenia in Tauris." Gluck's triumphed, Piccini's failed.

Completely victorious, Gluck retired to Vienna, where he died, November 25, 1787.

ORFEO ED EURIDICE

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

Opera in three acts. Music by Christoph Willibald Gluck; book by Raniero di Calzabigi. Productions and revivals.

Vienna, October 5, 1762; Paris, as "Orphee et Eurydice,"

1774; London, Covent Garden, June 26, 1860; New York, Metropolitan Opera House, 1885 (in German); Academy of Music, American Opera Company, in English, under Theodore Thomas, January 8, 1886, with Helene Hastreiter, Emma Juch, and Minnie Dilthey; Metropolitan Opera House, 1910 (with Homer, Gadski, and Alma Gluck).

CHARACTERS

ORPHEUS _Contralto_ EURYDICE _Soprano_ AMOR, G.o.d of Love _Soprano_ A HAPPY SHADE _Soprano_

Shepherds and Shepherdesses, Furies and Demons, Heroes and Heroines in Hades.

_Time_--Antiquity.

_Place_--Greece and the Nether Regions.

Following a brief and solemn prelude, the curtain rises on Act I, showing a grotto with the tomb of _Eurydice_. The beautiful bride of _Orpheus_ has died. Her husband and friends are mourning at her tomb.

During an affecting aria and chorus ("Thou whom I loved") funeral honours are paid to the dead bride. A second orchestra, behind the scenes, echoes, with charming effect, the distracted husband's evocations to his bride and the mournful measures of the chorus, until, in answer to the piercing cries of _Orpheus_ and the exclamatory recitative, "G.o.ds, cruel G.o.ds," _Amor_ appears. He tells the bereaved husband that Zeus has taken pity on him. He shall have permission to go down into Hades and endeavour to propitiate Pluto and his minions solely through the power of his music. But, should he rescue _Eurydice_, he must on no account look back at her until he has crossed the Styx.

Upon that condition, so difficult to fulfil, because of the love of _Orpheus_ for his bride, turns the whole story. For should he, in answer to her pleading, look back, or explain to her why he cannot do so, she will immediately die. But _Orpheus_, confident in his power of song and in his ability to stand the test imposed by Zeus and bring his beloved _Eurydice_ back to earth, receives the message with great joy.

"Fulfil with joy the will of the G.o.ds," sings _Amor_, and _Orpheus_, having implored the aid of the deities, departs for the Nether World.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright Photo by Dupont