Opera

I

Introduction

Opera, drama in which the text is set to music and staged. The texts of operas are sung, with singing and stage action nearly always given instrumental accompaniment. Many operas also feature instrumental interludes (called intermezzi) and dance scenes, even extended ballets that interrupt the action.

Opera began as an entertainment at the courts of the Italian aristocracy, with outdoor terraces and even enclosed tennis courts being adapted for performances. It had its origins in the last years of the 16th century, and eventually this new form of entertainment caught on with the public. Giasone (1649) by Italian composer Pietro Francesco Cavalli held the stage for some 50 years. Opera as a popular entertainment attained its zenith in the 19th and early 20th centuries, after which the disruptive effects of two world wars and far-reaching developments in music itself left opera in a state of fairly arrested development.

In its heyday, opera was a prolific entertainment. Many of Europe’s greatest composers wrote operas by the dozen, and operas that took hold (many closed on opening night) were taken up by the feverishly adulated stars of the period. These stars held court in the sumptuous opera houses of Saint Petersburg, Naples, Rome, Venice, Milan, Vienna, Paris, and Berlin, and in such emerging outposts of opera as New York City and New Orleans, the last a stronghold of French opera in the 19th century. One wealthy eccentric even built an opera house in Manaus, a city deep in the Brazilian jungle, where Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made guest appearances.

Throughout its history opera has exerted great influence on other forms of music—and vice versa. The symphony, for example, began as an instrumental introduction (called a sinfonia) to 18th-century Italian opera. The glittering runs and cadenzas (extended virtuosic solos) of violin and piano concertos stem, in large part, from an attempt to replicate some of opera’s vocal brilliance for these instruments. The innovations in harmony and orchestration (assigning parts in an orchestral composition to different instruments) that 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner developed for his sprawling operas shaped the subsequent course of many musical forms. Indeed, many modern musicians regard the effort to emerge from the gigantic shadow of Wagner as the principal struggle of classical music after the 19th century.

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II

The Form of Opera

Singing is at the heart of opera. In grand opera, the type of opera most commonly performed today, the entire text is sung. What makes it opera in the grand manner is the spectacle—lavish sets and costumes, huge choruses, brilliant vocal displays and dance numbers (usually ballet). In comic opera, however, singing generally alternates with passages that are half-sung and half-spoken and usually accompanied by a keyboard instrument. Comic operas are not necessarily humorous, however. The term comic opera (opéra comique in French, opera buffa in Italian, and Singspiel in German) was intended to distinguish operas that were lighter in style from opera seria (serious opera). Comic operas generally deal with ordinary people and places and end happily, whereas opera seria treats mythological or historical subjects and typically ends tragically. The most famous examples of comic opera are Carmen (1875) by French composer Georges Bizet and Fidelio (1805; revised 1806, 1814) by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. A form of light, sentimental comic opera that flourished in Paris and Vienna in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to be called operetta. Imported to the United States, it evolved into the musical, a play that includes songs, choruses, and dances in its narrative.

All of these types of opera rest on the shared belief that music—and especially singing—intensifies dramatic effect. This was not always so. In opera’s early days, singing was often subordinated to ballet spectacles. And some opera composers, especially those of France and 19th-century Russia, emphasized extravagant scenic effects and extended dance episodes. Many of the later German composers made the orchestra a partner rather than an accompanist of the singer. But throughout the history of opera, the human voice has remained dominant.

A

Vocal Numbers

Since the essence of opera is singing, the high points of the drama are set pieces such as arias, duets, and other numbers in which vocal music is emphasized. An aria is essentially a soliloquy (monologue), a duet is a dialogue, and trios typically dramatize the conflicted state of one of the participants. The complexity may be carried further, as in the quartet from Rigoletto (1851) by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi or the sextet in Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) by fellow Italian Gaetano Donizetti. Victor Hugo, author of the play from which Verdi adapted Rigoletto, marveled at how what would be unintelligible in the spoken theater—a quartet—became crystal-clear in content and feeling when set to music. Verdi reached the apex of this complexity with a fugue for ten characters and orchestra in his final opera, Falstaff (1893). (In a fugue one voice or instrument introduces a musical theme, which is then repeated and developed by the others in sequence.)

Composers employ these forms to suspend the action and dwell on one or several emotions simultaneously. Only a group of singers joined in ensemble can express different points of view at the same time. Sometimes, a chorus comments on the actions of the protagonists. In most choral numbers, the text is sung comparatively slowly, often with repetition of phrases.

It is difficult to carry an opera by means of aria alone, however. In the majority of operas, the principal method of articulating the plot and carrying the action forward is recitative: rapid singing in free tempo, following the inflections of speech, with a simple accompaniment. Recitative may bore operagoers who are unfamiliar with what is being sung (although the introduction of projected translations in the late 20th century has largely alleviated this incomprehension), but it is crucial to the advancement of the narrative. Not all opera preserves a strict distinction between recitative and such numbers as arias and choruses. Wagner moved away from this distinction in favor of a more continuous musical texture, and this practice has dominated opera ever since. Composers such as the Czech Leoš Janáček and the Russian Modest Mussorgsky elevated the observance of natural speech rhythms to a defining principle of their art.

B

The Orchestra

If the singers provide the foundation of an operatic performance, the orchestra supplies the framework, the background, and the underpinning. Its instrumental preludes and thematic references prepare the audience for the evolution of the drama and provide dramatic context throughout the opera. The orchestra also supports the singers and underscores the climaxes. Its interludes cover changes of scenery or mood, and its coda (conclusion) provides the opera’s final statement.

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