PART 5: Video Intro

 

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of bleeding, he sings."

--from Off Beat, by Dudley Moore.

Well, it's true that in opera people act strangely--though they don't act normally in plays, movies or musicals, either.  But we wouldn't want them to, would we? Every dramatic art makes us check our common sense at the door and proceed on to a world of pure, conjured artifice. Afterall, that's why we call it art.

But there are degrees of artifice-- degrees of realism--and the whole range of these degrees can be seen in the history of opera. Baroque opera had long scenes in which singers stood still as a pole on the stage singing repetitive ABA arias. During the classical era this was seen as too artificial and unrealistic, and was replaced by more 'natural' acting and stage movement, along with songs that progressed through the action rather than repeating it. Serious operas (called opera seria) gave way to lighter, even comic operas (opera buffa).

The 19th century, as you know by now, was an age of experimentation and opera was an important laboratory for composers trying out new ideas. For example, during this period the arbitrary divisions between recitative and aria broke down. The action in operas became more fluid and less interrupted, and many composers favored a more realistic portrayal of character.

There emerged several different styles of operatic writing which, for simplicity's sake we'll narrow down to two major contrasting representatives. These are Giuseppe Verdi (Italian opera) and Richard Wagner (German opera).

In the operas of the German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883--pronounced 'Ree-kard Vog-ner') most of his 'reforms' centered around the orchestra.  With Wagner, the orchestra dropped the discreet, accompanimental role it had traditionally assumed. It became larger, louder, and more prominent, sometimes even rivalling the voice in the overall sonic fabric. Wagner's orchestration, which has been much studied, was denser and more contrapuntal than that of any other composer. His operas have even been described as symphonic dramas, a label which points out the primary role of the orchestra.

Previously singers in opera had all the best melodic material, a situation which Wagner often reversed, assigning important melodic motivs (which he called leitmotivs) to the orchestra. These leitmotivs were employed in a very subtle, almost Freudian way-- they were most often associated with a person in the opera and were used to suggest the presence of a particular character whether that person was onstage or not. In that way, singers could be singing about one thing but thinking about another, with their thoughts made plain by the use of leitmotivs. Or a person could be subtly reminded of another by a leitmotiv, the way one might be reminded of a friend by just a whiff of the perfume she wears.

In terms of form, Wagner adamantly opposed the traditional division of recitative/aria or any arbitrary breaks in the musical texture, favoring instead a continuous music. He derided the French and Italians for their 'numbers operas' (in which one song followed another), calling it a "concert in costume."

Wagner intended his operas to unite music, literature, philosophy and drama in one art work--and he was convinced that the sum of these different arts would yield a superior work: the Gesamtkunstwerk, meaning total art work. On this rather grandiose supposition he staked his claim to history and the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk has been inextricably linked with him ever since. The trouble is that in actual practice the different elements of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk were very unevenly balanced: the music can be beautiful but it is often paired with a dreadful text, ponderous philosophy, and minimal drama (huge stretches of singing with no action to go with it). Furthermore, it is obvious that Wagner was not the originator of the Gesamtkunstwerk, inasmuch as the marriage of music, fine literature, philosophy, drama, and even dance had been accomplished in works as early as those of the Baroque composer Lully.

One last comment: the ladies with the breastplates and horns are always associated with the operas of Wagner.  He wrote his own libretti (meaning that he wrote the words or the book for the opera) and he favored medieval fables, mythology, or quasi-historical stories, fraught with disguised philosophical, political and social commentary, and dripping with heavy symbolism. My bet is that this is where the saying "it's not over until the fat lady sings..." came from, not only because Wagner's operas are incredibly long ( long enough to make the audience indeed wonder when it would be over...), but also because so many "Wagnerian singers" are rather large in size.  Many of them defend their girth by saying that it is needed to support the vocal strength and stentorian style of Wagner's operas!  "I love opera-- you can't get sleep like that at home..." --Larry Miller

Even if classical music is new to you, you may recognize the name of the Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, who today is probably the most famous of all opera singers. Italy has been associated with opera right from day one (remember Orfeo?). Perhaps you've visited Italy and seen for yourself the enthusiasm for opera there--an enthusiasm that cuts across geographic and socio-economic boundaries. Opera is an important social phenomenon in Italy, and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) is venerated as an elder statesman. If you think that this is exaggeration, consider that Verdi was made an honorary deputy of the first Italian parliament in 1861. When he died, eulogies were delivered in a special session of the senate in Rome, and 300,000 people attended his funeral. Though Verdi was not officially active in political life he was able to slip his liberal political views into his operas--and past the censors--several times. For example, the song of the Israelite slaves in his opera Nebuchadnezzar became a kind of anthem for the Italian liberation movement--somewhat equivalent to what We Shall Overcome was for the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Verdi's quiet political heroism was immortalized in a popular graffito scribbled on walls and depicted in drawings of the day: Viva Verdi!, the V-E-R-D-I being an acronym for Vittorio Emmanuele, Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel was the symbolic leader of Italian national unification.)

Though Verdi was a liberal in his political views he was rather more conservative in his musical ones. Unlike Wagner he did not totally repudiate "numbers" operas, nor did he especially use leitmotivs. Also contrary to Wagner was Verdi's insistence on the beauty and primary role of the voice, so much so that his style of writing has come to be called Bel Canto, meaning beautiful singing. Far from drowning out singers with dense orchestral accompaniment as Wagner had done, Verdi's accompaniments were thin and subdued. He is said to have commented once, "Opera is opera and symphony is symphony," an obvious reference to Wagner's blending of the two genres. Interestingly, Verdi's operatic music is seldom heard in orchestral concerts, but is frequently heard in voice recitals with piano accompaniment (by contrast, Wagner's music is frequently heard in orchestral concerts with or without a vocalist, but almost never in voice recital with piano accompaniment.)

Since our Kamien recording set does not include any Verdi, let me give you a snippet of an aria from Aida. Aida is the story of an Ethiopian slave girl in love with the Egyptian general Radames. The story is one of betrayal (Amneris betrays Radames over jealousy for his love of Aida; he is sentenced to death) and consuming love (Aida, in the final scene, hides herself away in the sepulchre which is reserved for Radames and they die there together--singing all the way, of course). The last scene is ravishingly beautiful from beginning to end, and our snippet is taken from this scene.

I hope the excerpt above has whet your appetite to listen to the entire work. Better yet, there are several videos of Aida available! My favorite is the one with Placido Domingo as Radames. Be sure to have a box of tissues handy for the ending...

 

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) should be very flattered indeed.  His classic opera, Madame Butterfly, is not only one of the most popular operas of all time, but it has even been updated as the musical Miss Saigon. Madame Butterfly is the story of a young, naive Japanese woman who falls in love with a duplicitous American naval officer, and it is a gripping, emotional drama. As she waits faithfully for her love to return, imagining that beautiful day, Un Bel Di, Cio-Cio San sings one of the most famous arias ever written, a heart-wrenching melody of pathos.  Puccini was the principle Italian opera composer after Verdi, and his Tosca, La Boheme, and Madame Butterfly are perennial favorites at opera houses around the world. He was known for his tuneful writing and dramatic staging, as well as the very gritty topics he chose to set.

Setting real-life, even sordid stories was a growing trend among 19th century opera composers, perhaps in part as a reaction against the remote subject matter of Wagner's celebrated works. In Italy a literary movement called verismo ("realism") inspired operas featuring everyday people in true-to-life and even violent situations, rather than mythical figures in obscure plots. Perhaps the most famous of these is Pietro Mascagni's Cavelleria Rusticana, the story of a young girl who becomes pregnant out of wedlock and the violent demise of her lover. Verismo was also taken up by the French composer Georges Bizet in his famous opera, Carmen, which is loaded with sexual overtones. (There is a 1984 film version of Carmen on video).

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