by Judy Jones
Formal, well balanced, critically respected, and largely forgotten because they lack immediate musical appeal. You’re not likely to see Orfeo ed Euridice or Iphigénie en Tauride, at least where opera houses depend on audiences to pay their expenses.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
No great innovator, but had that magic touch; personalized and humanized opera and succeeded in balancing all of its pain-in-the-neck elements. A master musician, a sophisticate, a “natural.” With Verdi and Wagner, forms the triumvirate of opera “greats.”
Remember Mozart’s three great “Italian” operas: Le Nozze di Figaro, a comedy with political overtones; Così fan tutte, a sexual farce, sort of, that scandalized all but late-twentieth-century audiences; and Don Giovanni, the greatest example of Mozart’s unconventional mix of tragedy and comedy. The two “German” operas to know about are Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, which some critics consider the most perfect opera ever written). Both are advances on the traditional German “singspiel,” a loose construction of popular and folk tunes, and together laid the foundations for indigenous German opera.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The Romantic genius; wrote only one opera, but it’s a doozy.
Fidelio took nine years to write, blazed no new trails, and has some serious problems in the structure department; still, it’s Beethoven, it’s big-time, and to its admirers, it’s the greatest opera ever written. It is also, in its moralistic themes, the polar opposite of the frivolous immorality Herr B. deplored in Mozart.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Opera’s towering intellect, its second Great Reformer (this one had influence in spades), and the pinnacle of German Romanticism. A megalomaniac and a visionary.
Wagnerian “music drama” (his term) aimed at a union of all theatrical arts: poetry, drama, music, and stagecraft. Major innovations: symphony-scale operatic orchestration (and singers powerful enough to be heard over it); the dripping-with-significance leitmotif (an orchestral theme recurring throughout a work and representing a particular character or idea). All Wagner operas are narcotic, hypnotic, and very, very long. Tannhäuser is considered the most accessible, Parsifal the least. In between, remember Tristan und Isolde; the four-opera Ring cycle; and the lone comedy, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. All are full of psychosexual undertones and all are holy, holy, holy.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Most popular composer of the turn of the century. Not to be confused with Johann Strauss, “The Waltz King,” although Richard capitalized on the association by sprinkling his operas with waltz tunes.
Lovely, easy-to-swallow operas that made lots of money. Saloméis best remembered as a succès de scandale, Der Rosenkavalier for its pretty waltzes.
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Probably the most important modern opera composer; an experimentalist working with atonality and post-Freudian themes (see also page 282).
His two operas, Wozzeck (pronounced VOY-check) and the unfinished (but recently reconstructed) Lulu are both highly cerebral, avant-garde works with complex musical structures unlike anything you ever thought of as opera. Don’t bother looking for melodies (there aren’t any), but the plots are full of sinister sexuality and twentieth-century angst. THE FRENCH
In it for the spectacle: the storyline, the costumes, the courtly dances, the divine special effects, and le pauvre who gets boiled in oil in the second act.
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
A German who went to Paris and wrote the most successful French operas of his time. The master of grand opera. His works are now rarely performed.
Les Huguenots, the best-known and longest lived, is grand opera par excellence. The dominant style in nineteenth-century France, grand opera was long, epic, historical, and loaded with spectacle, always including a ballet or two and usually at least one massacre. Never the most subtle or best-knit of plots, but large, expensive, and exciting.
Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Either France’s greatest opera composer or a genius manqué, depending on taste. Much maligned in his own day (“The French wanted talent, not genius,” says a critic). Brilliant anti-Wagnerian opera theorist; unconventional, unclassifiable. Remains a controversial figure.
No two alike, though all aimed at drama through music (as opposed to the Wagnerian ideal of drama and music); Benvenuto Cellini, an early, resounding failure, cut short his operatic career; Les Troyens (The Trojans), his “gigantic masterpiece,” brought vindication in the twentieth century.
Charles François Gounod (1818-1893); Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Each wrote one masterpiece.
Gounod’s Faust, once ubiquitous, has dropped down the charts recently, but is still one of the few French operas performed all over the world. Bizet’s Carmen is the most famous example of opéra comique (the French alternative to grand opera; not necessarily humorous, although usually equipped with a happy ending; the term applied to any opera that included spoken dialogue) and, although often badly produced, one of the most popular operas ever. THE ENGLISH
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
England’s Great White Hope. Alas, he died young.
Dido and Aeneas, the only English opera to rank as a world masterpiece.
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
German-born, naturalized Englishman who lived in London and wrote mainstream Italian operas. Because he and they were so successful, gave English colleagues a permanent inferiority complex.
Quintessential opera seria; of Handel’s many operas, a few are still performed, e.g. Orlando, Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo. Beautiful music, lame dramas, highly formalized structures; once considered white elephants, now have a limited but enthusiastic following.
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
England’s postwar contender; not in the Hall of Fame just yet, but the best they’ve got and the only modern English composer whose name you’re likely to hear. Known for eclecticism, passionate music, a feeling for the human predicament.
Peter Grimes and Billy Budd are his two well-known, full-scale operas; lack of English opera tradition and consequent lack of funding resulted in chamber (small) operas such as The Turn of the Screw, Let’s Make an Opera, The Beggar’s Opera (a remake), etc. THE RUSSIANS
Had a penchant for collective singing, heroic themes, folk idioms; can get as gloomy as a rainy day in Vladivostok.
Modest Petrovich Moussorgsky (1839-1881)
Mother Russia’s number-one operatic son.
His one complete opera, Boris Godunov, based on a play by Pushkin, is considered uniquely Russian in the way Dostoevsky is considered uniquely Russian; original, both musically and dramatically, impassioned, nationalistic, imbued with intense feeling for the “Russian people.” Also, a little grim.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Educated in the West; the first to pour Russian themes and melancholia into Western classical molds.
His masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, has moments of greatness but is criticized for being “too pretty.” THE CZECHS
Passionate, colorful, high on folklore.
Bedrich Smetana (1824—1884)
Czech patriot; one of the leaders of the movement toward nationalistic opera; a major force behind development of a Czech style.
The Bartered Bride, a colorful peasant comedy, is the only one of his works well-known outside the homeland. His other operas tend more toward the heroic than the folksy, their patriotism troweled on.
Leos Janácek (1854-1928)
Former cult figure, increasingly recognized as a master composer.
Lyrical, theatrical, and thoroughly accessible, his operas have run into trouble because translating opera from the Czech is no mean feat. The composer’s humanism, love of nature, and obsession with folk idioms and speech rhythms are evident in his three best-known works, the
tragic Jenufa, the fantastical Makropoulos Affair, and the pantheistic Cunning Little Vixen, with its cast composed entirely of animals. THE AMERICANS
Have suffered from Old World/New World schizophrenia; worked it out in a diversity of styles and genres. Keep trying.
Douglas Moore (1893-1969)
Minor explorer of American regionalism and roots.
The Devil and Daniel Webster, from Benét’s literary tall tale, and the folkloric Ballad of Baby Doe, popular with touring companies and university music clubs.
Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)
Sophisticated music critic and composer who made brief forays into opera.
Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All, two charming, cerebral, short operas, notable for the cachet of Gertrude Stein’s collaboration.
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–)
Well-known Italian-American lightweight; forthright defender of opera as mass entertainment and promoter of television as operatic medium.
A long string of hits, of which the most famous are The Medium, a melodramatic supernatural thriller; The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street, serious operas about, respectively, political refugees and religious skepticism; and Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera to be written for television, perfect Christmas family fare.
Philip Glass (1937-)
Postmodernist with a predilection for hypnotic repetition, electronic technology, and mixed-media effects.
Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, the former a marathon collaboration with then-wunderkind Robert Wilson, having something to do with relativity theory; the latter all about (sort of) Gandhi and passive resistance.
Eleven Arias to Sing in the Shower
Tosca (Puccini), act 2, “Vissi d’arte”: Famous singer (that’s Tosca) and her painter boyfriend fall into the clutches of evil police chief. He threatens to liquidate boyfriend unless she submits to his advances. She protests: “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, non feci mai / Male ad anima viva!” (“I have lived for love and my art / Never harming a living soul!”)
Rigoletto (Verdi), act 3, “La donna è mobile”: Dad, a court jester (Rigoletto), tries to shield daughter from worldly corruption. Things start to slide when an old count puts a curse on him. After Dad’s boss, the lascivious Duke, seduces his daughter, Rigoletto forces her to eavesdrop with him while the Duke reveals his true misogynist colors: “La donna è mobile / Qual piuma al vento / Muta d’accento / E di pensiero.” (“Woman is fickle / Like a feather in the wind / She changes her tone / And her thoughts.”) Aria recurs later, revealing to Rigoletto that it is murdered daughter, not murdered Duke, he carries in the sack on his back.
Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), act 3, “Spargi d’amaro pianto” (just refer to Lucia’s “Mad Scene”): Girl’s brother tries to pressure her into marriage to bolster fading family fortunes. Forges letter announcing her true love’s engagement to another woman. Plan backfires; on her wedding day, she goes bananas, stabs her tutor, and wanders babbling among the wedding guests. “Spargi d’amaro pianto / Il mio terrestre velo. Mentre lassù nel Cielo lo pregherò per te.” (“Ah, shed your bitter tears / over my earthly remains. But meanwhile in Heaven above I will be praying for you.”)
La Traviata (Verdi), act 1, “Sempre libera”: Young man loves dying courtesan; Dumas’ “La Dame aux Camélias” retold. Violetta contemplates possibility of returning Alfredo’s love and leading a pure and simple life. Then she has second thoughts: “Sempre lib-era degg’io / Follegiare di gioia in gioia …” (“Ever light, ever free, / Flitting on from joy to joy …”)
Die Walküre (Wagner), act 1, “Winterstürme” (“The Spring Song”): Hapless brother and sister, fall guys for the gods, are reunited after years of misery and loneliness. They fall in love. Things seem to be picking up. Little do they know … “Winterstürme wichen / Dem Winnemond, / In milden Lichte / Leuchtet der Lenz.” (“Winter storms have waned in / the joyful May. / The spring is shining, / mild is his light.”)
Don Giovanni (Mozart), act 1, “Madamina” (also known as “Leporello’s Catalogue Aria”): Life in the fast lane with the notorious ladies’ man (we’re talking about Don Juan here, in case you don’t speak Italian). After one particularly close shave, the Don leaves his servant, Leporello, to entertain a vengeful victim. Leporello tries to make conversation: “Madamina, il catalogo è questo, / Delle belle che amo il padron mio.” (“Little lady, this is the catalogue / Of the Ladies my master has loved.”) Best known for its refrain: “Ma, in Ispagna, son già mille e tre!” (“But in Spain, one thousand and three!”)
Norma (Bellini), act 1, “Casta Diva”: Love among the Druids. High priestess (Norma) has swapped sacred chastity for the affections of a Roman proconsul. Now she’s left to contend with a guilty conscience, two illegitimate kids, and a crowd of restless locals itching for a rumble with the Romans. Craving peace (for the moment—she’ll feel less pacific when she hears that the proconsul plans to leave her for a younger priestess), Norma invokes the Moon: “Casta Diva, casta Diva, che in argenti / Queste sacre, queste sacre antiche piante / A noi volgi il bel sembiante.” (“Chaste Goddess, chaste Goddess, who makes silver / These ancient, sacred trees / Turn toward us thy lovely face.”)
Fidelio (Beethoven), act 1, “Abscheulicher”: Wicked governor imprisons political opponent. Opponent’s wife, in drag, gets job as jailkeeper’s assistant. Overhears governor’s plot to assassinate husband. Is understandably upset: “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin? Was hast du vor? / Was hast du vor im wilden Grimme?” (“Monster! Whither is thy haste? / What designs breed thy rage?”)
La Bohème (Puccini), act 1, “Che gelida manina”: Four carefree young artistes share substandard garret. The sensitive poetic one meets consumptive little embroideress from garret next door. Notices, as they proceed to fall in love, that she seems a bit under the weather: “Che gelida manina / Se la lasci riscaldar.” (“Your tiny hand is frozen. Let me warm it into life.”)
Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart), act 1, “Non so più cosa son”: Sexual intrigue, sexual revenge, marital infidelity, the breakdown of the class system—an Italian Upstairs, Downstairs. Here, the young page Cherubino describes what it feels like to discover his hormones: “Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio, / Or di fuoco, ora son di ghiaccio …” (“I can’t give you a good explanation / For this new and confusing sensation …”)
Carmen (Bizet), act 2, “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” (known as Don Jose’s “Flower Song”): Gypsy femme fatale (Carmen) seduces honorable young officer of the guard, leading him to betray his sweetheart and his post to join a band of smugglers. After doing time for helping Carmen escape from police, the hapless Don José, destined to be ditched for a toreador, pledges his love: “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée / Dans ma prison m’était restée. / Flétrie et sèche, cette fleur / Gardait toujours sa douce odeur …” (“The flower you threw me / Stayed with me in prison. / Faded and dry, this flower / Has kept its sweet scent.”)
Practical Italian for the Operagoer
DIVA: Literally, “goddess”: a great lady of the opera, a legend. The highest accolade given to a female singer, usually by adoring fans or an ecstatic press. Ranks above the more restrained “prima donna,” which, properly speaking, simply refers to the leading lady of an opera company.
RECITATIVO (Actually, you’re better off using the English “recitative,” unless you happen to be in Milan.): Refers to the speechlike vocal sections used to advance the action in an opera, as opposed to the more lyrical, anchoring arias, duets, etc. In most pre-Wagnerian opera, the recitativo was kept rigidly separated from the moments of pure “song,” and, if allowed to go on too long, had a tendency to make audiences drowsy. Later composers began to blur the boundaries between the two.
LIBRETTO: The text, or lyrics, of an opera; also a “little book” (the literal meaning of the word) containing the lyrics, a synopsis of the plot, and often, an accompanying translation. In the early days of opera, librettos (in Italian, libretti) were reduc
ed to pocket size so that they could be carried to the theater to help spectators follow the words of an opera during a performance. This custom was made possible by the fact that, at the time, house lights were habitually kept on throughout the performance; if further illumination was needed, audiences were sold little candles that attached to the tops of the librettos.
BEL CANTO: Means, literally, “beautiful singing” and refers, historically, to the type of singer-dominated opera prevalent in Italy throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In bel canto opera, pure vocal technique was emphasized, usually at the expense of drama and orchestration. With the advent of nineteenth century Romantic opera (and, in particular, Verdi’s sweeping melodramas) the genre fell out of favor and was rarely heard until Maria Callas helped to revive it in the 1950s. Bellini’s Norma and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor are considered pinnacles of the bel canto style.
COLORATURA: A fake Italian word (possibly derived from the German koloratur) indicating elaborate ornamentation of the melodic line; a kind of vocal acrobatics consisting of runs, trills, and added flourishes, and demanding exceptional speed and agility on the part of the singer. A coloratura soprano is one who specializes in this type of singing. Joan Sutherland is the best-known contemporary example and is, some say, one of the greatest coloratura singers of all time.
Opera Houses TEATRO ALLA SCALA (MILAN)
Built in 1776 and named for a duchess, not a ladder, La Scala is still Italy’s premier opera house, despite Mussolini’s efforts to transfer the operatic action to Rome. Like most major European houses, La Scala was bombed during World War II; the theater was rebuilt along the old Baroque lines—horseshoe-shaped auditorium, elaborate decor, seats stacked vertically to the ceiling—and reopened in 1946. The house gained points through its close association with Verdi in the nineteenth century, but nearly everyone agrees that its “Golden Age” came during the on-and-off directorship of Toscanini, between 1898 and 1929; it had another flowering during the 1950s, when Maria Callas reigned as “La Regina della Scala” and both Visconti and Zeffirelli worked on productions.
