Amahl and the Night Visitors Preview | Opera 101
Hello and welcome to our email previews for Amahl and the Night Visitors. This project is a very special collaboration between Insight, Faithful Fools, the First Unitarian Universalist Society, and Skywatchers. We hope you will be able to join us December 10-12th in this beautiful production celebrating community, hope, and love!
To start this series, we decided to give a brief (i tried) overview of the history of opera in order to introduce you to this new format.
The concept of an opera originated from the traditions of Ancient Greek performers like Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; however, it wasn’t until the 1700s that such performances became full productions. Before the formal opera production was established, it was much more common for there to be Intermedis which were lavish displays which took place during court gatherings and celebrations.
As the intermdedi developed, the set production, costumes, and music became increasingly heightened in order to show off the host’s wealth. The most famous family, the Medicis, sponsored many artists and were crucial to the development of the art form and its eventual evolution into the more formal Opera.
Montiverdi | La favola d'Orpheo
As this artistic “craze” spread through Italy, more artists became inspired, and the famous composer Caludio Montiverdi produced La favola d’Orpheo (The Fable of Orpheus), one of the oldest surviving Operas which is still performed regularly today.
In your listening, notice the structure of the aria: the singer performs a couple lines of each stanza and is framed by the music. At the end of the clip, there is a recitative where the singer delivers a more monotonous, speech-like stanza to help progress the plot.
Vivaldi | Filiae Mestae Jerusalem
In 1637 the first public opera house was constructed in Venice: the Teatro di San Cassiano. This shift towards public consumption helped grow Opera beyond the courts of nobility and into the sphere of the populace, again causing a dramatic evolution to the artform.
One example of the rapid development of Opera was that it became very specialized depending on the region in which it was being produced. For example, many operas produced in Rome emphasized the difference between their aria and recitativo sections, and many Venetian operas inserted comic sections into works with serious and tragic stories.
By the late 17th century, the opera seria (serious opera) came into fashion. Opposed to the opera buffa (comedy opera) which the Venetians had been developing, these operas were much more story driven and for the most part, adopted an ABA form (Da Capo) in each aria due to their more reverential nature.
Sileant zephyri
Sileant zephyri,
rigeant prata,
unda amata,
frondes, flores non satientur.
Mortuo flumine,
proprio lumine
luna et sol etiam priventur.
May the gentle zephyrs be restful
May the gentle zephyrs be restful,
May the meadows not be sodden,
By the beloved water's waves,
May the dangling leaves, the flowers, not be drenched.
By the river's mirror surface,
May even the moon and sun
Be robbed of their own light.
In the listening above, listen for the ABA structure that has been adopted during the second stanza, and then the return (ritornello) to the first stanza at the end. During the ritornello, it was encouraged for the soloist to add their own interpretive elements like additional ornaments and flourishes to emphasize the emotion of the character and show off their virtuosity.
See also: Guided Listening Vivaldi | L'estro armonico Op. 3 No. 6 and Il Giustino, RV 717, Act 1: "Vedrò con mio diletto"
Jean Baptiste Lully | Persée
Opera had also taken off in other countries like France and England, although it did not achieve as widespread popularity as it had in Italy. French composers like Lully and Rameau adopted the format, however due to the popularity of dance, French Operas tended to emphasize ballet (Ballet-Operas) more than the Italian operas.
Notice in Lully’s adaptation of the Persée (Perseus), there is a heightened emphasis on the choreography rather than the intricacies of the voice like in the example of the opera seria from Italy above.
Meanwhile, in England, Henri Purcell composed a very successful opera, Dido and Aneas and later the German-born G.F. Handel composed a wide array of operas like Giulio Cesare, Rodalino, Orlando, and Alicina using his own opera company. Broadly speaking, English operas tended to synthesize the competing styles while also adding their own twists and bits of character.
Mozart | Marriage of Figaro
The Opera Buffa, or comic opera, also inspired many developments– most notably it brought the subject matter of opera’s plot lines from ancient Grecian tales and religious fables to stories about the common man. By the late 18th century, many famous operas like Il Barbre de Seville (Paisiello) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) had been composed in this fashion.
This aria from Le Nozze di Figaro is one of the most charming pieces of Mozart’s œuvre– the scene is of an impromptu recital given by the young boy who had been goaded into sharing a new love song he wrote (not an epic tale of a battle between gods and humans).
Rossini | Il Barbiere di Siviglia
The next notable innovation in the Opera came with the Italian composer, Rossini who lived in the early 19th century. His operas featured common people as characters but adjusted the format of the Da Capo aria and recitatives to become more fluid scenas. This change allowed further musical expression and heightened the drama within the storytelling.
Listen for the virtuosity of the solo part in this aria. Additionally, because the music is able to wander and extend beyond just two musical sections, there is more development in the story/character during the aria.
Richard Wagner | Der Ring des Nibelungen
During the romantic era (19th -early 20th century), opera continued to grow in scale. This era saw the emergence of composers like Verdi, Wagner, Bizet, and later on, Tosca. In addition to their production, these elaborate performances were also much longer than their predecessors– one immediately thinks of Wagner’s Ring Cycle which consists of four operas and totals to 15 hours of music.
In the above excerpts above filmed at the Bayreuth Festival (an enormous opera festival which programs the complete Ring Cycle each year along with many other operas), notice the spectacle and grandiose scale of the production and music. Due to their distinctive characters, scenes like Ride of the Valkyries have permeated throughout the classical canon and into pop culture.
A musical innovation made by Wagner that we are not able to show to its full extent here is the leitmotif, or distinct musical phrase or pattern which is used specifically to portray a character within an opera. The motif can also be altered depending on the state of the story or character– this is the origin for what we would be more familiar with: a character’s “theme music”.
Gabriela Lena Frank | El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego
In the 20th century, America had established its own cultural voice and stepped onto the stage. The first hit American opera that is still in production today was Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess composed in 1935 which we discussed a few months ago during our Fascinating Rhythms coverage. Among the many composers cultivating a distinct, American sound in the 1950s and beyond were Bernstein, Menotti, John Adams, Phillip Glass and most recently, Gabriela Lena Frank who just premiered El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego at the Met !!!!!!!!!
We encourage you to watch the Met’s feature interview and documentary featuring Gabriela Lena Frank, the librettist Nilo Cruz, and the rest of the production team about the opera to learn more about its premise, music, and spirit of collaboration that is required to produce such a creative feat:
Opera, like the Symphony and Concerto, has become a staple of a composer’s portfolio and many more contemporary composers continue in the tradition of composing for it today. In fact, Cooper is currently composing his first opera based off of the song cycle previously performed by Insight, Tenth Muse. Continue reading next week for more information on our production of Amahl and the Night Visitors by Giano Menotti!
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