The story of opera — Context and Discussion

R I. WHAT IS OPERA? PAGE What is Opera?—Derivation of term—A musical work—An artificial product—Its justification—Emotional effect of music—Hybrid opera—Modern taste demands one medium of expression—A definition—Music an accessory to opera, but an important one 1

CHAPTER II. DIFFERENT SCHOOLS CORRESPONDING WITH THE GROWTH OF MUSICAL ART.

The centuries see little change in the elements of the drama—Growth of opera concurrent with the progress of the art of music—Points of difference between early operas (Monteverde, etc.) and those of Scarlatti and later writers—Birth of the aria—England and France of the same date—Opera buffa—Musical empiricism—Gluck—His followers—Varying subjects treated—Italian opera—Abuses by the singers—Wagner and modern opera 7

CHAPTER III. THE REFORMERS OF OPERA: MONTEVERDE, GLUCK, AND WAGNER.

Reforms, and the reasons thereof—Monteverde’s influence—Musical innovations—The stage discards music of the ecclesiastical order—The beauty of Scarlatti’s arias—Their weakness—Gluck—Gluck’s explanation of his reforms—Triumph of his methods—Another retrogression— Rossini—Wagner—The leit-motif—Influence on subsequent composers—Will further reforms become necessary, and what shape will they take? 18

CHAPTER IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF OPERA.

Early commencement of opera—The Bardi enthusiasts—What they achieved—Peri and Caccini—A logical commencement—Its imperfections 32

CHAPTER V. EARLY ITALIAN, FRENCH, GERMAN, AND ENGLISH OPERA.

Monteverde—Scarlatti—Cambert—Lully—Keiser—Purcell—Handel in London—Handel’s rival, Buononcini—Handel’s operas now obsolete by reason of their lack of dramatic truth 39

CHAPTER VI. THE OPERAS OF GLUCK AND THE GREAT COMPOSERS.

Gluck and his masterpieces—Mozart—Beethoven—Weber and romantic opera—_Der Freischütz_—Other operas—Schubert—Opera writing a distinct form of composition—The small influence of the really great composers upon opera 48

CHAPTER VII. SOME LESSER STARS IN THE OPERATIC FIRMAMENT.

(_a_) THE ITALIAN SCHOOL (CIMAROSA TO VERDI).

The Italian school—Opera buffa—The Neapolitan school—Piccini—A notable contest—Cimarosa—Rossini: his _Barber of Seville_—Recitative and its significance—_William Tell_—Bellini and Donizetti—Verdi: his early and later operas 63

CHAPTER VIII. SOME LESSER STARS IN THE OPERATIC FIRMAMENT.

(_b_) THE GERMAN SCHOOL (KEISER TO NICOLAI).

Keiser and his successors—Hiller—Real German opera—Spohr—Marschner—Operatic interest not centred in Germany at this time 76

CHAPTER IX. SOME LESSER STARS IN THE OPERATIC FIRMAMENT.

(_c_) THE FRENCH SCHOOL (RAMEAU TO AMBROISE THOMAS).

Rameau—Divergence of methods—The successors of Gluck and Piccinni—Méhul—Cherubini and Spontini—Meyerbeer—Auber—Gounod—Bizet—Reasons for the popularity of _Faust_ and _Carmen_—Offenbach—Délibes and Lalo—Thomas 81

CHAPTER X. ENGLISH OPERA OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

_The Beggar’s Opera_—Arne—Bishop—Balfe—Wallace—Goring Thomas—Sullivan—Living writers 91

CHAPTER XI. WAGNER AND HIS OPERAS.

Wagner’s early days—At Würzburg—At Königsberg—At Riga—At Paris—_Rienzi_—Dresden—Zurich—Munich—Triebschen —Bayreuth—Death—Wagner’s methods—_The Flying Dutchman_ —_Tannhäuser_—_Lohengrin_—_Tristan and Isolde_—_Die Meistersinger_—_The Ring_—_Parsifal_—Wagner’s continued development 98

CHAPTER XII. MODERN OPERA SINCE WAGNER’S REFORMS.

Wagner’s influence—No mere copying—Modern “Melos”—Use of the orchestra—His harmony—Men of a younger generation—The Slavs 116

CHAPTER XIII. SLAVONIC OPERA.

Early Russian composers—Glinka—Dargomijsky—Borodin—César Cui—Tchaïkovsky—Polish opera—Bohemian opera—Dvôrák —Other European countries 122

CHAPTER XIV. OPERA TO-DAY IN ITALY, GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.

Boito—His interesting personality—Puccini—Mascagni— Leoncavallo—Cilea—German composers—Goldmark and Humperdinck—The French school—Saint-Saëns—Massenet —Bruneau—English composers—Stanford—Mackenzie— Cowen—Corder—Bunning, etc. 130

CHAPTER XV. OPERATIC ENTERPRISE IN ENGLAND.

Subsidized opera—Opera an educative factor—Objections to subsidies—Advantages—English opera—Opera companies —Covent Garden—The Royal Opera Syndicate—History of opera in this country—Travelling companies—The Carl Rosa Company—The Moody-Manners Company—The outlook 150

CHAPTER XVI. HOW TO LISTEN TO AND ENJOY OPERA.

Feelings of disappointment—Expectations—The language difficulty—Why the story is hard to follow—What we go to the opera to hear—Some suggestions—To grasp the story—To realize the style of the music—Re-hearing necessary—How to begin to study opera—What is necessary for its enjoyment 163

CHAPTER XVII. THE CHIEF OPERA HOUSES OF THE WORLD.

Covent Garden—La Scala—San Carlo—Venice—Rome—Paris and the Grand Opera—Vienna—Budapest—Prague—Berlin—Dresden —Munich—Bayreuth—Russia—Other European countries— Egypt—America 172

CHAPTER XVIII. OFFSHOOTS AND CURIOSITIES OF OPERA.

Operetta—Musical comedy—Ballad opera—Masque—Ballet— Objections thereto—Curiosities of construction— Pasticcio—Mixed language—Stereotyped casts—Curiosities of stage requirements—Wagner’s supernatural requirements —Curiosities of the music—Vocal cadenzas 185

CHAPTER XIX. A CHAPTER OF CHATTER.

Opera and politics—_Lohengrin_ in Paris—Opera non-lucrative to the composer—Jenny Lind’s contract—Modern fees— Royalties—Librettists—Metastasio and Scribe— The prima donna—Stories of singers and composers 199

APPENDIX A.—Chronological List of Composers of Opera, Great Singers, Conductors, etc. 215

APPENDIX B.—Financial Aid Granted to Operatic Schemes from State or Municipal Funds 248

APPENDIX C.—Glossary of Terms mainly used in Opera 255

APPENDIX D.—List of Instruments used in the Orchestras of Composers of Different Periods of Opera 260

APPENDIX E.—Bibliography of Opera 263

List of Illustrations.

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN _Frontispiece_ Photogravure from the Painting by Sir John Everett Millais, P.R.A. ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI 20 RICHARD WAGNER 26 JEAN BAPTISTE LULLY 42 DOMENICO CIMAROSA 64 GUISEPPE VERDI 72 JOHANN ADAM HILLER 78 NICOLA PICCINI 82 J. OFFENBACH 88 GIACOMO PUCCINI 130 PIETRO MASCAGNI 132 RUGGIERO LEONCAVALLO 136 SIR A. C. MACKENZIE 146 BAYREUTH THEATRE 181 MADAME MELBA 200

What is Opera?—Derivation of term—A musical work—An artificial product—Its justification—Emotional effect of music—Hybrid opera—Modern taste demands one medium of expression—A definition—Music an accessory to opera, but an important one.

[Sidenote: =What is Opera?=]

What is Opera? A question easy to ask, but one that by no means finds so ready an answer; the definitions, “A drama set to music,” “A musical play,” and so forth, being but loose and inaccurate, and not conveying any real idea as to that which they seek to define.

[Sidenote: =Derivation of Term=]

The term “Opera,” derived, or rather abbreviated from the words “Opera in Musica” (Works in music—_i.e._, a musical work), may be at once seen to be only a convenient title that has found favour by its brevity and through lack of a better: translate it and read “works,” and we may see that it is a meaningless term in all else than that it is something created.

And what is this “something” that has been created, that is in people’s mouths so often, and that we designate by the word “Opera”? The least cultured will be able to answer that it is a work for the stage, in which music plays a prominent part: that it is this, and something more, must be shown as we study its rise and development.

[Sidenote: =A Musical Work=]

Let us go a little deeper in our search for a definition. In studying real opera we shall find that not only is it a dramatic production, and that music plays an important part in it, but that any spoken dialogue is foreign to its nature. It is therefore a continuous musical work, uninterrupted by speeches or sentences spoken by the natural voice—sung throughout, the music being illustrative of the story that is being unfolded, and accompanied by appropriate gesture and action. Evidently, then, Opera is a very artificial production; for although under some circumstances one may indeed burst forth into spontaneous song, it is difficult to imagine any considerable number of connected incidents or episodes in one’s life which would naturally suggest music, to which music would be a fitting accompaniment, or which would demand vocalized words for the adequate expression of the sentiments aroused by them.

[Sidenote: =An Artificial Product=]

Fierce rage, passion, death agonies, jealousy, quarrelling on the one hand, and wit, humour, ordinary dialogue on the other—instances of these are more or less commonly met with in our ordinary experiences, and as such they are frequently and naturally reproduced on the stage. But feelings or emotions called up by such events are by no means naturally expressed by musical sounds; and yet in opera we find such emotions, such conditions frequently constituting some considerable portion of the subject-matter of the piece; and since all is sung, it follows that musical expression of these emotions must necessarily be rendered.

Opera, then, must be admitted to be a thing of artificiality. Some will say, “Since the introduction of music into a dramatic work admits an unreal element into that which might otherwise receive a natural interpretation, how can its existence be justified?”

[Sidenote: =Additional Emotional Effect of Music=]

The answer to this is, that whatever may be the feelings or actions to be expressed by the stage characters, proper and suitable music will express them with far greater intensity and far greater power than will spoken words or mere gesture. Such are the emotional qualities of the art of music that a phrase of quite ordinary significance in words may become, if wedded to expressive music, a thing of beauty and life; an emotional feeling may be roused in the auditor that the mere spoken word could never have touched. In the case of words that may themselves contain beautiful ideas, their loveliness can be greatly enhanced by the addition of music, their meaning intensified, their impressiveness doubled.

Artificial, then, as Opera is, and must be, it can justify its artificiality: a drama is put upon the stage, and in order that its situations, its sentiments, and its meaning may be more fully expounded, music is called in to elucidate, to express, and to beautify. Admitting the possibility of this—which no one who has the least feeling for music, or who is at all moved emotionally by the art of sweet sounds, can deny—we find that Opera justifies its existence, despite its unreality and its unlikeness to life.

[Sidenote: =Hybrid Opera=]

But all Opera is not sung throughout: there is a large number of musical works under this name having spoken dialogue. Justification for these is more difficult, for it may be readily understood that one form of expression should be used throughout, and that this modified form of Opera (known as Singspiel), being neither one thing nor the other, is a hybrid form, which really has no right of admission to the title of Opera at all. The fact that it is often effective and highly popular hardly excuses its violation of art form. Of this more anon, for so many plays of this kind with musical numbers were written at a certain period of the history of the art and were classed as operas, that their claims cannot be overlooked. But modern taste in opera demands that one medium of expression be made use of throughout, and thus a return has been made to the early and more artistic form of “Opera in Musica”—the true form, of which the Singspiel is only an offshoot.

[Sidenote: =A Definition=]

We may answer our question, then, “What is opera?” in some such manner as this: An opera is a play designed for the stage, with scenery, costumes, and action used as accessories as in all stage plays, but with the additional use of music to intensify the meanings of the lines which are uttered by the characters, to generally heighten the effect produced by the other combined arts, and to add an emotional element that might otherwise be lacking.

[Sidenote: =Music an Accessory, but an Important One=]

Let us notice that music is only an accessory to the play: an important one, it may be granted, but yet only an accessory. It has been through failure to recognize this limited position of music in opera that accounts for thousands of operas never being heard now. The exaltation of the music at the expense of plot, action, and dramatic fitness has caused the downfall of many a promising operatic composer. Public taste has been to blame, but in the long run it has always veered round to a proper appreciation of the truly artistic; it has made many mistakes, but sooner or later, guided by some master mind, it has discarded the false and taken to the true and real form of opera, with the result that most operas written to-day are consistent wholes, dominated by one general idea, and written upon one fixed governing principle.

Opera, then, generally speaking, is an Art form, in which a stage play is presented with all usual accessories, but with the important addition of continuous music: this is a general definition, but one of which there are so many modifications that we must turn aside for a moment to trace how it happens that so many forms and varieties of opera as there seem to be have sprung into existence.

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS CORRESPONDING WITH THE GROWTH OF MUSICAL ART.

The centuries see little change in the elements of the drama—Growth of opera concurrent with the progress of the art of music—Points of difference between early operas (Monteverde, etc.) and those of Scarlatti and later writers—Birth of the aria—England and France of the same date—Opera buffa—Musical empiricism—Gluck—His followers—Varying subjects treated—Italian opera —Abuses by the singers—Wagner and modern opera.

[Sidenote: =Little change in the Drama=]

The changes that have taken place in opera during the short three hundred years which constitute the life of modern music are far more prominent and important than those that have been undergone by the ordinary dramatic work: the arts of elocution, gesture, and stage action are very old ones, and have seen little radical change for many centuries. Great progress has been made through the use of modern mechanical devices and inventions in the mounting of all stage pieces—_i.e._, in the scenery employed, the lighting, and stage effects generally: these all appeal to the eye; but the appeal to the ear is not, in an ordinary dramatic work, more powerfully made than it was in the days of the Greek dramatist. But when music is added, then appeal to the ear of a most powerful kind takes place, and during the whole life of the youngest of the Arts the improvements and growth in musical technique and expression have been grafted upon opera with continuously progressive power and effect.

[Sidenote: =Growth concurrent with the progress of the Art of Music=]

Now, since opera has demanded for its representation an art that has been in a state of continuous growth, it will follow that the different classes of opera will closely correspond with the different styles and schools of music: we shall find therefore that the earliest operas were only able to employ crude and undeveloped music, none better being available; that as musical skill and knowledge grew, as additional instruments were added to the orchestra, as knowledge of forms developed, so all these improvements found their way into operatic music, with the result that the difference between say a seventeenth and an eighteenth century opera is a very wide one, while a vaster difference still may be seen between one of the eighteenth and one of the late nineteenth century.

We may briefly examine the causes of these differences, taking the dawn of all modern music (about 1600 A.D.) as the starting-point.

[Sidenote: =Points of difference=]

If we take the operas of the first few years of the seventeenth century, what do we find? That the form of tonality in use was the mode and not the scale; that time (_i.e._, measured music), as we now know it, did not exist; that harmony, as we now know it, did not exist; and that the instruments of the orchestra (although some have survived), were in the main instruments which have fallen into disuse, many of them having no modern counterparts. It needs little pointing out that this form of opera must have sounded very different to its successors.

[Sidenote: =Monteverde’s innovations=]

The next important innovations, generally accredited to =Monteverde=, include the dramatic effects of _pizzicato_ and _tremolo_ passages for the stringed instruments—devices which have been used with the happiest results by all composers of subsequent date. Such devices, unknown in church music anterior to this time, or even in the music written for instruments only without voices in the church style, are most effectively employed for the illustration of certain situations on the stage: the mere introduction of these alone is sufficient to separate this school of opera from that which preceded it.

[Sidenote: =Use of Orchestra=]

But Monteverde’s inventions or adoptions did not stop here, for it was he who first added many instruments to the orchestra; not only did he employ additional instruments, but he used them in such a way as to wed certain characters or situations to music in which certain sets of instruments were employed, thus anticipating the much later Wagnerian device of accompanying certain ideas by a fixed theme, or by particular combinations in the orchestra.

[Sidenote: =Adoption of Melody=]

So far the music of the opera was confined to recitative: that is, to the musical rendering of the dialogue without regular rhythm or melody. Another period of opera opened out altogether, when composers began to adapt portions of the dialogue to regular formal melody of a rhythmic nature, and in the diatonic scale, much as we now know it.

Credit for this is generally given to =Cavalli=, and his example was followed by a well-known early opera writer, =Alessandro Scarlatti=. The recitative of the latter took, too, a richer shape and form, inasmuch as it was now often accompanied by the whole of the orchestra, instead of merely by the continuous bass, completed by harpsichord harmonies.

[Sidenote: =Birth of the Aria=]

Scarlatti, however, may claim a more still important innovation, the adoption of set forms: his ideas were often cast into lyrical shapes, his solos were often arias of definite mould, and above all, he deliberately adopted the _Da Capo_ Aria in the majority of his works. This _Da Capo_ Aria would be described by a student of modern form as a “Ternary” movement, in so far as its first part was entirely repeated after the performance of a contrasted middle section. That Scarlatti’s invention killed itself by its own popularity is a matter to be spoken of elsewhere: suffice it to notice that the introduction of the “_Da Capo_” Aria brought into existence a new form of opera, different to all that had gone before.

[Sidenote: =England and France=]

Meanwhile opera was progressing in Germany, France, and England, each school having certain distinguishing characteristics. Purcell’s work in England was unlike that of any Continental opera composer, and his melodies have a boldness, freedom, and ring about them quite their own: English music of the period was a reflex of the national character, straightforward, honest, and vigorous. At the same time, Lully in France was developing quite another side of opera, by the introduction of the ballet, a form that has been retained till within quite recent times by the French.

[Sidenote: =Opera Buffa=]

Handel, although the success of his operas killed, for the time being, all English-born ideas, added little or nothing to the forms of Scarlatti; he practically left opera where he found it, nor were his works as widely known on the Continent as in England. More importance may be attached to the rise, on the Continent, of a lighter form of opera, entitled “Opera Buffa,” in contradistinction to which opera proper received the title of “Opera Seria.” This delightful type had its rise in the _intermezzo_ played between the acts of a dramatic piece, and only gradually obtained a separate existence: from the early attempts of Pergolesi and others there sprung an entirely new class of work, which had great influence on the history of opera generally.

Another step towards the now universally known form of opera was made when Logroscino invented the Concerted Finale, bringing several of his characters on to the stage at the same time, and giving them a simultaneous share in the music.

[Sidenote: =Musical Empiricism=]

Let us notice that all these improvements effected _in the music_ gradually led composers away from the true object of its use in opera, namely, that of enhancing the general effect produced; the music began to be looked upon as so important and so interesting on its own account that all dramatic considerations were allowed to lapse. Meanwhile the personalities of the singers, as opposed to that of the characters they were personating, and their vocal abilities were thrust forward to the exclusion of almost all else.