Classical Opera and Vocal Music: Evolution and Style

1. Classical Era Opera and Vocal Music in the Early Classic Period

2. Style in Classical Music • Melody – singable symmetrical, lyrical. • Harmony- diatonic, tonic to dominant relationships • Rhythm – regular and symmetrical • Texture- Homophonic with some polyphony at times. • Folk elements: national themes, folk themes, dances etc. used in instrumental works.

3. Choral Music • Principal Forms • Mass: Tridentine Missa Romanum (Roman after the Council of Trent) • Missa Solemnis (solemn or High Mass) • Missa Brevis (short Mass or Kyrie & Gloria only) • Requiem: Mass for the Dead • Oratorio: The style of Handel updated to classical style by Mozart and Haydn.

4. Principal Forms • Mozart wrote several Missa Brevis, Missa Solemnis and began a Requiem. • Haydn wrote several Missa Solemnis, and two Oratorios. • From Church to Concert Hall.

5. Classical Choral Music and Opera • Desire for simplicity in Opera • New forms of popular opera arose in the Classical period. • 18th century Opera was a potent social force

6. Opera evolution Baroque recitative aria (solo) recitative aria recitative . . . action emote action emote action . . . Classical/Mozart recitative aria (solo) recitative ensemble . . . action emote action emotion & action ... contrasting emotions

7. Classical Vocal Style • Recitative And God Said Let there be lights… • Secco recitative: dry or without full orchestral accompaniment. • Recitative: In splendor bright… • Accompagnato: full orchestra • Chorus: Homophonic with polyphonic soloists.

8. Classical Opera • Shift from Opera Seria to Comic Opera • Opera Buffa-Italy • Opera Comique-France • Singspiel-Germany • Ballad or Dialogue Opera-England

9. Opera Seria • Grand Opera • Sung in Italian • Serious Subjects: • Mythology • History • National Folk Heroes • Art for the Aristocracy

10. Opera seria Opera buffa influenced music of opera seria Pietro Metastasio (libretti set as operas hundreds of times by Handel, Gluck, Mozart et al) success in Venice led to becoming court poet in Vienna (1729); remained there for life

11. Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782) • heroic operas present conflicts in human passions; promoted morality; models of merciful/enlightened rulers • recitatives (action) & arias (soliloquies)

12. Opera seria • Role of orchestra: simply to accompany singers • Da capo aria: RA RB R’A’ (R=ritornello) fermatas indicate cadenzas • Great master: Johann Adolph Hasse (husband of Bordoni)

13. Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) The leading composer of opera seria around the middle of the 18th century.

14. Faustina Bordoni(1700-1781) Hasse’s wife, one of the century's leading sopranos.

15. Hasse • Very popular in Europe mid-century and influenced Mozart and other composers • Example of typical embellishment • Excerpts from Cleofide: Act II, Scene 9, Digli ch’io son fedele

16. Hasse: Cleofide, Digli ch’io son fedele Embellishment by Porporino (castrato)

17. Comic Opera • Sung in the vernacular • Farcical plots • Satire on the Aristocracy • Mild to raunchy sexual content. • Love affair farces.

18. The Conflict… • What is THE style of the STATE. • People looked to the aristocracy to define the “Music of the People.” • Free theaters. • Rules handed down from the state regarding content in theaters. • By the end of the Classical Period, audiences defined national styles, not the aristocracy.

19. Reasons for the conflict • Need for simplicity. • Need for “reality” in entertainment. • Need for musical entertainment that has mass appeal and not just entertainment for the “royals.” • Opera begins to be a social force by exposing reality on the stage.

20. Reasons for the conflict • Opera exposes the true life of the royals. • Exposes the secrets and ideas of Free masonry and other “secret societies.”

21. Opera Buffa • Dramma giocoso (jocular drama), dramma comico, commedia in musica • In Italy, dialog SUNG • Caricatured aristocrats, commoners, vanity, miserly old men, servants, deceitful spouses, lawyers/notaries, physicians, military • Commedia dell’arte & use of dialects

22. Opera Buffa • Comic cast + serious characters • Rapid recitative called patter • Dry/secco recitative • Arias: short tuneful phrases, simple harmonies • Importance of Leonardo Vinci (Le zite ‘ngalera, Spinsters in the Gallery) 1722

23. The Intermezzo • Type of Italian comic opera, descended from short comic musical interludes between acts of tragedies

24. Comic Opera The best-known intermezzo is La serva padrona (The Maid as Mistress, 1733), by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. In opera buffa, as well as in the intermezzi, dialogue was set in rapid recitatives keyboard accompaniment, and the arias used short tuneful phrases and periods over simple harmonies.

25. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)

26. Recitative: Ah, quanto mi sta male Aria: Son imbrogliato io La serva padrona excerpt (Vol II, 7)

27. Comic Opera Differs by country but in vernacular, light in content, everyday people as characters 2 significant aspects • demand for naturalness • beginnings of musical nationalism

28. Italy • Opera buffa yields to opera giocoso (nontragic, pleasant, but not farcical) • Bass voice, especially basso buffo roles • Ensemble finale, unlike opera seria

29. France • Opéra comique, 1710, lowly form of entertainment at parish fairs, pop tunes (vaudevilles) • 1752, including Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, started new genres with original ariettes introduced • Querelle des bouffons (Quarrel of the comic actors) 1774 (Italian vs French opera) • Alternating spoken dialogue + musical numbers was popular

30. England • Ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera in 1728

31. The Beggar’s Opera • The Beggar's Opera is a comic farce, poking accurate fun at the prevailing fashion in Italian opera as well as the social and political climate of the age

32. John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera • Ballad Opera: Dialogue opera • Spoken dialogue • Familiar tunes • Bawdy texts • Very funny for the time

33. Through all the employments of life  Each neighbor abuses his brother;  Whore and rogue they call husband and wife;  All professions be-rogue one another.  The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;  The lawyer be-knaves the divine;  And the statesman, because he's so great,  Thinks his trade as honest as mine. 

34. The Beggar’s Opera • Direct satire on High Italian Opera • “Why how now, Madam Flirt • Part of the jealousy scene. • Lucy and Polly in a snit over one man. • Familiar English Melody • No Pow’r on Earth • Love song using cockney accent • I like the Fox shall grieve • Tune: The Lass of Patie’s Mill… very familiar

35. The Beggar’s Opera Excerpt from Scene 13 Air XV Air XVI

36. Germany • Singspiel was revived; translating ballad operas and opera comique works • Johann Adam Hiller (Leipzig) • Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and his Doctor und Apotheker (1786) later Haydn

37. Opera Reform • Jommelli and Traetta • Christoph Willibald Gluck • Synthesized French & Italian • Raniero de Calzabigi (librettist & collaborator with Gluck) • Preface to Alceste (1767) remove abuses, serve poetry, advance plot, no da capo arias, singer excesses, overture integral to opera • Lessen contrast in recitative & aria

38. Christoph Willibald Gluck(1714-1787) • Beautiful simplicity, e.g., Che farò senza Euridice? • His works became the models for others: Piccinni, Cherubini, Spontini, Berlioz Change CD to NAWM 2, 88

39. Gluck’s influence • The following are reasons Gluck's work is historically significant: • He established an equilibrium between music and drama. • He made some reforms in opera seria and revitalized opéra comique. • He blended elements of French, German, and Italian opera.

40. Major Style Changes: Opera • Baroque serious Italian Opera wanes in England and throughout Europe. • John Gay’s Beggar Opera provides a new style that was more appealing to the masses. • Opera Seria: Serious Italian Opera, Italian language, serious texts, mythology, history, elaborate, all sung. • Opera Buffa: Comedic opera, spoken texts, satire of the aristocracy. Recognizable tunes.

41. The end