Opera Week 1 - Seventeenth-Century

Review

1. The Birth of Opera and The Baroque –

2. The Cameratas – Caccini, Peri, Mei and Bardi.

3. Back to the Greeks. 4. The two practices – the

affections.

Italy 2 - 1.       Florentine Intermedi of 1589 – Bardi

and Cavalieri – published in Venice 1591. 2. For Tuscan Wedding of Ferdinand de

Medici and Christine of Lorraine– tradition going back to 1539.

3. Vittoria Archilie – famous female singer/lutenist wife of Antonio Archilie - stared in 1589 Intermedi.

4. Mei’s research on Greeks and Greek music informed the performances.

Italy 3 1.       Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) first opera

still performable today. Blend of styles and genres. Colourful instrumentation – blend of renaissance and baroque elements.

2. Involved more elements than earlier Operas – dance, music (chorus, soloist, orchestra), drama, spectacle.

3. Real drama and emotion – 4. Put on first for private Mantuan wedding,

then performed in public and published in Venice.

Italy 4 1.    Opera then taken up in Rome –

in private theatres of rich. Later it becomes unacceptable to church and Roman opera stops.

2. Start of public opera in Venice in 1637 (Andromeda by Manelli). Timed to coincide with Carnivale and put on in the Venice theatres.

Italy 5 1.       Monteverdi’s last masterpiece

L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642)  2. Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (1641) first

opera for new Opera house. Smaller resources than earlier operas –

dominated by monodic style. Less colourful than Orfeo but greater

emphasis on character portrail.

Italy 6 1.       From Cavalli to Cesti. Orontea (1649)

showed the way forward with a new more elaborate aria style to show off the voice. Main features of Italian opera were established by 1650: The castrati had been important from the first and remained so.

2.       Venetian composers of opera after 1650 concentrated on aria writing (increasing from 20 to 60 per opera by end of century) and in developing types – strophic, ostinato-patterns (ground basses), dance forms.

French Opera  1.  History of France and the experience of

Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV in dealing with the religious divide and the nobles.

2. Separateness of French culture and the special importance of the language. Great age of classical French letters and playwriters – Moliere, Racine, etc.

3. Absolutism and ordering of French society. Monopolies and Family traditions.

France 2 1.  Importance in France of the ballet and

the ballet de cour in particular from. 2. Popularity and character of the air de

cour outside the ballet. 3. Ballet the embodiment of state in a

perfect relationship. 4. French opera has its roots in ballet de

cour and the dance remained central to the conception of French opera.

France 3 . There had been performances of Opera

in France before Lully. Caccini and his family were invited to

Paris (1605) - plans to put on Dafne  French ideas influenced Italian opera.  Italian opera was performed in Paris in

run up to 1670s.

France 4 Arrival of Lully in 1646 aged 14. His success with the

Violins du Roi and then with ballet (La Nuit 1658). His dancing ability and dance music attracted the attention of Louis. Superintendant of King’s chamber music in 1661; he consolidated his position gradually removing and ruining any rivals.  

Lully attempted many forms that combined dance as spectacle on stage (Comedie-Ballet, Pastorale, Tragedie Machines) – but avoided Opera until 1673.

His rival Perrin produced Pomone in 1671 and founded an Academie d’Opera – Lully had to act and was characteristically ruthless.

France 5 4.  First Tragedie en Musique was Cadmus et

Hermoine (1673) combined all elements: ballet, pastorale, tragedy, comedy scenes, machines. Usually 5 acts and a prologue, plus each usually has one or more divertissement of songs and dances.

5.   Each year from 1673 to 1687 a new Lully opera was composed. Armide (1686). After Lully then grand form was discontinued in favour of lighter forms (pastorales involving more ballet) and the composers less renowned – Campra. Lully remained popular until Rameau produced his first grand opera in 1733.

England 1 1. Context of Stuart monarchs and the

masque as the embodiment of society in harmony around the King. Like French ballet.

2. Elements of Stuart masque – anti-masque and the 5 entries, ball to follow. Professional and amateur and involving the whole court. Put on for special events and hugely expensive.

3. Last full masque 1640, and court was abandoned and fled London in 1642.

England 2 1.  Civil War and Commonwealth. Theatres

closed but a play set to music was allowed – semi-operas. Cupid and Death (1653) and Seige of Rhodes (1656).

2. Rise in music participation among middle-classes.

3. Restoration period 1660 onwards – music in the two licensed theatres. Last court Masque Calisto (1675). Large amount of theatre songs and orchestral suites for plays produced from 1660 onwards but little in the way of full opera.

England 3 1.   Purcell’s 5 semi-operas and Dido and Aeneas

(1689) also Blow’s Venus and Adonis (1685 ). 2.   Luis Grabu started to produced Albion and

Albanius (1684) only to abandon it when Monmouth’s rebellion put London into panic. It was effectively a Lullian opera in 5 acts in English.

3. Purcell’s and his contemporaries produced a huge amount of theatre music but true opera did not seem to appeal to British public.

England 4 1.   After Purcell’s death plenty of theatre music

(John Eccles in particular) e.g. ‘I burn, I burn’ from Don Quixote (1694), but little in the way of full Opera.

2.   William III did not encourage music and arts and England was much preoccupied with war in the 1690s and early years of the eighteenth-century.

3. Attempts to bring Italian opera to Britain were attempted but seemed doomed.

4. Italian was a problem – But Camilla (1706) by Bononcini was a great success in London.