Transcript The Opera

Previous knowledge
 While the history of opera “officially” begins in the late
16th century, the act of putting on plays as a form of
entertainment dates back to __________________.
 1597: Dafne was the first opera ever composed. It
incorporated musical instruments, including the lute,
viol and harpsichord, Peri established recitatives (1), as
a central part of opera.
 (1) melodic speech set to music
 1600’s: Castrati are introduced. Young boys were
castrated so their voices can attain and retain high
octave levels. Numerous operas were written suited to
the voice ranges of the boys. This procedure continues
into the late 1800s.
 Alessandro Moreschi, Castrato, Ave Maria
 In many ways, opera was the pop music of its day, with
arias being the hit songs. Its popularity spread across
Europe and soon cities had purpose-built opera
houses (the first was in Venice).
 For many years opera was viewed as an Italian form,
which led to composers writing the librettos (or lyrics)
of their operas in Italian
 The first English opera was Purcell's Dido and Aeneas,
premiered in 1689
 The story of Dido and Aeneas is a tragic love story
 Before Aeneas founded Rome, he was a Trojan soldier.
When Troy fell, he left with his followers in seven ships. He
was shipwrecked on the shores of Carthage, the great
African city ruled by Queen Dido.
 Dido and Aeneas fell in love, but the gods called Aeneas
away to fulfill his destiny in Italy, and Dido was left
heartbroken and alone. In her despair, she built a funeral
pyre and committed suicide atop it. Virgil gives the story as
the explanation for Rome and Carthage’s ancient grievance
that culminated in the Punic Wars. In reality, there was a
Queen Dido of Carthage, and she did commit suicide, but it
was to avoid marrying a rival king, Iarbus.
 It was Christoph Gluck, a German composer, who changed
the face of opera, and made it more like the form we know
today.
 With Orfeo et Eurydice, staged in 1762 in Vienna, he
revolutionised the form, emphasising the drama of the
piece and cutting the excess.
 It was a great success, and Gluck composed other operas
that stuck to the same focus, influencing those who
followed him, like Mozart, whose Marriage of Figaro was
one of the most popular operas of its day. Combing
humour with its tale, and some memorable tunes, it set the
standard for opera, which he tried to outdo with Cosi Fan
Tutti and The Magic Flute.
 In the 19th century different strands of opera emerged
- the Italian, German, French, Russian and even
Spanish. France took it to epic heights with grand
opera that included dance interludes with a full ballet
company and productions that lasted four to five
hours.
 The work of Wagner, whose Ring Cycle, a retelling of
Teutonic myth, took opera to epic, extravagant
proportions.
Wagner opera
 The first of Wagner's mature operas is Tristan und
Isolde . often considered his masterpiece.
 This is followed by Der Ring des Nibelungen,
commonly referred to as the Ring cycle, a set of four
operas based on German and Scandinavian mythology.
Spanning roughly 14 hours in performance, the Ring
cycle has been called the most ambitious artistic work
ever made.
Der Ring des Nibelungen
 The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the
power to rule the world, forged by the dwarf Alberich
from gold he stole from the Rhinemaidens in the river
Rhine.
 Several mythic figures struggle for possession of the
Ring, including Odin the king of the gods. Odin's
scheme, spanning generations, drives much of the
action in the story.
 His grandson, the hero Siegfried, wins the Ring, as
Odin intended, but is eventually betrayed and slain.
Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Siegfried's lover and
Odin's estranged daughter, returns the Ring to the
Rhinemaidens. In the process, the Gods and their
home, Valhalla, are destroyed.
 In his previous operas, Wagner had tried to make
minimal use of recitative and aria. For the Ring he
decided to do away with them entirely and adopted a
through-composed (1) style. Where each act of each
opera would be a continuous piece of music with no
breaks.
 (1) Music without repeats.
 Act 3: Ride of the Valkyries