18th-Century Opera

What does Strohm (1997) identify as the reason for the 18th-c dualistic conception of serious and comic genres?

The Aristotelian classicist theory of drama, which gained influence on Italian opera from the late 17th century.

Which seating areas of the seria opera house were accessible to common people and servants?

The uppermost tier and gallery - accessible as they had free entrance if accompanying people of high rank (Strohm 1997)

What language was dramma per musica written in?

Tuscan, the dominant literary idiom. This contrasts with opera buffa as it ignored regional differentiations.

How does Strohm (1997) relate the subjects of the dramma per musica to the enlightenment?

• Subjects of DPM were mostly taken from pre- or non-Christian civilisations

• Allowed the genre to promote enlightened tendencies without openly contradicting the Church.

Who argues that ‘the history of Italian opera in the 18th century is as much the history of theatres, cities and performers as it is the history of composers, genres,

What shift over the course of the 18th century does Butler (2011) argue began to privilege the audience?

Move from court to commercial opera.

This meant that the audience became the point of focus, took on an active role and assumed a distinctive identity.

Give an example of a town in which operatic spread came from government policy rather than local interest

Livorno - a commercial harbour of increasing European importance.

• The Medici dynasty + successors tried to make it into the second most important commercial centre of their state after Florence.

How did the Medici dynasty try and increase the importance of Livorno?

In addition to other socioeconomic initiatives, they enlarged the local theatre and financed regular opera seasons (Piperno 2007)

Why did governments often allow operatic seasons in holiday towns?

In order to discourage their subjects from spending time on less controllable activities (Piperno 2007)

Why was the sacrodramma invented?

To allow operatic activity to be expanded into Lent.

How did aristocratic audience attendance spur creative invention in opera seria?

The audience insisted that they see something new every season (Piperno 2007)

What was the original date of Siroe and when what year was it majorly reworked?

1733 / 1763

Name a major dramaturgical shift in the 1763 reworking of Siroe.

• Act 1 Scene 7 - Laodice’s accompagnato

• In the 1733 version, her brother instigated her vengeful desire. In 1763, she has the scene to herself, and finds the urge for revenge alone.

Why was it significant that Hasse chose an accompagnato for Laodice in Act 1 Scene 7 of Siroe?

• Often employed where the orchestra can underscore a particularly dramatic text

• ‘Fills up’ a scene with only one character on stage, adding dramatic intensity

• Adds musical and dramaturgical weight to Laodice’s role.

What scholars talk about Laodice’s accompagnato in Siroe?

Pelliccia and Rzepka (2021)

When does Hunter (1999) say opera buffa was most popular in Vienna?

c.1770-1790.

How many opere buffe were produced in Vienna between 1770-1790?

c. 128 (Hunter 1999)

What genre was opera buffa countered with in Vienna?

German-language theatre, which was largely spoken.

How did the Viennese bourgeois conceive of German theatre as opposed to opera buffa?

As ‘intimately linked to both the encouragement of good morals and taste, and to a sense of nationhood that transcended the old feudal divisions’ (Hunter 1999)

Why does Hunter (1999) argue that opera buffa in late 18th-c Vienna was seen as ‘mere entertainment’?

It was viewed as both ‘unofficial and irrelevant’ in contrast to ‘the nation-building, proto-bourgeois, and generally edifying ideals of German drama’.

Give an example that might affirm the long-held view that opera buffa counted as ‘essentially aristocratic’ entertainment in late 18th-c Vienna.

The Countess Mazelana had a ‘time-share’ subscription to a box in the Burgtheater in the early 1770s, in which she demanded entrance only to opera buffa (Hunter 1999).

What statistics does Schindler give for the audience of the Viennese Burgtheater?

90% of the audience consisted of the top 7% of the population

What were some of the additional pleasures to be had in European opera theatres?

Cards, snacks, and, for the aristocracy, ‘boxes which functioned as publicly visible salons’ (Hunter 1999)

What does Hunter (1999) identify about the parting words of many opere buffe?

Explicit references to pleasure for its own sake and (typically) without moral justification.

What does Hunter (1999) identify as an important musical feature of the endings of opere buffe?

• Many works end in singing or dancing

• All opere buffe end with choruses in which the words - usually highly formulaic and repetitive - take a back seat to the act of singing

Why does Hunter (1999) say that opera buffa, unlike opera seria, did not generate dozens of settings of the same ‘canonic’ libretto?

For opera buffa, novelty rather than substance was the initial attraction. It is rare to find two or three settings of a single text.

How does Hunter (1999) say that the ‘delicate balance of comfort and suprise’ was perpetuated in opera buffa libretti?

• Often, apparently new librettos turned out to be minor reworkings of earlier pieces under new titles.

• The basic plot structures of the works were often announced in the first could of pages of the libretto, before the text proper begins.

How does Hunter (1999) say that the ‘delicate balance of comfort and surprise’ was perpetuated in the music of opera buffa?

The beginnings of most arias suggest what is likely to come:

• Through the means of the character singing;

• The lexicon they use;

• The dramatic circumstances;

• And the choice of musical topos.

What does Hunter (1999) identify as the outer and inner frames of opera buffa?

• Outer: its reception and self-presentation as sheer pleasure

• Inner: its representation of immutable hierarchy as social fundament of the genre

Give three ways in which Hunter (1999) understands the conservative social frame of opera buffa as being tested/disrupted.

• Normally subordinate characters occupy centre of attention and sympathy for considerable stretches of time

• Structurally powerful characters are made to look foolish or even wicked

• Problems of power are continually in the air.

How might the carnivalesque be used to understand opera buffa’s social reversals?

• Carnival is said to work by a sort of reverse psychology: the permission to exceed all boundaries discharges disruptive energies and ultimately serves to reinforce the order it seems to challenge.

• The carnivalesque works through paradox, eventually effecting the opposite of what it represents.

How does Clark (2009) understand the role of the ensemble in opera buffa vs opera seria?

• Opera seria has limited duets/choruses - focuses on single characters + confrontations between individuals

• Opera buffa specialises in character interactions through ensembles - switches focus from the individual to relational

What do Cotticelli and Maione (2009) see as central to Metastasio’s aesthetics?

The attainment of formal sobriety through a careful control of expressive means.

What do Metastasio’s plots usually centre on?

‘A tragic conflict that arises whenever the intimate life and affections of a character are dramatically threatened by the irrefutable moral responsibilities connected with his familiar or social role’ (Cotticelli and Maione 2009)

Why does Mackenzie (1993) identify the 1730s as a ‘watershed’ time in Italian comic opera?

Several works written by Neapolitan composers began to shed many of their local characteristics and reach beyond their place of origin.

Where did comic opera first become an independent genre with regular annual seasons?

Naples (Mackenzie 1993)

What do the seating areas of the Fiorentini suggest about audience attendance?

That the elite were outnumbered by more than 2:1 (Mackenzie 1993)

Who began to popularise the use of different dialects for different character types?

Bernardo Saddumene

By what means does Mackenzie (1993) suggest that comic opera ‘ridicules social and personal vices’?

Through its characters

What contemporary commentator classified the opera audience into types of spectators?

Stefano Arteaga (1783)

Who first set ‘Il mondo della luna’, in what year, and where?

Galuppi, 1750, Venice

How and when did Italian opera buffa come to France?

1752 - Italian troupe les Bouffons came to Paris.

Their performances of intermezzi sparked a craze for Italian music.

What does Goehring (2010) identify as the difficulty in assessing Goldoni’s operatic reform?

Not all of his comedies obediently line up under one definition of comedy, and there is no ineluctable chronological movement toward reform.

What does Goehring (2010) identify as an essential aspect of Goldoni’s operatic reform?

His intention to create a more natural representation.

Why did Goldoni want to ‘abandon the ridiculous’ in comic representation?

He thought that it positively encouraged the audience’s emulation of the behaviour on stage (Goehring 2010)

How did the choice of characters come into Goldoni’s operatic reform?

He wanted to create a more natural representation of the ‘simple heroism’ of gardeners, villagers, and foundlings (Goehring 2010)

Give two reasons why Goldoni might have included seria elements into his comic operas.

• Increased sentimentalism, which was viewed at encouraging the emulation of on-stage behaviour

• The incorporation of seria elements ‘paradoxically increased the potential for farce and ridicule’ (Goehring 2010)

Describe the seating arrangement in the Esterhaza opera house.

The spectators ‘fanned out from the central position occupied by the prince, according to their rank and importance’ (Green 1995)

Who is the only aristocratic figure in ‘Il mondo della luna’?

Ernesto

How is Ernesto, the only aristocratic character in ‘Il mondo della luna’, undermined?

He is made to look ridiculous by the costume he wears in Act II (Green 1995)