Journal Entry #10

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Opera – drama that is sung to orchestral accompaniment
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Combines music, acting, poetry, dance, scenery, and costumes for an overwhelming and emotional theatrical experience

CRASH COURSE IN OPERA
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Characters and plots revealed through song
Music helps depict mood, character and dramatic action
On stage:
 soloists who can sing and act simultaneously
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Chorus
Dancers
Extras (to carry spears, fill out crouds, etc.)

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Elaborate scenery, lighting, stage machinery
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Often include floods, storms, supernatural effects
Orchestra pit holds instrumentalists and conductor
Other personnel: stage director, vocal coaches, rehearsal accompanists, technicians, stagehands – SEVERAL
HUNDRED PEOPLE

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Spectacle, pageantry
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Very expensive to produce
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Originated in courts of kings and princes
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Historically associated with high society
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Technology and changes in style have made opera accessible to all audiences
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“Live at the Met”

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Libretto – text the opera music is set to
(text comes first), written by a
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Operas can be serious, comic, both
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May contain spoken dialogue, but most are entirely sung
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Singing a text takes longer than speaking it. Text of a 3-hour opera is less than text of a 3-hour drama

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Range of characters broad and varied
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Singers must be able to act the parts as well as sing the notes
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4 basic voice types are divided more finely in opera

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Coluratura Soprano – very high range; can execute rapid scales and trills
Lyric Soprano – Rather light voice, sings roles calling for grace and charm
Dramatic Soprano – full, powerful voice; capable of passionate intensity
Lyric tenor – relatively light, bright voice
Dramatic tenor – powerful voice; capable of heroic expression
Basso buffo – comic roles; can sing very rapidly
Basso Profundo – very low, powerful voice; takes roles calling for great dignity

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1-5 acts, subdivided into scenes
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Main attraction of an opera
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Aria – song for solo voice with orchestral accompaniment
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Very melodic
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Often, the opera’s action stops while the character’s feelings are revealed
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Self-contained piece, often applauded after, even though it stops the flow of the opera

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Recitative – a vocal line that imitates the rhythms and pitch fluctuations of speech
)
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Usually precedes aria
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Words sung quickly and clearly
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Repeated tones
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One note to one syllable

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Chorus – large choral ensemble in an opera
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Makes comments, creates atmosphere
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Creates musical background for soloists
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Prompter – gives cues and reminds singers of words or pitches if they momentarily forget

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Dance – mostly light, incidental
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Used as setting while the soloists, downstage
(toward front of stage) advance the plot

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Orchestra Pit – nerve center
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Dark, sunken down in front of stage
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Includes a conductor

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Overture – opening instrumental composition of an opera.
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Prelude – smaller instrumental composition introducing an act

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Look in books for Chapter 6

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Cremona, Italy
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Early baroque
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Served Court of
Mantua 21 years, singer, then violinist,
 then music director
, 1607
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Little pay and respect

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Life improved around 1613 – appointed music director and St. Mark’s Cathedral,
Venice – most important church position in
Italy
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Stayed 30 years until death

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Monumental figure in music history
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Works form musical bridge between 16 th and
17 th centuries
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Greatly influenced composers of the time
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Wanted to create music of emotional intensity

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Opera:
Mantuan court
Composed 1607 for
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Orpheus, Greek musician, happy after marriage to Euridice
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Joy shattered when she dies (bit by snake)
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Goes to Hades to bring her back to life
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Granted this privilege because of his music
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One condition: can’t look at her when leading her out of Hades

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He does look
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Apollo pities him and brings him to heaven where he can gaze eternally at Euridice’s radiance in the sun and stars

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Act II Recitative: are dead)
(you
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Claudio Monteverdi
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Sung by Orpheus after being told of
Eurydice’s death
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Homophonic texture, accompaniment gives harmonic support to voice
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Word painting: stars/sun, abysses/death
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Books pg. 150

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What will I do without Euridice?
Where will I go without my wonderul one?
Euridice, oh God, answer.
I am entirely your loyal one.
Euridice! Ah, it doesn´t give me any help, any hope neither this world, neither heaven.

1659-1695

 Called the greatest of English composers
 Born in London 1659
 Age 10 - he became a choirboy in the Chapel
Royal
 Age 18 - he became composer to the king’s string orchestra
 Age 20 - appointed organist of Westminster
Abbey
 Age 23 - became organist of the Chapel
Royal

 Mastered all forms of music of the late 17 th century; church music, secular choral music, instrumental, songs, music for the stage
 Wrote only one true opera; Dido and Aeneas (1689)
 Many consider this to be the greatest ever written to an
English Text
 His other dramatic works are spoken plays with musical numbers in the form of overtures, songs, choruses, and dances.

 Handling of the English language
 His vocal music is faithful to English inflection and brings out the meaning of the text
 His music is full of lively rhythms and a fresh melodic style that captures the spirit of
English folk songs
 His use of dissonances seemed harsh to the generation of musicians who followed him

 A musical idea repeated over and over while the melodies above it change
 Can be of any length
 Used in vocal and instrumental music

 Masterpiece of baroque opera
 Written for students at a girls’ boarding school
 Lasts only an hour, scored for strings and harpsichord continuo
 Requires no elaborate stage machinery or virtuoso soloists
 Used many dances in this work because the director of the school was a dancing master who wanted to display the student’s accomplishments

 Libretto by Nahum Tate – inspired by the
Aeneid, and epic poem by the Roman Poet
Virgil (70-19 B.C.)

 After the destruction of Troy, Aeneas has been ordered by the gods to seek a site for building a new City.
 He sets out on a search with 21 ships

 After landing at Carthage, a North African seaport, Aeneas falls in love with Dido. A sorceress with two witches see this as an opportunity to plot Dido’s downfall.
 Remember, at this time people actually believed in witches. 19 “witches” were hanged in
Massachusetts in 1692, three years after Dido’s first performance)

 A false messenger tells Aeneas that the gods command him to leave Carthage immediately and renew his search.
 Aeneas agrees but is heartbroken at the thought of leaving Dido. In the last act, which takes place at the harbor, Aeneas’s sailors sing and dance before leaving, and the witches look on in glee.

 An emotional scene follows between Aeneas and Dido, who enters with her friend Belinda.
Dido calls Aeneas a hypocrite and refuses his offer to stay.
 After he sails, Dido sings a noble, deeply tragic lament and kills herself. The opera concludes with the mourning of the chorus.

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Sorrowful mood, climax of opera
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Descending chromatic ground bass pattern (a common way of demonstrating grief)
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The words “remember me” reaches highest note of the aria, haunts the listener

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EHS
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Tuesday, Oct. 11, 7:30 p.m. – Choir Concert
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Thursday, Oct. 13, 7:30 p.m. – Orchestra
Concert
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Friday/Saturday, Dec. 2-3 – Madrigal Dinners
(Liberty MS)
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Wednesday, Dec. 7, 7:30 p.m. – Holiday
Concert

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Greenville College (Greenville, IL – about
35 minutes from here)
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Sunday, December 4, 4:00 p.m. – Handel’s
Messiah and Bach’s Magnificat

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“Live at the Met” (Edwardsville movie theater)
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Donizetti’s Anna Bolena
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Sat., Oct. 15, 11:55 a.m.
Wed., Nov. 2, 6:30 p.m.
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Anna Netrebko opens the Met season with her portrayal of the ill-fated queen driven insane by her unfaithful king. She sings one of opera's greatest mad scenes in this Met premiere production by David McVicar. Ekaterina Gubanova is her rival, Jane Seymour, Ildar Abdrazakov sings Henry VIII, and Marco Armiliato conducts.
Mozart’s Don Giovanni
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Sat., Oct. 29, 11:55 a.m.
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Wed., Nov. 16, 6:30 p.m.

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Mozart’s Don Giovanni
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Sat., Oct. 29, 11:55 a.m.
Wed., Nov. 16, 6:30 p.m.
Mariusz Kwiecien brings his youthful and sensual interpretation of Mozart’s timeless anti-hero to the Met for the first time, under the direction of
Tony Award®-winning director Michael
Grandage and with Fabio Luisi conducting. Also starring Marina Rebeka, Barbara Frittoli, Ramón
Vargas, and Luca Pisaroni.

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Wagner’s
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Sat., Nov. 5, 11:00 a.m.
In part three of the Ring, Wagner’s cosmic vision focuses on his hero’s early conquests, while Robert Lepage’s revolutionary stage machine transforms itself from bewitched forest to mountaintop love nest. Gary Lehman sings the title role and Deborah Voigt’s
Brünnhilde is his prize. Bryn Terfel is the
Wanderer. Fabio Luisi conducts.

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Glass’s
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Sat., Nov. 19, 2011, 11:55 a.m.
The Met’s visually extravagant production is back for an encore engagement. Richard Croft
(right) once again is Gandhi in Philip Glass’s unforgettable opera, which the Washington
Post calls “a profound and beautiful work of theater.”

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Handel’s
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Sat., Dec. 3, 2011, 11:30 a.m.
Sensational in the 2004 Met premiere of
Stephen Wadsworth’s much-heralded production, Renée Fleming reprises the title role. She’s joined by Stephanie Blythe and countertenor Andreas Scholl, and Baroque specialist Harry Bicket conducts.