Part 15 (1/2)

[Sidenote: _Comic opera and operetta._]

[Sidenote: _Opera bouffe._]

[Sidenote: _Romantic operas._]

Of course the _Grosse Oper_ of the Germans is the French _Grand Opera_ and the English grand opera--but all the English terms are ambiguous, and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as ”grand opera,”

just as the vilest imitations of the French _vaudevilles_ or English farces with music are called ”comic operas.” In its best estate, say in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly.

Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to ”chastise manners with a smile” (”_Ridendo castigat mores_”). Its present degeneracy, as ill.u.s.trated in the _Opera bouffe_ of the French and the concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would fail. ”You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts,”

he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject chosen for the story. Spohr's ”Jessonda,” Weber's ”Freischutz,”

”Oberon,” and ”Euryanthe,” Marschner's ”Vampyr,” ”Templer und Judin,”

and ”Hans Heiling” are ”Romantic” operas. The significance of this cla.s.sification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort which I have made in another chapter to discuss the terms Cla.s.sic and Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are put in a cla.s.s by themselves (and their imitations with them) because their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, in which the inst.i.tutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism play a large part.

[Sidenote: _Modern designations._]

[Sidenote: _German opera and Wagner._]

These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As compared with Italian opera, in which the princ.i.p.al singers are all and the _ensemble_ nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but better actors in the princ.i.p.al parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the Italian opera houses.

[Sidenote: _Wagner's ”Musikdrama.”_]

[Sidenote: _Modern Italian terminology._]

In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas _Musikdramen_, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called _Dramma per musica_, or _Melodramma_, or _Tragedia per musica_, all of which terms stand in Italian for the conception that _Musikdrama_ stands for in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to be called _Opera in musica_, of which ”opera” is an abbreviation. Now it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some significance, are abandoning the vague term ”opera” and following Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original terminology. Verdi called his ”Ada” an _Opera in quattro atti_, but his ”Otello” he designated a lyric drama (_Dramma lirico_), his ”Falstaff” a lyric comedy (_Commedia lirica_), and his example is followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini.

[Sidenote: _Recitative._]

In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element ill.u.s.trates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas which date back to the last century or the early years of the present.

”Le Nozze di Figaro,” ”Don Giovanni,” and ”Il Barbiere di Siviglia”

are the most familiar works in which it is employed, and in the second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element.

The dissolute _Don_ chatters glibly in it with _Zerlina_, but when _Donna Anna_ and _Don Ottavio_ converse, it is in the _recitativo stromentato_.

[Sidenote: _The object of recitative._]

[Sidenote: _Defects of the recitative._]

[Sidenote: _What it can do._]

In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener.

Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music.

Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences on the pianoforte (or worse, double-ba.s.s and violoncello), makes it insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is fleeting--only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental factors of vocal music--variety of pitch--and that in a rudimentary way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of conversation, and even ill.u.s.trate Spencer's theory of the origin of music. Witness the following brief example from ”Don Giovanni,” in which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the lumpishness of his servant:

[Sidenote: _An example from Mozart._]

[Music ill.u.s.tration: _Sempre sotto voce._

DON GIOVANNI. LEPORELLO.