OPERA SERIA

'''Opera seria''' (sometimes called ''melodramma serio'') is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1720s to ''ca'' 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only became common usage once ''opera seria'' became unfashionable, and was viewed as a historical genre. The popular rival to ''opera seria'' was ''opera buffa,'' the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte.
Italian ''opera seria'' (invariably to Italian librettos) was produced not only in Italy but also in Habsburg Austria, England, Dresden and other German states, even in Spain, and other countries. ''Opera seria'' was less popular in France, where the national genre of French opera was preferred. Popular composers of ''opera seria'' included Johann Adolf Hasse, Leonardo Vinci, George Frideric Handel, Tommaso Traetta, Gluck, and Mozart.

Contents

Structure

Voices

Opera seria: 1720 - 1740

Handel

Opera seria: 1740 - 1770

Opera seria: 1770 - 1830

References

Notes

See also

Structure

''Opera seria'' built upon the strict ''dramma per musica'' ("drama through music") conventions of the High Baroque era by developing and exploiting the ''da capo'' aria, with its A-B-A form. The first section presented a theme, the second a complementary one, and the third a repeat of the first with ornamentation and elaboration of the music by the singer. As the genre developed and arias grew longer, a typical ''opera seria'' would contain not more than thirty musical movements.^[1]
A typical opera would start with an instrumental overture of three movements (fast-slow-fast) and then a series of recitatives containing dialogue interspersed with arias expressing the emotions of the character, this pattern only broken by the occasional duet for the leading amatory couple. The recitative was typically ''secco'': that is, accompanied only by continuo (harpsichord or cello). At moments of especially violent passion ''secco'' was replaced by ''stromentato'' recitative, where the singer was accompanied by the entire body of strings. After an aria was sung, accompanied by strings and oboe (and sometimes with horns or flutes), the character usually exited the stage, encouraging the audience to applaud. This continued for three acts before concluding with an upbeat chorus, to celebrate the jubilant climax. The leading singers each expected their fair share of arias of varied mood, be they sad, angry, heroic or meditative.
The dramaturgy of opera seria largely developed as a response to French criticism of what were often viewed as impure and corrupting librettos. As response, the Rome-based Arcadian Academy sought to return Italian opera to what they viewed as neoclassical principles, obeying the dramatic Unities of Aristotle and replacing "immoral" plots, such as Busenello's for ''L'Incoronazione di Poppea'', with highly moral narratives that aimed to instruct, as well as entertain. However, the often tragic endings of classical drama were rejected out of a sense of decorum: early writers of ''opera seria'' librettos such as Apostolo Zeno felt that virtue should be rewarded and shown triumphant. The spectacle and ballet so common in French opera were banished.^[1]

Voices

The age of ''opera seria'' corresponded with the rise to prominence of the castrati, often prodigiously gifted male singers who had undergone castration before puberty in order to retain a high, powerful soprano or alto voice backed by decades of rigorous musical training. They were cast in heroic male roles, alongside another new breed of operatic creature, the prima donna. The rise of these star singers with formidable technical skills spurred composers to write increasingly complex vocal music, and many operas of the time were written as vehicles for specific singers. Of these the most famous is perhaps Farinelli, whose debut in 1722 was guided by Nicola Porpora. Though Farinelli did not sing for Handel, his main rival, Senesino, did.^[3]

Opera seria: 1720 - 1740

Opera seria acquired definitive form early during the 1720s. While Zeno and Alessandro Scarlatti had paved the way, the genre only truly came to fruition due to Metastasio and later composers. Metastasio's career began with the serenata ''Gli Orti Esperidi'' ("The Gardens of the Hesperides"). Nicola Porpora, (much later to be Haydn's master), set the work to music, and the success was so great that the famed Roman ''prima donna'', Marianna Bulgarelli, "La Romanina", sought out Metastasio, and took him on as her protegé. Under her wing, Metastasio produced libretto after libretto, and they were rapidly set by the greatest composers in Italy and Austria, establishing the transnational tone of ''opera seria'': ''Didone abbandonata'', ''Catone in Utica'', ''Ezio'', ''Alessandro nell' Indie'', ''Semiramide riconosciuta'', ''Siroe'' and ''Artaserse''. After 1730 he was settled in Vienna and turned out more librettos for the imperial theater, until the mid 1740s: ''Adriano'', ''Demetrio'', ''Issipile'', ''Demofoonte'', ''Olimpiade'', ''La clemenza di Tito'', ''Achille in Sciro'', ''Temistocle,'' ''Il re pastore'' and his greatest libretto, ''Attilio Regolo''. For the librettos, Metastasio and his imitators customarily drew on dramas featuring classical characters from antiquity bestowed with princely values and morality, struggling with conflicts between love, honour and duty, in elegant and ornate language that could be performed equally well as both opera and non-musical drama.
At this time the leading Metastasian composers were Hasse, Vinci, Porpora, and Pergolesi. Vinci's settings of ''Didone abbandonata'' and ''Artaserse'' were much praised for their ''stromento'' recitative, and he played a crucial part in establishing the new style of melody. Hasse, by contrast, indulged in stronger accompaniment and was regarded at the time as the more adventurous of the two. Pergolesi was noted for his lyricism. The main challenge for all was achieving variety, a break from the pattern of ''secco'' recitative and ''aria da capo''. The mutable moods of Metastasio's librettos helped, as did innovations on behalf the composer, such as ''stromento recitative'' or cutting a ritornello. During this period the choice of keys to reflect certain emotions became standardized: D minor became the choice key for a composer's typical "rage" aria, while D major for pomp and bravura, G minor for pastoral effect and E flat for pathetic effect, became the usual options.^[4]

Handel

The operas of George Frideric Handel are almost unique among ''opera serias'' in their great popularity today. Working outside mainstream trends (he only set a couple Metastasio texts), in the relative backwater of London, Handel wrote for a popular audience (as opposed to a court) that demanded entertainment, not flattery of a hereditary monarch. Handel's innate sense of strong drama developed viable music drama that adapts the conventions of ''opera seria'' to the end of theatrical credibility.
However, beginning in the 1960s, the revival of interest in baroque music and original instrument playing styles, the development of the countertenor fach, and popularity of the long-playing record made rediscovery of Handel's Italian operas possible, and many have since been recorded and performed onstage. Of the fifty he wrote between 1705 and 1738, ''Alcina'' (1735), ''Ariodante'' (1735), ''Orlando'' (1733), ''Rinaldo'' (1711,1731), ''Rodelinda'' (1725), and ''Serse'' (also known as Xerxes) (1738) stand out and are now performed regularly in opera houses and concert halls. However, his finest work is considered to be ''Giulio Cesare'' (1724).

Opera seria: 1740 - 1770

After a peak of the Metastasian ideal during the 1750s, the model of ''opera seria'' that he had developed began to lessen in popularity. New trends, popularized by composers such as Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta, began to seep into ''opera seria''. The Italian-style pattern of alternating, sharply contrasted recitative and aria began to be weakened by ideas from the French tradition of opera. Jommelli's works, from 1740 onwards, began to introduce greater levels of accompanied recitative and dynamic contrast, as well as increasing the prominence of the orchestra and limiting vocal virtuosity. Traetta re-introduced ballet to his operas, and the tragic, melodramatic endings of classical drama returned. His operas, particularly from 1760 onwards, also brought the chorus back to greater prominence.
The culmination of these reforms arrived in the reform operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck. Beginning with ''Orfeo ed Euridice'', Gluck drastically cut back on the possibilities for vocal virtuosity afforded to singers, abolished ''secco'' recitative (thereby heavily reducing the delineation between aria and recitative), and took great care to unify drama, dance, music, and theatrical practice in the synthesis of Italian and French traditions. He continued his reform with ''Alceste'' and ''Paride ed Elena''. Gluck paid great attention to the orchestration and greatly increased the role of the chorus: he also greatly reduced the previous tradition of exit arias. The labyrinthine subplots that had riddled earlier baroque opera were eliminated. In 1768, the year after Gluck's ''Alceste'', Jommelli and his librettist Verazi produced ''Fetonte''. Ensemble and chorus are predominant: the usual number of exit arias slashed in half. For the most part, however, these trends did not become mainstream until the 1790s, and the Metastasian model continued to dominate.^[5]

Opera seria: 1770 - 1830

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 –1791) followed on from Gluck and Handel in the ''opera seria'' tradition. His two notable contributions to the genre are ''Idomeneo'' (1780) and ''La clemenza di Tito'' (1791). For most of the 19th and early 20th century both operas were virtually unknown, but starting in the 1960s, the two slowly gained a place in the standard operatic repertoire. Mozart wrote some beautiful music for these operas, but the characters, drawn from classical antiquity in accordance with the conventions of the genre, did not inspire in him the same level of incandescent musical theater as the three operas to more modern librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte.
Other notable contributors to the ''opera seria'' genre were Luigi Cherubini (1760 – 1842), and Gaspare Spontini (1774 – 1851). Cherubini and Spontini expanded upon Gluck's ideas. Greatly admired by fellow composers such as Beethoven and Berlioz, the three enjoyed greater critical acclaim than popular success, and following the Napoleonic era, when the brilliant, effervescent operas of Rossini swept the continent with their vocal pyrotechnics, their classically austere operas fell out of fashion. But even Rossini set Metastasio's librettos to the new music, as did Giacomo Meyerbeer.

References

★ ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5

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★ Opera: A Concise History, , , Orrey, Leslie and Milne, Rodney, World of Art, Thames & Hudson, , ISBN 0500202176

Notes

1. Grove, section 1: "Dramaturgy"
2. Grove, section 1: "Dramaturgy"
3. Orrey p. 72
4. Grove: section 2, 1720-1740
5. General reference for this section: Grove, section 3: 1740 - 1770

See also

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