Opera - Summary l Looking at the nature of opera – what it is

that makes it so. l How the form has changed over last 400

years. l Relationship between words (libretto and

drama) and music. l Developments in last thirty years. l How is it paid for. What is the justification

for opera’s heavy subsidy relative to other genres.

Test

l Takes up to an hour. Online. l You see a short video clip or hear an audio

file (30sec typically). You can watch/listen as many times as you like.

l There are normally 4 possibilities – you chose one.

l E.g What country does the music

Resources

l Lindenberger, H. 2010. Situation Opera. Period, Genre, reception, CUP

l Agid P. and Tarondeau J. 2010. The Management of Opera. Macmillan

l Higgin, C. 2011. Arts Council England funding cuts – the great axe falls, The Guardian online 30 March

Essay Questions

l Should opera be subsidized? What are the arguments for and against.

l  l Discuss some of the ways that modern

opera composers have reinterpreted the relationship between words and music in their works.

l 

Your Definition of Opera

l  ?

What makes opera opera? l  The word opera covers a broad expanse of genres. Light

opera, operetta, comic opera, opera sera, ballad opera, tragic opera, semi-opera, etc. Today it tends to mean any serious work that combines music and drama. In the past distinctions were much more precise.

l  One criteria of opera is that it is all sung – no spoken bits – the music is continuous. But this rule is constantly being broken and many of the forms we regard today like Singspiel (Magic Flute) is full of speech.

l  Opera also tends to mean a work that involves a combination of media – not just music but music with drama – and the latter involves libretto, plot, staging.

Music and Words l  At the centre of the combination of elements that

is opera - is the relationship between music and words.

l  A revaluation of the relationship brought about the beginnings of the baroque and the inception of opera itself.

l  Each generation of opera composers re-negotiates this relationship and it is fundamental problem of opera.

l  Its is fundamental uncompetitive – it cannot pay for itself. How should it be funded?

Seventeenth Century

l  The first opera composers (Monteverdi – Peri, Caccini) strove for a balance between music and words that put the words first.

l  The clear declamation of words in recitative was the fundamental goal and large parts of the first operas were just recitative. The libretto was of high importance and the starting point.

l  By the late seventeenth-century the relationship had changed so that the words were insignificant and the singer’s arias and vocal technique were all that mattered. Rise of the castrato and prima donna.

Monteverdi

Move from Private to Public

l Early patrons paid for it. l By 1630 the first public opera houses

opened up. l By 1700 they were all over Europe – and

constantly underfunded and unable to fubction without private and public subsidy.

Eighteenth-Century

l  Baroque opera developed in distinct national styles with Italian and particularly Neopolitan opera as the standard genre.

l  Librettos were `off the shelf’ and often silly – always with a happy end – about Gods and heros from antiquity – lots of clapping of the singers throughout the show – and people talked and chatted through bits that did not interest them – the words were not of much importance.

l  Reformers from Gluck to Mozart addressed all these points.

l  Handel ruined by Opera despite royal patronage

Ariodante

Mozart – Marriage of Figaro l  Used comic opera to develop the form. l  Worked very carefully alongside his librettist Da

Ponte to shape the music to the words. l  Characters from real life – using contemporary

plays to make biting social commentary. l  Short arias and lots of ensembles in which the

motives and characters of each person could be contrasted.

l  Plot very carefully constructed to work over a compressed period of time (a couple of days) and for all the bits to fall into place at the end.

l  Underwritten by the Emperor and the Court. l  Public preferred lighter entertainment - Flute

Figaro – Beginning of Act 3

Nineteenth-Century Grand Opera

l  From Verdi to Puccini – a tradition in which the singer’s role again rises in importance.

l  The composer’s trick was to produce an opera in which drama and music combine to great effect.

l  Words less important again and the music (grand tunes and orchestration) of great importance.

l  No recitative and no spoken bits. l  Singers art – bell canto tradition – is what brings

in the audience. Singers role often tragic and the audience is meant to empathise with their situation.

l  Opera houses were economic in many cities – but populist.

La Traviata 1853

20-th Century l  Many new traditions that ape operatic forms but

are not opera – musicals, cabaret, musical films and films in general.

l  New approach to the form taken by Philip Glass with his trilogy of operas in the 1980s.

l  Interest in progress over time and making relationships between the many elements – ballet, gesture, words, movement, music, staging, progress though time – much loser so that connections between elements are often incidental and unforeseen.

l  Increasingly elitest and Government funded – part ot the prestige of a city or state.

Einstein l  Time element: 5 hours long, no intermission, audience can

come and go. l  3 images – a train; a trail; a spaceship. l  Stream of consciousness poetry – developed from the

speech of a boy with special learning difficulties – idiot savant. Quite unrelated to Einstein’s life and works.

l  Pitch Logic unfolding over a great expanse of time. Simple chords and scalar patterns are repeated continuously over lengthy time periods and transformed by intricate variation. Additive and Subtractive process is at work.

Music for Einstein

l Heavily amplified flutes, organ, keyboards and voices move in and out of the busy yet static fabric. At the opening A, G, C are played, then chords imposed on them. Then chorus holds the chords by singing the number of beats each is held for. Sometimes the chords are arpeggiated in various ways and the chords may be elongated or shortened.

Einstein

More Einstein l  There is no conventional plot. On the Beach was a film

about the catastrophic aftermath of atomic war. l  Einstein is distanced from the other performers by sitting

midway between the action onstage and the musicians in the pit.

l  The singers gesticulate as they sing the solfege for the notes they sing, and dancers dance in passages that may or may not have a connection with the other events unfolding.

l  The scenes reappear in different ways and orders in the course of the performance.

Akenaten

Satygraha l  Two layers more conventional in some respects – but also continue the

separation of elements which come together only incidentally l  Satygraha – in ancient language (Sanskrit that no one understands). l  The acts are in very different stages in Gandhi’s life and in each there

is no conventional idea of progression of plot. l  Music is very repetitive and circulatory. More a musical mediation of aspects of Gandhi’s message to the world

than a drama in various mediums both visual and aural. Arguably the words are one of the least important of the elements – in

contrast to the beginnings of opera which was a attempt to revive the power of words when combined with music –

Opera l  400 years – one of most contrast forms around. l  Change of demand – until middle 19th C always

new – however now dominated by old repertoire. l  Audiences shrinking – competition with other

media. Also audiences are typically old. 60! l  In Europe up to 80% state funded. ENO raises

50% itself. In America there is very little state funding – private donations and high prices.

l  Accused of elitism.

How should opera be funded?

l Opera has always been too expensive to be commercially viable.

l Even in the 18th century it was kept going with patronage rather than ticket sales.

l Yet it absorbs a large chunk of arts funding from public money (far more than orchestras or any other art form e.g. dance) – especially gets government grants. Is this right?

Slice of the Cake

l Arts Council money l Eats up a large amounts of lottery money –

recent refit of Covent Garden l The Royal Opera House in London

reopened in 1999 after a £214m, three-year redevelopment, helped by £78.5m from the lottery fund.

The Royal Opera l Royal Opera House received £26,961,420 in

2008/2009, £27,689,378 in 2009/2010, £28,294,806 in 2010/2011 and £26,342,464 in 2011/2012.

l As a national portfolio organisation, Royal Opera House was offered £25,208,100 in 2012/2013, £25,787,886 in 2013/2014 and £26,430,076 in 2014/2015. This was subject to a funding agreement being agreed.

Outreach l However opera only appeals to a minority

of often affluent people. l Seats are often hugely subsidised. l Why does the poor man who buys lottery

tickets and pays a large percentage of his income in taxes subsidise the tickets of the rich man who pays a small percentage of his salary in taxes and does not buy lottery tickets?

Arguments for l London is a major capital and must have

good opera if it is to attract tourists and bring in wealthy foreigners to stay.

l Part of the national heritage. l Part of the national culture – we would all

lose without it. l We can hear it on the radio for free and it is

sometimes televised – l Arts for arts sake?

Against? l  Interests too few to justify the costs. People are interested in popular culture now. l  It is heritage not art? We should move on

not get stuck with the old stuff. Digital age etc – we should be developing new art forms – not holding on to ones developed c.1600.

l  It is all silly – and the singing is wobbly and unpleasant to listen to anyway.

The Future

l Opera does always seem to survive – but will it always.

l Recent developments – apps. l Live screenings from the Met in cinemas. l Outreach work and education projects. l Trying to attract younger audiences.