The Baroque Era Opera: Italy, France, and

England
 Opera in the 17th century: three
phases

1. Humanist court opera (1600–35), closely linked to

Italian Renaissance traditions of court entertainment, in
the aristocratic palaces of Florence, Mantua, and
Rome.
2. Dramma per musica (1637–c1680), staged in the public
theatres of Venice.
3. European spectacle (1650–90), the dissemination of
the new genre throughout Italy and the rest of Europe.
Venice
Why Venice?
 Why Venice?

❖ Venice was a republic: noble families had influence over the

election of their ruler, and wealth was equally distributed.
❖ Declined as an international power during the 1600s.
❖ Despite this the noble families were keen to compete in the
patronage of the arts.
❖ One result was the proliferation of theatres.
❖ However, these families had made their wealth through
trade, and expected some financial return.
Carnival
 Carnival
❖ Public celebration combining elements of a circus and a street
party.
❖ Masks and costumes, allowing people to lose their individuality.
❖ Licence and pleasure, and a general reversal of rules and norms.
❖ Excessive consumption of alcohol and foods proscribed during
Lent; social satire and mockery of authorities; the grotesque body
displaying exaggerated features especially large noses, bellies,
etc.
❖ In Venice, first recorded in 1268. By the seventeenth century, it
was very famous and promoted a prestigious image of Venice
abroad.
 Why Venice?

❖ Tourist magnet, especially during Carnival (the day after

Christmas to the day before Lent, in February or March).
❖ The population of 50,000 doubled during this season.
❖ Travelling theatre troupes were also attracted to the city.
❖ Most of the new operas were performed during Carnival.
❖ The new genre of opera was directed at a paying public.
Teatro San Cassiano (1637)
 Venetian opera

❖ The whole genre now needed to please a more diverse

and demanding audience.
❖ It took on some of the carnival spirit — the excess,
pageantry, and bad behaviour that it celebrates.
❖ Audience could be rowdy and rude.
 Venetian opera

❖ There was still recitar cantando, along with songs,

instrumental interludes, and dance.
❖ There was still emphasis on shock-and-awe scenic
spectacle.
❖ Major attraction was vocal virtuosity. Top wages went to
star vocal soloists.
❖ Singers gained power over the production and the
music. Arias became more elaborate as a result.
 Venetian opera — plots

❖ Instead of ancient mythology, historical romances and

political events from classical antiquity.
❖ Stories in which human characters predominate (rather
than gods and goddesses, shepherds and nymphs).
❖ The range of plots expanded, exploring the messy
business of human imperfections. Servants can make
fun of their masters; virtue is not necessarily rewarded.
❖ Comic scenes expand the tone of opera.
 Venetian opera

❖ Only a few scores survive, from hundreds that were

performed; even those by the most famous composers
has been lost.
❖ Scores were constantly changed or replaced, not thought
of as works in the contemporary sense.
❖ Not preserved — served the purpose of live performance.
❖ Only two Viennese operas have a place in the modern
repertory — the two that survive by …
 Claudio Monteverdi (1567-
1643)

❖ In August 1613 became

choirmaster of the basilica
of St Mark’s, Venice.
❖ Wrote three new operas
in the 1640s, including Il
ritorno d’Ulisse in patria
and L’incoronazione di
Poppea.
 L’incoronazione di Poppea
(1643)
❖ The differences between Monteverdi’s early and late operas derive
from the different demands of court and commercial theatres.
❖ Orchestra consists mainly of strings and continuo instruments.
❖ Ritornellos and sinfonias punctuate the action, while the singers
are accompanied by the continuo only.
❖ Three-act form instead of five-act structure of court drama.
❖ First libretto based on historical rather than mythological
characters.
❖ The chorus no longer plays a crucial role.
❖ Lyrical passages flow in and out of recitar cantando.
 L’incoronazione di Poppea
(1643)
Characters are human beings with strong emotions, fears and
desires, who express themselves in distinctly different ways:
❖ Poppea and Nero are given hedonistic lyricism in arioso,
aria, and duet;
❖ Octavia speaks only in strongly etched recitative;
❖ Otho’s music lacks focus, is hesitant and limited in
range;
❖ Seneca’s is bold and strongly directional.
Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo (1638/54)
 L’incoronazione di Poppea
(1643)
Act 1, scene 3. Poppea and Nerone come out into the early
morning light, where they bid passionate farewell to one another.
❖ Monteverdi intensifies the sensuality of their relationship by
interlacing their texts.
❖ Musical elaboration of particular keywords, languid
chromaticism and aria-like lyricism portray the lovers’ pleasure
in one another.
❖ But by judicious repetition of words and interrupted lines,
Monteverdi manages to portray the nature of Poppea’s power
over Nerone.
Italian opera after Monteverdi
❖ Francesco Cavalli (1602-76) and Antonio Cesti (1623-69)
❖ Concentration on solo singing — few choruses, and
instrumental pieces became less important.
❖ Parlando dialogue and lyrical song diverged more and more,
becoming extended recitative and self-contained aria.
❖ Two aria styles: bel canto and florid coloratura.
❖ Two standard structures: strophic variation and ternary forms.
❖ Plots became more complex.
❖ Development of visual spectacle in production.
France: historical sketch

Prime Minister
Cardinal Richelieu
establishes the
modern nation-state
and centralizes the
government under
the absolute rule of
King Louis XIII (r.
1610-43).
The Age of Absolutism
Versailles
Versailles
Versailles
Louis XIV
(1638-1715)
❖ The wife of Louis XIII,
Anne, ruled for 10 years,
aided by her prime
minister, Jules Mazarin.

❖ Louis XIV (1638-1715)

became king in 1653.
Opera in France

❖ Early resistance by
aristocrats.
❖ Cardinal Mazarin imported
Italian operas, which were
given lavish productions.
❖ Only later would opera be
adopted into national style.
Ballet de cour

❖ Tradition of court entertainment

with courtiers as the dancers.
❖ Dramatic plan, combining dance
with instrumental music, spoken
narrative and dialogue, songs and
choruses, and spectacular
stagings, with costumes, sets, and
machines.
❖ Fulfilled the same functions as the
lavish court entertainments that led
to the opera in Italy – the intermedi.
❖ Ballet de la nuit (1653)
Ballet de cour
French Opera
❖ The French kings set up various official
academies under royal sponsorship, for
literature, painting, sculpture, and, under
Louis XIV, new academies for dance, the
sciences, architecture, and music (in 1669).
❖ The purpose of these academies was to
establish and maintain high intellectual and
artistic standards and a French national style.
❖ In practice the result was partly to shape all
these activities according to the court’s own
interests and tastes, and partly to maintain an
intellectual manner in French art.
❖ French music is therefore more restrained
and elegant than that of other nations at this
time.
French Opera
❖ Louis XIV granted a permit to establish an
‘academy’ (commercial opera house) for
the performance of opera in French.
❖ In 1672 the permit was given to Jean-
Baptiste Lully (1632-87), who created the
repertory.
❖ Lully was Italian, and arrived in Paris
when he was fourteen, as a violinist and
dancer at court. Later he became director
of music for the royal household.
❖ From 1672 to 1687 he created an opera
every year, which were performed at court
(one of the royal palaces), and at the
public Académie in Paris.
French Opera
❖ The king’s Twenty-Four Violins were
joined by wind instruments for dance and
choral numbers, and later for solo singing.
❖ Intellectuals judged opera by the standard
of spoken drama.
❖ Librettist Philippe Quinault wrote lines that
could be understood when sung, and Lully
set them syllabically.
❖ Lully’s operas are full of dance numbers.
❖ Simple ornaments, such as
appoggiaturas, especially at cadences.
 Tragédie en musique
❖ Followed the classical plan of five acts and adapted classical
mythology (Cadmus, Atys) or chivalric legend (Roland,
Armide).
❖ Use of recitative and brief, syllabic continuo airs for dialogue,
permitting a natural, speech-like declamation, with
unpredictable rhythms.
❖ More substantial airs have orchestral accompaniment
expressive of feelings.
❖ Included ballet and divertissements, more participation of the
chorus than the Italian opera of the same period, and lavish
machinery and sets.
 Jean-Baptiste Lully, Armide
(1686)
❖ Lully’s last two operas are his most exotic. Christian knights fight
Moorish warriors in Spain, southern France, North Africa, and the
Holy Lands.
❖ In Roland (1685), Angélique misleads the knight Roland to allow her
to sail off to meet the Lybian Médor she loves, whom she takes back
to China.
❖ In Armide (1686), Christian knights on their way to liberate Jerusalem
are trapped by Muslim opponents led by Hidraot, King of Damascus.
❖ Only one Crusader, Renaud, manages not to be trapped, and by the
end of Act 1 he has freed his fellow knights.
❖ Armide and her uncle plot revenge…
 Charles I
(1600-49)
❖ King James VI and his
son, Charles I, tried to
import absolute rule to
England —
unsuccessfully.
❖ Quarrelled with

Parliament, and was

eventually executed for
high treason.
 England

❖ During Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth (1649-60), the

views of the religious Puritans had a major impact on the
arts.
❖ The musical establishments of the court and church
were disbanded, and the theatre was repressed.
❖ After the Stuart Restoration (Charles II becomes King in
1660), music was revived in both court and church, and
the influences of both French and Italian music returned.
English opera?

❖ Opera did not become

a native English genre.
❖ Dido and Aeneas
(1689) by Henry
Purcell (1659-95) is the
only example from this
period.
 Dido and Aeneas (1689)
Act 1 The palace. Dido, the widowed Queen of Carthage, has been
entertaining Prince Aeneas after his escape from the sack of Troy. Though
encouraged by her confidante Belinda and other courtiers, she is reluctant to
express her love for Aeneas. Aeneas presses his suit and, after token resistance,
Dido gives in, as her courtiers celebrate the prospect of a royal union.
❖ The C minor overture is in the French style.
❖ The act opens with Belinda’s arietta ‘Shake the cloud from off your brow’,
which is joined to the chorus ‘Banish sorrow, banish care’, in the same style but
to different music.
❖ This pairing of air and chorus is the basic dramatic unit of the opera.
❖ The first substantial piece is Dido’s aria, ‘Ah! Belinda, I are press’d’. Built over a
three-bar ground bass, it is a miniature da capo aria, including a modulation to
the minor dominant, reprise, and orchestral postlude.
 Italy: opera seria
❖ Composer Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) and librettist Apostolo
Zeno (1668-1750).
❖ Attempt to reduce the extravagance of Venetian opera and apply
some of the standards of the spoken drama.
❖ Music and scenic spectacle were drowning out drama, singers were
too powerful.
❖ Plots were tightened and the literary level heightened: return to
classical (Aristotelian) unities of action, time, and place.
❖ Very serious and moralising. Exclusion of comic characters and
episodes.
 Italy: opera seria

❖ Usually on Greek or Roman classical subjects.

❖ Fewer characters (eight maximum); no more ‘carnival’ aspect.
❖ No more fables, myths, or supernatural interventions.
❖ Sinfonia the only instrumental element; dancing declined;
chorus and ensembles were eliminated: this created a chain of
alternating recitatives and arias.
❖ Recitative became simpler (increased in amount per libretto).
❖ Arias grew increasingly florid and virtuosic (but fewer of them).
 Opera seria: arias
❖ Each aria normally adopted a particular affective style based on
characteristic melodic-rhythmic figures.
❖ Obsessive quality, based on highly repetitive rhythm.
❖ A ‘rage’ aria might have wide-ranging scales and arpeggios, a heroic
aria trumpetlike motives, a mournful one chromatic motion and
‘sighing’ slurs.
❖ Singer has to compete with instruments that are also vying for
attention.
❖ Characters would have a number of arias that presented a wide
range of emotions and various sides of their personalities.
London
 London

❖ Mixed economy: theatres had limited support from royal

and noble patrons; financed by stock companies.
❖ When things were going well, they had enough money
to hire the more expensive singers and scene painters.
❖ For a while became the musical capital of Europe.
❖ But in the 1730s it became much more difficult for opera
composers.
Opera seria: Handel

❖ George Frideric Handel (1685-

1759) moved to London in 1710.
❖ Wrote 40 operas, which were from
1720 to 1728 produced under the
patronage of the king.
❖ His greatest opera is Giulio Cesare
(1724)
❖ Handel’s operas show both
mastery of the conventions of
Italian opera seria and imaginative
handling of those conventions.
 Opera seria: Da Capo aria
❖ Instrumental ritornello in the main key, establishing the aria’s affective
content.
❖ Section for the solo singer, first half of the aria’s text, then departing from
the opening key, and proceeding to another.
❖ Return of the instrumental ensemble with ritornello material in this
contrasting key.
❖ Second solo section that repeated the text of the first solo section,
modulating back to the main key.
❖ Closes with a return to the ritornello, again in the main key.
❖ The second large part, with the second half of the aria text, was
predominantly for the singer and featured additional key contrast.
❖ Da capo with free embellishment of the musical line by singer.