Rescue Opera: The Empowerment of the People - Essay Example

Rescue Opera Rescue Opera: The Empowerment of the People Rescue Opera 2 Rescue Opera: The Empowerment of the People The French Revolution had a profound affect on the history and development of music in Europe. The people of France revolted against their King and Queen as well as the rest of the aristocracy who had been indulging in wealthy pleasures at the expense of the well-being of their people. While the famous flippant comment by Marie Antoinette was never actually uttered by her, the idea the she said in response to the lack of bread for her people to “Let them eat cake” exampled the kind of propaganda that reflected the feeling the people had for their government. As the political world grew and evolved a new expectation was formed. “Inflamed by their poverty and hatred of wealth, the Sans-Culottes (members of the working class) insisted that it was the duty of the government to guarantee them the right to existence.” (Kreis, 2004) With this new idea of rights for the lower classes came a new aesthetic in the way people chose to be entertained. Instead of seeking stories of Gods and divine intervention, the idea evolved that one could find salvation from the actions of human beings. The people wanted to believe that they could take control and power over their own lives. This lead to the development of the ‘rescue opera’. The concept of the ‘rescue opera’ was a simple story line. An innocent was put into peril and then rescued. “The vogue was for earthquakes, shipwrecks and volcanoes, and tales of the deliverance of the innocent - a genre known as “rescue opera” or “piece a sauvetage”. (Boyden, 2002 p. 119) Many of these operas were developed from the ‘opera comique‘ which was an opera that was delivered as a comedy. As the Revolution brought Rescue Opera 3 struggle and adversity with it‘s triumphs, the people sought out escape and triumph from their entertainment. “In rescue operas, the principal character is in prison as a result of a political act. The rescue should be achieved by ordinary human characters in a realistic way. Themes deal with survival rather than death.” (Dorak, 2006) Before this time the storylines of opera had been developed around the idea the intervention would come to save the day from Gods, Myth, and Magic. When people are in an oppressive state they are seeking intervention from outside of reality. There is a desire for a ‘miracle’ to save them from their impossible state. In contrast, the aristocracy holds onto it’s power and privilege by the ever-present air of divine right. While few actually proclaimed divine right of reign, most sovereigns believed that their lineage was in power because it was ordained by God that they were to be on the thrown. Stories of magic and mythology reinforced the class privileges and oppressions in a aristocratic government. As the working class began to become empowered and realize that they could usurp the government and take control of their destiny, the entertainment of the realm began to reflect that change. According to Mathew Boyden‘s work The Rough Guide to Opera, “The first critically influential rescue opera was Cherubini’s Lodoiska - the longest running French opera of the 1790’s.” (Boyden, 2007 p. 119) He says of Luigi Cherubini: The French Revolution was the single most significant political factor in the creation of the Romantic imagination, and yet the major figure in French musical life during the years of the Revolution was the Italian born Luigi Cherubini, a classicist who had little time for the self-indulgences of the Romantics. He was, nonetheless, a model of technique for those with less disciplined inclinations. (Boyden, 2007 p. 119) Rescue Opera 4 As with many ironies of history, this Italian composer created a piece of work that typified the needs of the French Revolution influenced audience and helped to set in vogue the genre of the ‘rescue opera’. As these needs of the audience were met by composers a new period of music was ushered in and established. As the French Revolution influenced the political world with its enlightened thought and new political awareness, it influenced music with a powerful shift that changed the way in which composer’s approached their work. The musical revolution does not seem to have been gradual. It was truly a break in history. The major change in the design and techniques of every kind of musical instrument at the beginning of the Romantic period, for instance, was no slow evolution; it was a rupture with the past that took place in less than two generations. But new kinds of instruments were symptomatic of something bigger. Everything, it seems, was changing. (Haynes, 2007 p. 5) As the instrumentation of music changed, so was the emotional gauge by which music was created changed. The period broke open the stiff, formal structures that had dominated the Baroque period and allowed for great, sweeping melodies to paint pictures of passionate display. We are now on the high road of Romanticism, with its insistence on the power of immediate emotional experience and response, its openness to aesthetic states that are parallel to, even informed by, physical and sexual passion, the feeling not just of the listener’s auditory experience of pleasure but of oneness with the music as a mysterious art that can evoke such altered states. (Lockwood, 2003 p. 173) This new freedom of expression influenced the work of one the great composers of history. Ludwig von Beethoven was an admirer of Cherubini’s work. As a result, he developed some of the most powerful work of the time. One of the most successful Rescue Opera 5 ’rescue operas’ was Fidelio, written by Beethoven. In the story, “Leonore disguises herself as a young man, takes the name Fidelio, and goes to work for the chief jailer so she can find her wrongfully imprisoned husband and save him from execution.” (Romanticism 2008) This story typifies the idea that individuals have power over their own fates and destinies. Beethoven was greatly influenced by the concepts brought forth under the philosophical constructs of the Age of Enlightenment as the pursuits of men became more individually important and the political atmosphere was becoming more aware of the needs of the people. The new awareness that was infused into the artistic endeavors of those of the Romantic period of history paved the way for the Modernity of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Before the French Revolution art and music was created under strict conditions and structures. The relationship between the patrons and the artists were that of masters and servants. This changed during the time of the Revolution. Artists and musicians started to create under their own creative terms. The relationships that denied their expression were abandoned and replaced with a new sense of autonomy. Where composers needed to please the ear of their patron, now they sought to please the ear of a wider audience of people. In the state of the pre-Romantic periods content was strictly administered by both law and religious judgment. As the wall between the needs of the sovereign being held over the needs of the people was torn away, so was the block that held back the expressions of the artistic community. “What hangs like a veil between the musicians of today and those of pre-Romantic times are the changes in ideals and mentality, the Rescue Opera 6 paradigm shifts that are symbolized by the Industrial Revolution that took place between about 1760 and 1840 and more specifically the French Revolution that began in 1789. (Haynes 4) The affects of the French Revolution were troubled and varied. It is observed that “the Revolution weakened the political influence and leadership of the aristocracy. The aristocrats lost their privileges based on birth because from this point on, privilege would now be based on property and wealth.” (Kreis, 2004) The world would be changed significantly as roles of the classes were no longer guaranteed. The common working class could now participate in the government and in the control of the future of the country “because careers were open to talent, the bourgeoisie had access to the highest positions in the state.” as well “The individual, formerly a subject in the old order, was now a citizen, with specific rights as well as duties.” (Kreis, 2004) The responsibility of the way that the rights of the individual would be handled was now available to the common people to decide. As the growing pains of the new political philosophy grew, the affects on the artistic world changed the course of music. Power is wielded through many means. Throughout history, men have created systems of government that oppressed the natural desires of the individual. Religious leaders have used the fear of condemnation and excommunication to control the expressions of individuality by composers and artists. Political leaders have used the products of musicians to propagandize their agendas. However, the new freedom that was created by the empowerment of the individual opened the door for the new found freedoms that would lead to deeper and empowered expressions of the human experience. Rescue Opera 7 References Boyden, Mathew, et al. (2002) The Rough Guide to Opera. New York [USA]: Penguin Books. Dorak, M. Tevfik. (2006, June). Evolution Of Opera. Retrieved November 18, 2008 from http://www.dorak.info/music/opera.html. Haynes, Bruce. (2007). The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music. New York [USA]: Oxford University Press, Inc. Kreis, Stephen (2004, May). The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. Lecture 13 The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792 - 1794. Retrieved November 18, 2008 from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture13a.html. Lockwood, Lewis. (2003). Beethoven: The Music and the Life. New York [USA]: W.W. Norton Company, Inc. Romanticism. ( 2008). Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved on November 18, 2008 from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_701765971/Romanticism.html Read More