Forerunners of the Opera - Essay Example

details Opera music is an ancient Greek passionate art form that begun in the early middle ages and has continued to evolve into the modern forms of opera music. It is diverse and entails genres such as dance, camerata group, medieval musical dramas, renaissance music, and first opera dafne. Opera came in handy in staging plays where the music featured in the Greek theatre had some conspicuous characteristics such as the unique chorus accompanied by texts that guided the audiences on the movements and also determined the moral tones on the audience’s actions. Opera music in itself is an art form in which musicians and singers perform dramatic arts combining them with musical scores and texts is a theater. It incorporates things such as scenery, acting, costumes and dance. Opera performances are done in opera house and it’s often accompanied by either musical ensemble or an orchestra. This music type is a part of the traditional western classic music. It was started in Italy in the sixteenth century and with time it spread to other European countries. These countries modified and deviated from the original operas with each country giving their compositions a completely different name. Italian operas have dominated most European countries though, except in France. An opera composition called opera seria is an Italian form of opera that is handled with a lot of prestige. Among the other forms of operas performed in the opera houses in the eighteenth century include the Mozart. The term opera is an Italian word meaning work. It combines the art of choral singing and solo singing, acting, declamation, and stage dancing. The first opera verse was written in 1597 by Jacopo Peri. This writer was inspired by elite called Florentine Humanist. Dafne is an Italian opera which was an attempt by Jacopo to revive the classical Greek drama that was quickly fading out. It was also a part of revival of the original characteristics associated with Renaissance. In this original dramas, the choruses were originally sung and at times most of the texts in the drama. Most times the speeches made in the play by characters were sung choruses in accordance with the rhythm of the opera music. Instrumentals were also played at certain passages in the play. The roman theater which was dominated by Greek opera music laid down the model that was used by the Italians to develop the Italian Opera. Renaissance is believed to be the basis for opera music because with its coming into existence the interest of the ancient Greeks inhabitants increased. This was during mid-fifteenth and late sixteenth century when music when music was considered a courtly form of entertainment during festivals, tourneys, triumphal entrances, at banquets and in brilliant occasions. The music was accompanied with dramatic moves yet it cannot be called dramatic because it does not satisfy all the qualities of dramatic music because it lacked actions associated with drama. Its main strong point was the artistic intertwining the music was accorded. Renaissance brought in the idea of taking along diverse artistic styles such as dancing, playing, scenery, stage effects and costumes into a single form of artistic presentation intended to capture all the five senses of the human body; this are eyes, the ears and critical imagination. A different genre of music accompanied with nondramatic displays was introduced into opera music in seventeenth century and have become characteristic even in the modern opera music. Back in the sixteenth century before opera music became widespread, intermedio and ballet music were more dominant. Ballet is ancient Italian mascherata. It was later played in France as the France mascaraed. This period was called the carnival time when the Italian ballet had become a favorite amusement which was envied by the France to the point of imitating it. The English also copied the original form of Italian mascherata but called it English masque in sixteenth century. The French mascaraed were played while welcoming high profile guests e.g. when King Charles the IX visited Bar-le-Duc in 1564 the French actors worked in unison to create a mascaraed using various mythological and allegorical personages. This was to during a ceremony to pay homage to the visiting king. Such types of mascaraed later became models that defined the prologue of French operas. In sixteenth century the French mascaraed and aristocratic poetry had become a common feature in the worship of pagan deities, heroes, satyrs, demigods and nymphs. Also the mascaraed were used in romance festivities and narration of medieval epics as curtain raisers to introduce other genres of ancient French arts. The mascaraed were meant to entertain not only the guests but also other audiences therefore it was accompanied with a lot of dancing. This was the advent of ballet because the dancing was slowly transformed into a characteristic form of French dance styles. Ballet is a French word derived from balletto which is an Italian word meaning ballo dance. Ballet comique de la reine was the most famed and could be often performed at Petit-Bourbon palace in France’s capital city, Paris. A complete account of comic de la reine was done in October 1581 during the wedding of the queen’s sister called Marguerite de Vaudemont and Duke Duc de Joyeuse. It was produced by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx who explained that the comique was a unification of several elements of a ballet done through development of a coherent plot like that of a comedy movie. This dramatic framework also led to introduction of diverse dances and stage settings. The slight transformation involving introduction of a dramatic action in the way ballet was performed led to the creation of the French opera. Although the original French opera had dramatic dialogues, they had to be scrapped to give the modern opera a smooth classical flow. In France, dramatic balletsurvived for many years since neither the producer nor did the audience notice the flaws caused by dialogue. English masque has a close resemblance to the French ballet and the Italian mascaraed. It first appeared in sixteenth century during the homage visit of the royal family therefore the people of England had to find a way to exalt the achievements of their kingdom under their able rulers. English masques were written for specific occasions hence they could not be done in many performances. The characteristic of the masque was allegoric majorly focusing on dress code of the dancers rather commonly known as costumes and it also included instrumental music, songs, spoken dialogue and dances. Early masques had dance episodes with themes and performance was made by veiled courtiers. Masque was popular in the sixteenth century but gained dominance during the time of King James and King Charles I. the ballet in conjunction with masque had a lasting influence in the development of their respective countries opera. The intermedio gave a break to the ballets and mascaraed. During this time the main role of music was to support theme being casted in a play. Just like music, renaissance intended to revive drama. Intermedio begun is the late fifteenth century in Italy at a time when Latin plays was being translated into Italian. Many plays written during this period were made in either Latin or Italian using classical models. These plays made use of music in minor ways for decorative purposes. In addition, instrumental pieces, duets, madrigals and solo performances had some music blended into their choruses. This was best achieved by separating music and the play using a prologue placed at the end of the each play scene. This came to be called intermedio which is an Italian word for intermediate or coming between. It was common sense for the composers to allegorically interconnect the message being passed in the song to the subject of the play or drama. It was also performed during princely inaugurations and marriages. An example of intermedio music was performed by Francesco Corteccia and Antonio Landis to celebrate a nuptial union between Eleonora of Toledo and Cosimo I. These compositions of intermedio had four madrigals, three solo songs and eight voices blending with classical instrumentals. A celebrative intermedio would entail various musical effects such as vocals solos, madrigals, ensemble pieces and dances. There were also accompaniments from orchestras e.g. viols, brass instruments, harpsichords and woodwinds. The best performance of intermedio was made by a number of musicians who took part in a performance in 1589. The music was orchestrated by lutes, organs, lyres, viols, trombones, lute and cornets. The intermedio was also organized in such a way to that the singers were closer to instrumentals thereby enabling them to be sing in unison. This organization completely distracted all the audiences from watching the play therefore all their attention was focused on the performance of the intermedio. “For the majority of the audiences the dances formed the chief attraction. The drama was suffocated by the growth of mere accessories”The intermedio is an important type of music that critically helped as a forerunner in the formation of operas. First, intermedio acted as a reminder to the Italian musicians and poets that there was need for close association between music and drama. Secondly, artistic works such as the ballads formed the basis for future opera which is a collaboration of dancing and music, splendid stage effects and spectacular scenery. The performers could also sing out the lines in the drama instead of speaking out the lines and this is how opera could be achieved. The Italian intermedio still remained popular until the beginning of seventeenth century though opera music was also gaining popularity. In short the music played in sixteenth century was a development made on the renaissance movement music but operas were a well-defined fusion of ballet, intermedio and mascaraed. The texts used in writing the intermedio and ballets signify the relationship between Greek mythology and the middle age heritage on the use of personification and allegory. The new opera were a part of lifestyle for the fun loving people in the early ages. These early forms of music were nondramatic which made the passions of the plays to be in spoken dialogue leaving little space for performance of music. This music could be done during reflective times, spectacular moments and lyrical scenes. Europe had a taste of opera in the last decade that marked the sixteenth century. Opera music transformed the association of music and drama into an organic union. With such a union, it was necessary for the composers to write a different kind of drama that could allow continuous music to be played in the background while the music could be in such a way capable of attracting dramatic expressions. The first style was exclusively used in pastorale style of composition done by Jacopo Peri and the second was applied in monadic style employed in the works of Giulio Caccini. After its invention in Italy, French and Greek, Spain also copied the trend and introduced its own different form of the music. The Spanish opera are known as zarzuela which was structured in such a way that they had flowerings separated into two. One development was made between seventeenth and mid eighteenth century. The second phase of the opera flowering occurred at around 1850. This is during late eighteenth century up to some-time in the mid nineteenth century. The Italian form of opera was more common in Spain thus it was a perfect supplement to the native Spanish operas. Music composers in Czech Republic also began an opera movement in the nineteenth century. The movement has since been thriving with such artists as Bedrich Smetana who composed eight operas including “The Bartered Bride”. Antonin Dvorak wrote and sung “Rusalka” and thirteen other operas. Leos Jamacek who came in the spotlight in twentieth century is famed for composing very innovative operas. Hungary has also been in the fore front in making opera music. The country embraced the operas in the nineteenth century when Ferenc Erkel majored his works on historical themes. He performed entertaining operas in the Hungarian language. Poland also produced operas such as the “Haunted Manor” by Stanislaw Moniuszko. This was in the twentieth century; therefore it is evident that opera has become a fast growing genre of music in many countries because of its touch on sensual topics in the society. Mostly opera touches on romance and topics of love which are so moving to the mind and soul. In the 1930s musicians began to write music with an operatic structure. Works such as polyphonic ensembles represent the developments made towards the formation of opera in the ancient Greek. In 1935, jazz styles swept across the lyrical passages leading to operas such as “Broadway”. Other operas in the 1935 contained a dramatic story line making it a complex music such as those sang in opera houses. Some operas entailed operatic conventions and dramatic stories told through rock music, pop and other contemporary metal music. Today operas are performed with acoustic enhancements as a way of reinforcing the sound. Such enhancements give an even sound making the opera music sweet and entertaining to the main sense organs. Reference William James. Some forerunners of Italian opera. Boston: Ayer Publishing, 2000. Donald Jay and Hermine Weigel. A short history of opera.Edition4. Columbiana.Columbia University Press, 2003. The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (ed. Parker, 1994), Chapter 11. Kai Harada, "Operas Dirty Little Secret", Entertainment Design, (1 March 2001). Willey, David (27 October 2005). "Italy facing opera funding crisis".BBC News. Metropolitan Opera high-definition live broadcast page. "The Bigger Picture". Thebiggerpicture.us. (Accessed 2010-11-09). Read More