MORE GREAT OPERAS
A Guide to 25 More of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences
Volume 2
By
Michael Steen
© 2016 MICHAEL STEEN
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage or retrieval systems – without the prior written permission of the author. The author has asserted his moral rights.
ISBN: 9781483569123
ePublished by Michael Steen, Mattingley, 2016
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE SERIES
USING THIS EBOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
MONTEVERDI
L’incoronazione di Poppea
GLUCK
Orfeo ed Euridice, Orphée et Eurydice
ROSSINI
L’Italiana in Algeri
WEBER
Der Freischütz
BELLINI
Norma
DONIZETTI
La Fille du Régiment
Don Pasquale
BERLIOZ
Béatrice et Bénédict
VERDI
The Sicilian Vespers
Un Ballo in Maschera
Don Carlo
SMETANA
The Bartered Bride
MUSSORGSKY
Boris Godunov
DVOŘÁK
Rusalka
MASSENET
Manon
Werther
JANÁČEK
Jenůfa
HUMPERDINCK
Hänsel und Gretel
DEBUSSY
Pelléas et Mélisande
R. STRAUSS
Salome
Elektra
Ariadne auf Naxos
POULENC
Dialogues des Carmélites
BRITTEN
Billy Budd
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Warning!
Acknowledgements and sources
ABOUT THE SERIES
This ebook is part of the series entitled A Short Guide to a Great Opera. Several of these Guides have already been published individually, or have been included in the compendium Great Operas – A Guide to 25 of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences, the first volume.
Opera was created and developed to entertain people, one way or another, perhaps by being emotional, uplifting, educational, spiritual, or maybe just amusing or delightful. The experience should please, if only because an unpleasing work will not endure. Whether an opera is being experienced in a cinema, an opera-house, or at home on TV, or on radio, the pleasure derived from it is greatly enhanced by understanding what it is about, and its background.
In the Preface to that first volume, the author explained that the Guides were originally designed to inform Rosemary, his wife, in a quick, efficient, light and amusing way, about what it helps to know and expect when going to a performance of a particular opera, or when experiencing it electronically in the increasing number of ways available today. People generally find that they do not have time, and there are too many distractions, to inform themselves once they have arrived in the foyer.
A broad-ranging but economical, practical, crisp, and modern Guide - a summarisation, a synthesis of a vast amount of available information, selected and presented in a readable form - contributes greatly to appreciation and enjoyment.
Each chapter of the book represents a self-standing guide to an opera. So, although it can be read from cover to cover, that is not its primary use (although conceivably it might be illuminating to read the ‘Background’ sections in this way). Thus there is necessarily some repetition, examples being information on the nature of grand opera and about the background to Czech nationalism, which is relevant to each Czech opera. It has been possible to reduce repetition by inserting some appropriate links, but a reasonable balance within each self-standing guide has proved desirable.
The choice of operas included in this volume is random.
Visit greatoperas.net to find out more.
USING THIS EBOOK
A quick grasp of each opera and its context can be gained by reading the opening section on BACKGROUND and the following WHO’S WHO and WHAT’S WHAT. The section on TALKING POINTS is intended to increase the reader’s general appreciation of the work. In particular, the opera-goer who has read it will be more knowledgeable when socialising and thus will enjoy the opera experience more.
Particularly for those who want to dig deeper, further elaboration may be found in ACT by ACT.
The patience of an audience and a reader can wear thin; a Short Guide should be short. As the nineteenth and twentieth century progressed, various libretti became more complicated and lengthy. In the case of The Sicilian Vespers, Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlo, Boris Godunov, Pelléas et Mélisande, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Les Carmélites, the author was tempted to cut ACT BY ACT. But the section has been retained for reasons of consistency. In those instances, WHO’S WHO and WHAT’S WHAT may generally be found to provide sufficient information for the opera-goer.
The reader is encouraged to turn to the footnotes. This can be done by touching the applicable number on the screen.
Today, countless musical examples are easily and instantly available through Google. Historical recordings of individual specific items can be heard by searching a few words of an aria or other item, and following the link.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Steen OBE was born in Dublin. He studied at the Royal College of Music, and was the organ scholar at Oriel College, Oxford. Opera has been one of his great pleasures. During a successful thirty year career in the City of London, and afterwards, he has met many who go to it, thus gaining considerable insight into the information which it helps to know in order to enhance one’s appreciation and enjoyment of the opera experience. He has been the chairman of the RCM Society and of the Friends of the V&A Museum, the Treasurer of The Open University, and a trustee of Anvil Arts and of The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
The Lives and Times of the Great Composers (ebook and hardcopy)
Great Operas – A Guide to 25 of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences – Volume 1
Short Guides to Great Operas – see pages iii & iv
Enchantress of Nations: Pauline Viardot, Soprano, Muse and Lover (hardcopy)
IN THIS COMPENDIUM
More Great Operas – A Guide to 25 more of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences (ebook)
Volume 2
Bellini’s Norma,
Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict,
Britten’s Billy Budd, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, La Fille du Régiment
Dvořák’s Rusalka
Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice
Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel
Janáček’s Jenůfa
Massenet’s Manon, Werther
Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea
Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites
Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri
Smetana’s The Bartered Bride
R. Strauss’s Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos
Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlo, The Sicilian Vespers
Weber’s Der Freischütz
IN PREPARATION
Great Operas of Wagner – Short Guides to all his Operas
OTHER SHORT GUIDES IN THE SERIES
Great Operas – A Guide to 25 of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences
(ebook and hardcopy)
Volume 1: – Includes Top Twenty Operas
Bizet’s Carmen*
Britten’s Peter Grimes*
Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore,* Lucia di Lammermoor*
Gounod’s Faust
Handel’s Giulio Cesare
Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana & Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci*
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro,* Don Giovanni,*
Così fan tutte,*The Magic Flute,*
Puccini’s, La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Turandot,*†
Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, *La Cenerentola*
Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin*
Verdi’s Rigoletto,*Il Trovatore,*La Traviata,*Aïda,*
Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde*
† these are also included in Great Operas of Puccini
* these are also published as single eguides*
Great Operas of Puccini *
Manon Lescaut,
La Bohème
Tosca
Madama Butterfly
La Fanciulla del West
Il Trittico
Il Tabarro
Suor Angelica
Gianni Schicchi
Turandot
Le Villi
Edgar
La Rondine
*Shortly to be re-published
ALSO ALREADY PUBLISHED AS SINGLE EGUIDES*
Beethoven’s Fidelio
Berg’s Wozzeck
Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers
Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia
Giordano’s Andrea Chénier
Handel’s Rinaldo
Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen
Massenet’s Don Quichotte
Mozart’s Idomeneo, Die Entführung, La Finta Gardiniera, La Clemenza di Tito
Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann
Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges
Rossini’s La Donna del Lago, Guillaume Tell (William Tell)
Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila
Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress
R. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Intermezzo
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades
Verdi’s Macbeth, I Due Foscari, Nabucco, Simon Boccanegra, Otello, Falstaff
Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Die Meistersinger (The Mastersingers), The Ring of the Nibelung: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung
*Shortly to be re-published as a compendium
MONTEVERDI
The Coronation of Poppea
GLUCK
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orphée et Eurydice
ROSSINI
L’Italiana in Algeri
WEBER
Der Freischütz
BELLINI
Norma
DONIZETTI
La Fille du Régiment
The Daughter of the Regiment
La figlia del reggimento
DONIZETTI
Don Pasquale
BERLIOZ
Béatrice et Bénédict
VERDI
The Sicilian Vespers
Les Vêpres Siciliennes
I Vespri Siciliani
VERDI
Un Ballo in Maschera
VERDI
Don Carlo
SMETANA
The Bartered Bride
Prodaná nevešta
Die verkaufte Braut
MUSSORGSKY
Boris Godunov
DVOŘÁK
Rusalka
MASSENET
Manon
MASSENET
Werther
JANÁČEK
Jenůfa
HUMPERDINCK
Hänsel und Gretel
DEBUSSY
Pelléas et Mélisande
RICHARD STRAUSS
Salome
RICHARD STRAUSS
Elektra
RICHARD STRAUSS
Ariadne auf Naxos
POULENC
Dialogues des Carmélites
BRITTEN
Billy Budd
BRITTEN
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
CONTENTS
THE CORONATION OF POPPEA: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Who really wrote the opera
The ‘birth’ of Opera
The real Nero
Seneca and the Stoics
The real Poppæa: a warning to wives and girlfriends
The castrati and the sounds made by the singers
Emotions and Characterisation
ACT BY ACT
Prologue
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Orfeo ed Euridice, Orphée et Eurydice: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Gluck
The story of Orpheus
More about Reform opera
The Querelle des Bouffons and Gluck’s Paris version
The Berlioz version
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
L’Italiana in Algeri: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Rossini
Algiers and its pirates
The harem
Crescendo, coloratura and patter
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
CONTENTS
Der Freischütz: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Carl Maria von Weber
Weber’s eventful youth
Weber’s place in opera history
Colour and Weber’s use of the orchestra
The dodgy Webers and the Mozart connection
ACT BY ACT
Overture
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Norma: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Bellini
The Romans and the druids
Bellini’s bel canto lyricism
Bellini and politics
Some twentieth century Polliones: the disastrous gala in Rome
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
CONTENTS
La Fille du Régiment: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Donizetti
Opéra comique
The Music
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
CONTENTS
Don Pasquale: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
The success of Don Pasquale
The Music
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Béatrice And Bénédict: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Berlioz
His other operas
The music
Berlioz and Shakespeare
Difficulties
Much Ado about Nothing
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
CONTENTS
The Sicilian Vespers: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Verdi
Sicily
Sicily in the thirteenth century
Historical portability
Modern history: Verdi and nationalism
ACT BY ACT
The Sinfonia
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
CONTENTS
Un Ballo in Maschera: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
More about censorship and detention
The music
Light & Darkness
Un Ballo’s origins in grand opera
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Don Carlo: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Schiller’s drama - fiction
History
The Emperor
Philip II (1528-1598) and Elizabeth de Valois
The Prince and Princess of Eboli
Don Carlos
The Inquisition
Grand opera
Various editions
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
CONTENTS
The Bartered Bride: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Smetana
Czech nationalism
‘Czech’ music
Characterisation
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Boris Godunov: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Mussorgsky
The ‘Mighty Five’
The music
Some Russian history: ‘The Period of Troubles’
ACT BY ACT
Prologue
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
CONTENTS
Rusalka: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Dvořák
His unusual character
Dvořák and Czech nationalism
Dvořák’s position as a composer
The standing of Rusalka
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Manon: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Massenet
Voice over
His sentimental, eclectic style
Reminiscence motives
Prévost’s novel
Le Portrait de Manon
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
CONTENTS
Werther: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
The Bailiff
Romantics
Goethe
The ‘best’ tune: Pourquoi me réveiller?
The extraordinary case of James Macpherson
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
CONTENTS
Jenůfa: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Leoš Janáček
The origins of Czech nationalism
Janáček’s Czech nationalism
Olga
Janáček’s Music
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Hänsel und Gretel: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Humperdinck
The Grimms and the fairy tale
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Pelléas et Mélisande: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Symbolists
Debussy’s music
Darkness, Light
Wagner, Alma Tadema
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
CONTENTS
Salome: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Richard Strauss
Some light relief
‘Real life’ characters: Herod
‘Real life’ characters: St John the Baptist
Salome and Wilde
Strauss’s style
Other musicians attitude towards Strauss
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
CONTENTS
Elektra: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
A summary of the myth
Elektra complex
Other Greek aspects
Strauss’s style – dissonance
Strauss’s style – tone poems and leitmotives
Strauss’s style: key relationships
Other musicians’ attitude towards Strauss
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
Act 6
Act 7
CONTENTS
Ariadne Auf Naxos: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
The Ariadne mythology
The roles and the stars
What Strauss’s opera is all about
Weakening the argument
The musical style
Keys and motives
Moliere’s play
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
CONTENTS
Dialogues des carmélites: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Poulenc
Context: the French Revolution
Fear: Sister Blanche of the Agony of Christ
The musical scene in Paris around 1920, and ‘Les Six’
Poulenc’s style
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
CONTENTS
Billy Budd: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Britten
Some historical background: The Nore Mutiny
Characters
Forster’s libretto
The scene in the cabin
The Music
ACT BY ACT
Prologue
Act 1
Act 2
Epilogue
CONTENTS
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: BACKGROUND
WHO’s WHO and WHAT’s WHAT
TALKING POINTS
Britten’s creation of mood
However, the problem with act 3
Purcell’s The Fairy Queen
ACT BY ACT
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
THE CORONATION OF POPPEA: BACKGROUND
Monteverdi was the most significant composer in late Renaissance and early baroque Italy. L’Incoronazione di Poppea, his final opera, was composed when he was a very old man, aged seventy-five. It was his ‘greatest masterpiece, and arguably the finest opera of the century’. Many would rank it as one of the finest ‘of all time’. It was produced in Venice in 16431 at a time when the art form was still in its infancy. It was the first historical opera.
We may imagine the backdrop, the sheer splendour of Venice, the Republic headed by its Doge, with around forty ducal processions each year, with the daily music in the state church, St Mark’s, the ‘Church of Gold’, the repository of the Evangelist’s body. Venice was at least as grand (in its own eyes) as St Peter’s in Rome. Yet citizens with Monteverdi’s intelligence will have been reminded by the pungent odours from their canals that rot had already set in and ‘La Serenissima’ could not last.
Monteverdi
So, the story of the opera, ‘dripping with decadence and sex’, is particularly relevant. It is set in the first century and tells of Nero, the Roman emperor, and his mistress, whom he made his empress. The opera depicts vaunting ambition and attempted murder. Some wish that this, ‘perhaps the least moral in all opera’, could have been more profound, and less irresponsible.
But maybe there is a deeper meaning. Like Machiavelli’s The Prince, the opera may represent a study of absolute monarchy. Through the medium of opera, and with expressive music, Monteverdi demonstrates that absolute power will brook no obstacle, political, legal or moral.
Here, the proxy for power is lust, even if a politer word would be ‘love’. Sex triumphs over all obstacles. It conquers virtue and defies even Reason, including self-preservation: the ‘good guys’ come to grief. The opera ends at the peak of Poppea’s success. Love (sex) has seemingly triumphed over Virtue and Fortune.
But lust is a brittle form of love. Unlike true love, the power which facilitates lust is unlikely to endure. A Venetian audience will have been more familiar with Roman history than we are today. Both Nero and Poppea came to a sticky end. As the Venetian patricians and people left the theatre after the exquisite Pur ti miro, many will have known of Poppea’s dreadful demise: ‘she died from a casual outburst of rage in her husband, who felled her with a kick in her pregnant belly’. Monteverdi is telling us that this is the outcome when the will is ‘controlled by love (sex), entranced by beauty and deprived of constancy.’ Despite its superficial perfection, that type of love will soon disintegrate. In addition, seemingly powerful protagonists generally come to grief.
Monteverdi’s librettist was Francesco Busenello, a lawyer in Venice, who was at one stage the ambassador to the Mantuan court. He was a highly experienced librettist.
Busenello based the opera principally on the story of Nero found in the ‘Annals’ of Tacitus. This famous Roman historian was born probably around 55-60 AD, at the time when Nero’s reign began. (Tacitus was the father-in-law of Agricola, ‘the humane and enlightened’ governor of Britain.)
Busenello was a prominent member of Venice’s ‘Accademia degli Incogniti’, a group of aristocrats and intellectuals interested in the ancient classical period. The group was closely involved in the early stages of Venetian public opera. The membership included many who were disillusioned and disenchanted with politics, who withdrew from public life: many were disappointed that the Renaissance had not led to a golden age;2 it had brought the sword rather than peace; the Genevan Calvinists and their adherents were found to be as intolerant as the Roman Catholics and theirs; also, ‘the art of printing had multiplied rubbish as well as valuable matter’.
They were equally sceptical about love and women: for them, physical beauty was frequently just superficial. Busenello’s libretto contrasts the carnal pleasures of the imperial Roman couple, with the self-control and constancy of Nero’s tutor, the ‘Stoic’ philosopher Seneca. (The nineteenth century historian Lord Macaulay described reading Seneca as similar to dining on nothing but anchovy sauce - it’s heavy going except in very small helpings.)
L’Incoronazione di Poppea was given its first performance in Venice in the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo, a recently-constructed theatre. (Although the theatre belonged to a patrician family, the audience would have been several hundred people of various classes, not just aristocrats.) As was usual at the time, castrati were prominent in the cast, so today’s audience has to get used to counter-tenors singing the roles of the aggressively sexual Roman emperor and his lieutenant Ottone.3 The opera is long: one edition lasts nearly four hours; another, is cut to two and a half hours.
The manuscript of L’Incoronazione di Poppea was probably lost in the many fires suffered over the years by Venetian theatres in Venice. The opera has been considerably reconstructed. The surviving sources are principally two complete, or nearly complete, but ‘at times sharply differing’, scores, which date from after the first performance; together with around ten manuscript and printed versions of the libretto.
Unlike the operas of later centuries, in which the parts to be played and sung are fully written out in the orchestral score, note-by-note, manuscripts for this period largely consist of music for the voice part together with a continuous bass part known as ‘figured’ bass.4 It was up to musicians, probably located on both sides of the stage, to fill in the middle parts, and improvise as appropriate ‘on the night’, using the harmony dictated by shorthand numbers printed under the bass line.
The instrument providing the ‘continuo’ bass line had to be capable of sounding chords, several notes at once. So, today, we may see in the orchestra pit an unusual-looking lute with very long strings, such as the theorbo or chitarrone, as well as a portative organ or harpsichord. Whatever instrument is used, it has to be sufficient to provide a bright powerful tone suitable for supporting the voice.
The shorthand technique of writing down music has resulted in it being difficult, in recent times, to establish an authoritative text; and several different performing editions have been published. Every production is likely to be different. Besides, producers, who do not wish the audience to be excessively challenged by the length of the opera, will cut it considerably.
There are differing views even about how much of the music was composed by Monteverdi, himself. The gorgeous final love duet, Pur ti miro, I adore you, was almost certainly not composed by him. Neither score is from Monteverdi’s lifetime; neither mention the composer’s name; both conclude with Pur ti miro. There is much for musicologists to argue and speculate about.
Although it was performed elsewhere at the time, the opera went into abeyance. But it was revived just before World War I. However, it really only began to be heard frequently in the 1960s. Then, presented by the Cambridge musician Raymond Leppard, it was generally recognised as a supremely beautiful and important work. This was around four hundred years after Monteverdi’s birth. In the past half-century, the increasing interest in period instruments has given the baroque composer a considerable boost.
1 This was around the time of the start of the English Civil War, between the King and Parliament, the cavaliers and roundheads, which led eventually to the execution of King Charles I and the Protectorate of Cromwell.
2 This pessimism, with the consequent scepticism, was encapsulated in the Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), the French thinker. He described the vanity of life, ‘the vanity of human reason, wishes, thoughts and action’. It has been said that Montaigne began ‘the age of disenchantment’ with the Renaissance.
3 As Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream can show, a countertenor can find it hard to balance a dramatic soprano. This weakness also manifests itself in ensembles in Monteverdi’s well-known Vespers of 1610.
4 Brass is occasionally used for festive moments such as Poppea’s coronation.
WHO’S WHO AND WHAT’S WHAT
This summary is based on the libretto. As mentioned in the Warning! at the end of this eBook, certain directors may amend opera stories to suit their production.
The goddess of Love (Venus) wins an argument with Fortune and Virtue about which of them is the greatest.
The opera takes place in Rome in AD 58, on a single day (a requirement of classical drama). Ottone, a noble lord, visits Poppea, the courtesan, and finds that the Emperor Nero has got there first, as is evidenced by the presence of two of his bodyguards asleep outside.5
Poppea’s nurse Arnalta is particularly worried about how Nero’s wife Ottavia will react to the affair. Ottavia rejects her nurse’s suggestion that she find another man. Seneca, the stoical philosopher and Nero’s former tutor, suggests that she should be indifferent to the pain it causes her. This annoys Valletto, Ottavia’s page, who is chasing the lady-in-waiting, Damigella.
Seneca, a proponent of Virtue, philosophises. But he is warned by Athene, the goddess of Wisdom, that his end is nigh. Nero is determined to divorce Ottavia, and is displeased with Seneca’s forthright warnings. Poppea’s sex-appeal induces Nero to promise to crown her empress. She then claims that Seneca is ‘too big for his boots’ and needs to be got rid of.
Meanwhile, Ottone, having remonstrated unsuccessfully with Poppea, gives himself to a somewhat wary Drusilla, a lady of the court whom he spurned in the past.
Mercury, the messenger of the gods, warns Seneca, who is philosophising in his garden, that he is about to die. Nero’s Captain of the Guard tells him to commit suicide.6
In complete contrast, Valletto, the page, succeeds in seducing the lady-in-waiting, Damigella. Together with Lucano, the poet, Nero rejoices that Seneca is dead. Ottavia orders the reluctant Ottone to disguise himself as Drusilla and kill Poppea.
Arnalta lulls Poppea to sleep. Love, like the ‘deus ex machina’ who arrives just in time in an ancient Greek tragedy, intervenes to warn her that Ottone, dressed as Drusilla, is about to strike.
Arnalta denounces Drusilla who, after being caught, is sentenced to torture and death. But Ottone intervenes and gives himself up. Nero exiles Ottone, whom Drusilla chooses to follow, and he banishes Ottavia.
Arnalta rejoices in the success of her mistress, in her consequent promotion and the power of patronage which she will enjoy. After the Coronation, Nero and Poppea sing the love duet Pur ti miro, Love has indeed triumphed.
There are twenty-one characters in the opera: some singers will perform more than one part, or their music may be cut.
5 The soldiers, Arnalta, and Octavia’s nurse and page are derived from stock comic types in the ancient Commedia dell'arte. In their outdoor performances in temporary venues, these were often masked, like Harlequin. Their shows involved ribald humour, often featuring sex, disease, cuckolds, geriatrics and so forth. Here, they introduce the characters and comment on the action of which they are not actually part.
6 The librettist used some poetic license. He brought Seneca’s death forward by about three years. But here, where it is the fulcrum of the story, it is re-located in the middle of the opera. His death ‘unleashed the tide of immorality that is so shocking’ in the opera.
TALKING POINTS
Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Claudio Monteverdi, son of a chemist, was one of the most influential figures in the history of music. He was born on 15 May, 1567 in Cremona in Northern Italy. He was a contemporary of the astronomer Galileo, who was slightly older. By the age of twenty, Monteverdi had published a book of secular songs (called madrigals). In the 1590s, he moved to Mantua as a string player in the ducal court of the ruling Gonzaga family. He was also in the duke’s retinue when he went to Hungary to fight the Turk, and to take the waters in Flanders.
By 1600, Monteverdi was established as a composer. In subsequent centuries, his successful Orfeo, which was produced in 1607, has been regarded ‘by common consent’ as the first great opera. At the time, it made him ‘famous with one stroke’.
Only two sons survived from his marriage with one of the court singers. After his wife’s death, feeling undervalued and over-criticised, and overworked by an order to provide music for the festivities at a ducal wedding, he became disenchanted. He left Mantua in 1608. He had a nervous breakdown, and was eventually dismissed.
When he was still employed by Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, he assembled the music which he later had published as The Vespers of 1610, possibly to demonstrate his credentials as an expert composer of church music, even though in Mantua it seems that he was mainly employed to compose secular music.
In 1613, Monteverdi was appointed to the supremely prestigious position of master of music at St Mark’s in Venice. There, music was at a low ebb and his administrative skill improved the quality considerably. Monteverdi’s long life included surviving the Venice plague of 1630-31, and extricating his son from the Inquisition.
Despite his status and his position at St Mark’s, where he had taken holy orders, Monteverdi was prepared to get involved with the theatres. In his final years, he composed three operas, only two of which have survived, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (1640) and L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1643). He died on 29 November, 1643.
Who really wrote the opera?
Both of the surviving complete scores date from around ten years after the first performance. Both conclude with the duet Pur ti miro.
Composers at this time often collaborated in producing an opera. To conclude an opera with a love duet also became common.
Maybe most of the L’Incoronazione di Poppea is Monteverdi’s, but, among other changes, it seems likely that the role of Ottone was re-written after his death. The whole of the final scene is a later addition, probably provided by a highly regarded composer operating in Venice in the 1640s, Francesco Sacrati (1605-1650). He was probably assisted by Benedetto Ferrari (c. 1603-1681) who, a few years previously, had brought public opera to Venice. Experts consider that it is likely that one of these, or some younger composer, composed Pur ti miro. Ferrari was an impresario and lute player. His Andromeda was the earliest Venetian opera to which the paying public was admitted. Pur ti miro also appeared in his Il pastor regio.
Unless we wish to hear ‘a single composer’s voice in this work’, we should not allow the question about who composed it to distract us or reduce our enjoyment of it.
The ‘birth’ of Opera
For many years, courtly entertainment had included pastoral dramas. Musical interludes were inserted into plays, for example, when scenery was being shifted. But the music of the Renaissance, multi-part and with long vocal lines, was not suitable for the performance of drama itself.
Towards the end of the 1500s, a group of Florentine dilettanti, noblemen and singers, known as the Camerata, in which the father of the great Galileo took a leading role, experimented in ‘new music’. For them, the old Renaissance music, where the sequence of notes follow one another according to strict and supposedly ancient Greek rules, had the effect of lacerating the words. Anyway, the rules were a recent invention, and were far from being derived from the ancient classical sources, as was claimed.
The Camerata argued heatedly that the words should determine and predominate over the music, not vice versa. Their music, although it had shorter singable phrases, was a somewhat monotonous and dry product, which was derided by the conservative musicians, but it evolved into the first operas, with continuous music.
Some works by Cavalieri, a member of the Camerata, were included in the 1589 lavishly extravagant celebrations for the marriage of Ferdinando de Medici7 and Christine of Lorraine. It was a short step for Jacopo Peri to produce the first opera, Dafne. His second opera was performed at the celebrations in 1600 for the wedding of Henry IV and Ferdinando’s niece, the beautiful Marie de Medici (later, Regent of France). Monteverdi probably attended this event in the retinue of Duke Vincenzo di Gonzaga.
However, the operatic part of the celebrations was deemed not to have been a success: the recitative style was declared ‘boring’ and ‘like the chanting of the Passion’. Opera was not repeated at another Medici wedding in 1608. Meanwhile Monteverdi had composed Orfeo, which showed ‘wonderful fluidity of purpose, slipping from recitative to arioso and even aria, without the strict division which later stultified so much seventeenth and eighteenth century opera’. In a nutshell, Monteverdi picked up the forms and techniques of his predecessors and rendered them ‘viable for lesser men’.
The Venetian carnival, held between Christmas and Shrove Tuesday, provided a setting in which this form of opera could prosper. The boxes and private dining rooms became a centre of Venetian social and political life for the prosperous patrician class. Opera became a business, and began to supplant the popularity of spoken drama. Public enthusiasm for it was evidenced by the development of new purpose-built opera houses. Five new operas were performed in the three seasons following the opening of the Teatro S. Cassiano in 1637. The craze for opera soon spread to other cities such as Rome and to Naples, which was Europe’s fourth largest city.
The real Nero
Nero (37-68 AD) was the great-nephew, step-son and adopted-son of Claudius whom he succeeded in AD 54. This descent was through his mother, who was married to Claudius - after she despatched her predecessor, and before she despatched him. So the precedents were not promising. Nero was dominated by two very determined women, his mother Agrippina and his second wife Poppæa.
At first, Nero was ‘young, generous and genial’, possibly owing to the influence of his tutor, Seneca, who became one of his top civil servants. The first five years of his reign, during which his unscrupulous mother still maintained power, were stable. His ‘childish vanity and savage temper, and wild-beast streak’ were as yet undisclosed. Nero married Claudius’s daughter Octavia.
Nero became increasingly profligate and unstable. In a slave’s disguise, he would wander through the streets of Rome to visit brothels and taverns, beating up the place together with his cronies such as Otho (Ottone), a ‘young man of fashion and high rank’.8 In AD 58, Nero started an affair with Poppæa. The couple attempted to drown his mother by luring her into a boat which then fell to pieces. But Agrippina could swim; so his soldiers had to murder her in her house, instead.
Nero soon devoted his time to popular sports such as chariot racing, games, and musical and artistic exhibitions. Poppæa tightened her grip: Seneca was retired and potential opponents of Nero were eliminated. Octavia was divorced, banished and soon murdered. Poppæa was supreme.
Poppaea
The earthquake at Pompeii in AD 63 and the great fire of Rome in the following year (while Nero ‘fiddled’ as the city burnt) were interpreted as the wrath of the gods, despite Christians being used as scapegoats. Nero built an enormous Golden Palace for himself, its walls blazed with gold and precious stones. The provinces were pillaged to pay for it.
In AD 65, the year of Poppæa’s death, a failed coup resulted in Seneca’s suicide. Nero became panic-stricken about conspiracies. In late 66, he went to Greece where he wanted to display his artistic gifts to an audience more appreciative than that in Rome. Conspiracies in Rome continued against him. There were risings in the provinces such as Gaul. Nero returned from Greece. When the conspiracies looked like succeeding, he committed suicide, aged thirty-one. Even as late as the eleventh century, his ghost was seen in Rome.
Seneca and the Stoics
Seneca (c.3 BC – 65 AD) was virtually a contemporary of Jesus Christ. He came from Cordoba in Spain. He was ‘the most eminent among Latin writers of his time’, and was expert in rhetoric like his father. After ups and downs, at a time when intrigue and ‘backing the right horse’ was so important, he became the confidential adviser to Nero’s mother Agrippina. As the top civil servant, he steered Nero through his successful early years.
He was at one time the most prominent of the Roman Stoics. Stoicism was a comprehensive system of philosophy. It was called after the ‘stoa’ (the Greek word for porch) in Athens in which Zeno, its founder in around 300 BC, used to lecture. In contrast to the adherents of Epicurus, who taught that pleasure, luxury was the chief good, the Stoics regarded virtue as the highest good and were indifferent to pleasure, pain and austerity. Stoicism was subsequently adopted in Rome, where for two centuries or more it was ‘the creed of all the best of the Romans’. It perhaps owed its success to the fact that it was a practical philosophy, ‘a rallying point for strong and noble spirits contending against the odds’.
After Agrippina’s murder, Seneca duly provided Nero with a defence. He amassed enormous wealth. He possessed great talent and suppleness, and some, but not all, of his themes (e.g. forgiveness, and universal benevolence) are suggestive of Christian themes.
Of his tragedies it has been said that ‘as specimens of pompous rant they are probably unequalled’. He was a vegetarian and water drinker.
The real Poppæa: a warning to wives and girlfriends
Tacitus is the main source for information about Sabina Poppæa, and this period. The granddaughter of a distinguished former Consul of Rome, she was an aristocrat. He summed her up:
She ‘had everything but a right mind. Her mother, who surpassed in personal attractions all the ladies of her day, had bequeathed her both fame and beauty. Her fortune adequately corresponded to the nobility of her descent. Her conversation was charming, and her wit anything but dull. She professed virtue, while she practised laxity. Seldom did she appear in public. When she did, her face was always partly veiled, either to disappoint men’s gaze or to set off her beauty. Her character, she never spared. She made no distinction between a husband and a paramour. She never allowed herself to be a slave to her own passion or to that of her lover. As soon as there was a prospect of advantage, she just transferred her favours.’
She deserted a Roman aristocrat by whom she had a son, and married Otho (Ottone), who foolishly boasted to Nero about her charms: ‘often, as he rose from the emperor’s table’, Tacitus writes, ‘Otho was heard to say that he was going to her, to the high birth and beauty which had fallen to his lot, to that which all men pray for, the joy of the fortunate’.
With Nero, Poppæa played ‘hard-to-get’: ‘As soon as his love grew ardent, she would change and be supercilious, and, even if she were ‘detained’ more than one or two nights, would say again and again that she was a married woman and could not give up her husband.’
Nero, who loathed his wife Octavia, had previously got his pleasure with Acte, a ‘freedwoman’. But he was ‘tied down by this slave-girl mistress from whom he had derived nothing but what was low and degrading’. This behaviour had been tolerated, because, had she not satisfied his needs, ‘he might have rushed into outrages on noble ladies’. He longed to possess an aristocratic beauty like Poppæa.
Nero sent Otho away to be governor of Lusitania (part of Spain and Portugal). He alleged that Octavia was barren; and then he married Poppæa. So as to facilitate Nero’s divorce from Octavia, Poppæa arranged for a slave, an Egyptian, ‘skilled at singing to the flute’ to be accused of having an affair with Octavia. But this was a palpable lie; and because of Octavia’s popularity, Nero had to take her back.
Poppæa, although she was unpopular and the people destroyed the statues of her, fought back. So Nero arranged for a more prominent figure, his own ‘fixer’, who had already murdered his mother, to admit to having an affair with Octavia. Despite having alleged that Octavia was barren, Nero now accused her of having an abortion. When she was murdered by slitting her veins, Octavia was so frozen with terror that the blood would not flow. So they put her in a hot bath. Her severed head was sent to Poppæa.
The castrati and the sounds made by the singers
The part of Nero was sung by a male soprano; those of Ottone and Arnalta were sung by male altos. Modern counterparts could not possibly sound the same, so, however much the performance may aspire to be authentic, it will not be. Usually the castrato grew exceptionally tall and large, and reputedly could provide immense power, while sounding like a choirboy. This sounded very different from the youthful softness of the female voice, whose technique of vocal production at this period was probably different, lighter and less powerful, than that to which audiences have been familiar from the nineteenth century onwards.
The origins of the castrati were ecclesiastical. Small boys had not sufficiently powerful voices to deliver the ornamented Church music that was expected of them. Because St Paul had forbidden women to perform in churches9 - the only church choirs with women were in convents - it became necessary to employ eunuchs. So castration was permitted, provided it was declared to be necessary for medical reasons, or was undertaken with consent of the boy. For three hundred years until 1898, there were castrati in St Peter’s in Rome. The soprano-male concept endured in roles such as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.
Like footballers today, good performers were exceptionally hard to find and were in great demand. So the few successful castrati were very highly paid. Cafarelli purchased a dukedom. 10 The less successful led a life of drudgery.
Emotions and Characterisation
Monteverdi wanted the music to bond with the word: together they should communicate the emotions of the characters that he wished to depict on the stage. This is what the great opera composers subsequently sought to do, to a greater or lesser degree - lesser, when opera became a mass-production business in the first half of the nineteenth century, at the time of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, to pick a random example.
The extent to which music supports word, and has primacy, or vice versa, has been a matter of contention down the years and was even central to Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio. But it is astonishing that, at the outset of the history of opera, Monteverdi recognised this issue: his final operas ‘illuminate almost every aspect of human emotional experience: laughter, weeping, raging, waking up and falling asleep’.
Monteverdi, following tenets of the Greek dramatists, believed that music should express the three main emotional states, namely ‘anger, moderation, and humility/supplication’. For him, music therefore should have three equivalent styles, the agitated/aroused (concitato), the soft (molle) and the moderate (temperato). There should be little doubt which emotion is being expressed: the agitated style is used when war or the like is mentioned.11
It is not just a matter of dividing music into categories. Monteverdi’s genius was his ‘penetrating expression of human psychology’. In his operas, the drama is enhanced, and characters appropriately differentiated and described, by means of music suffusing the words of the libretto, using lyricism where appropriate, but withholding it where a more austere emotion is being expressed, for example. Had he not done this, the art-form would have been unsatisfying, dull and undramatic, and possibly would not have endured.
Poppea’s impetuosity, characterised by a rapid succession of quickly paced musical ideas, contrasts with the writing for Arnalta, which is generally slow moving and calm. One can hear different types of love-making portrayed: the sexuality of Nero and Poppea; and the flirtatious valet and ladies-maid. Conversely, the marital row between Poppea and Ottone, towards the end of act 1, is particularly realistic.
The characterisation is perhaps most obvious with Nero, who is hysterical and besotted with his own power and Poppea’s body. Other examples of well-drawn characterisation are when Valletto, one of Ottavia’s servants, tries to pick a quarrel with the old Seneca. And when Drusilla fantasises about making love with Ottone: while her heart is as light as air, Ottone is rather less enthusiastic and claims that he has feet of lead.
Ottavia’s failing voice in Addio, Roma depicts, in a highly realistic manner, her Farewell. And Seneca’s ode Amici, è giunta l’ora, as he prepares for death, is one of the most famous pieces, not just for its beauty but also for its dignity and realism.
7 Ferdinando, who loved classical sculpture, was made a cardinal when he was aged fourteen. His villa in Rome was the location where, some centuries later, the recipients of the coveted Prix de Rome, such as Berlioz and Gounod, studied. Despite his extravagance, he hoarded cash and had a room built which may be regarded as the first bank vault. The wedding celebrations included a mock naval battle in a flooded courtyard of a palazzo.
8 Otho, Nero’s predecessor with Poppæa, became Emperor in the year after Nero’s death, a year known as ‘The Year of the Four Emperors’. Otho ruled for three months and came to grief in a battle near Cremona, Monteverdi’s birthplace.
9 This is found in the Bible, 1 Corinthians ch 14, v. 34. A CD has been produced of ‘The Last Castrato’, Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) based on recordings made in 1902 and 1904.
10 Castrati could ejaculate but were infertile – the fact that they were ‘risk-free’ made them attractive to women concerned about unwanted pregnancies. Caffarelli (1710-1783) was surprised, in flagrante delicto, by a husband returning home unexpectedly. The castrato had to take refuge in a disused water tank, causing considerable damage to his health.
11 Anger, it was said, should be like a brave man who is engaged in warfare or is neurotic. Then we may hear the strictly measured repeated notes (a kind of ‘goat’s trill’) of the stile concitato. Much of this embellishment had however gone out of fashion by the time of Monteverdi’s final operas, although relics of it may be heard when Nero rages with Seneca, and when Ottavia’s servant mocks Seneca.