Transcription
Okay, gonna try something a little bit different. I'm gonna use my phone instead of the little webcam on my computer, and we'll see how this works.
So, last lecture I talked about the elements of opera; things like what is a recitative, what is an aria, what is an overture, what is a libretto—all of those kind of things. So today, I'm gonna talk about how opera was invented in the first place, why it was invented, why it was created, who were the people who did that, and why did they do it.
I've already talked about these things a little bit. It's again, it's kind of difficult when you're teaching any subject to pick one point to start and to just talk about it in a linear fashion, because that's not really how things work. We have this big, complex subject called opera; it has many different facets. It evolved over time; it's been around with us for 400 years now. So it's hard to generalize and say all opera is like this or that or the other thing. There are certain things that all operas tend to have in common: they all involve a drama with music, with costumes, with sets and scenery, and the idea is to fuse all these elements together so that the whole is larger than any of the individual parts. But beyond that, it's it's kind of hard to generalize.
For example, one general statement I made is that opera is sung throughout from beginning to end, unlike, for example, musical theatre where you have spoken dialogue and you have songs. But even that isn't necessarily true. There are certain kinds of opera; for example, there's a sub-genre of opera called Singspiel. This is a type of opera that was popular in in the German-speaking areas, in Austria and Germany, around the time of Mozart. So Mozart wrote several of these Singspiel, and in the Singspiel, what that word actually means is "singing play," as "spiel" is a type of an opera where there actually is some spoken dialogue. So even there, there's an example of an exception to the rule. For pretty much anything that I said last time about opera, there are exceptions. So I'm speaking in generalities: most opera is sung from beginning to end; most opera is in Italian. So there again, there are exceptions. Opera was invented by Italians in Italy, so it makes sense that all early operas were in Italian. But, for example, the French, very early in the history of opera, sort of adopted opera and started creating operas in the French language. So there's a French tradition. There's not a whole lot of opera in the English language. Now we will look at one example: *Dido and Aeneas* by Henry Purcell, which is considered the greatest opera in the English language. But English was a language that was, just for whatever reason, for various reasons I probably won't get into because it's kind of complex and a long story, the English were not as crazy about opera as continental Europeans were, as for example the Italians or the French or the Germans were, probably because the English had their own very strong tradition of theatre: Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, etc. And, and of course, opera competes in the marketplace of entertainment with traditional theatre. So opera was not quite as popular in England as it was in other countries, although there were certainly opera houses in England. Those opera houses would have shown operas mostly in Italian.
So it is simply a fact that during the Baroque era, wherever you were—let's let's take the example of Handel, who was a German-born composer who, early in his career, spent some time in Italy because he wanted to specialize in opera. So he went, like, to the original source, to Italy, to break into the world of opera, but then ended up spending most of his life in England. Handel's operas are all in Italian, even though he himself was German. It, you know, whether you are a German composer, a French composer, an Italian composer, for the most part Italian was considered the correct language for opera. So, for example, Mozart's operas, his his Italian operas are in Italian. Now he did also, as I mentioned, write some German operas; those are Singspiel—that category of opera that includes spoken dialogue and is particularly German style. His Singspiels are in German, but his operas are in Italian, even though Mozart himself was not Italian, was not a native Italian speaker. He was an Austrian who spoke German.
So now, later on, when we get into the 19th century, we have, as an outgrowth of musical nationalism, when we have, for example, composers in Bohemia or in Poland or in Russia or other places, as sort of an expression of their patriotic pride in their nationalist tendencies, they start writing operas in their own language: in the Czech tongue if we're talking about Bohemia, which is today called the Czech Republic; back then it was referred to as Bohemia, where they speak Czech; or in Poland, writing your opera in Polish; or in Russia. So this this whole tradition of Russian Opera begins in the nineteenth century. But prior to that, Italian was by far the dominant language of opera, no matter where in the world or where in Europe or in America later on you might be attending the opera, it was likely to be in Italian. In France it might be in French, but even there a lot of French composers wrote operas in the Italian language. Okay, anyway, but today's lecture was was supposed to be on the history and the origins of opera. Some of this I talked about already, but let's start from the beginning.
Opera is a musical genre which, unlike most musical genres, was kind of invented. It didn't really evolve naturally from something else; it was invented consciously as a new genre. The the people who came up with this idea for this new genre were a group of wealthy, mostly noble Italian humanists. I remember what humanism is; that we talked about this back in the Renaissance. What is a humanist? Well, someone who is who is intellectually curious about things of this world, who, for example, has the attitude that it's not all about the afterlife and whatever the church tells you that's what you have to do; that there there are things of this world and things related to human life on this earth, not just in the afterlife, which are worth exploring, enjoying, learning about, depicting in the arts, for example. Remember when we when we got to the Renaissance and we saw these suddenly these very realistic and detailed depictions of the human form in paintings and statues? That itself is an outgrowth of humanism, because the idea is the human body is a beautiful thing; it's not just a and something to be ashamed of and to cover up so that you are not tempted by the sin of lust and all that sort of the more medieval attitude. The humanist Renaissance attitude is: no, the human body is a beautiful thing, and therefore why not show it in all and not just in all of its beauty but in all of its anatomically-correct detail. So, as you're probably aware, the great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance were were interested in getting it right, to the degree that they actually often examined dead bodies, did performed autopsies and took apart these the different tissue structures in order to really understand at a very deep level how the human body was put together so that they could read and realistically depict it. That's just one element; I'm just picking one example of a humanistic tendency or a humanistic way of thinking. Remember the other aspect of humanism that I said, in addition to the idea that human life, human beings have inherent dignity and worth, and human life and things of this world are worth learning about and being curious about? The other aspect of humanism was this fascination for ancient Greek and Roman culture; that is, the culture of the Ancients before medieval times, before the church became so powerful, right? The the people of the Renaissance, humanists, looked back to this culture. Remember that's where we get the word Renaissance; they saw that their own time was witnessing a rebirth of the values of the ancient Greeks and Romans and that they were progressing beyond the sort of backwardness of the Middle Ages.
Okay, so we have a group of Italian humanists who, and there are many such groups, they would meet informally and have this almost sort of like a little private university. They would get together and maybe have guest lecturers come in and talk about the art, the literature, the architecture, the culture, whatever of ancient Greece and Rome. All right, that's what these humanist guys were into; they loved that culture; they just couldn't get enough of it, any aspect of it. So they formed these little societies or clubs, which they called Camerata. Camerata just means "chamber," and it actually refers to the room, the chamber in which these little clubs would meet; sort of like if you're aware of it, like a chamber of commerce. The chamber of commerce is a group; it's a club of, let's say, the leading businessmen in a town; it's it's a group, but they named themselves after the room that they meet in; a chamber is another room, another word for a room. So a Camerata, it's of being a chamber of commerce; it's more like a chamber of culture, and specifically, if you're a humanist, it's the ancient Greek and Roman culture that these Renaissance humanists were so interested in.
Now, why am I talking about the Renaissance? Because the the idea of opera was invented toward the end of the Renaissance, right? So it is it's influenced by this humanist tendency, which is such an important part of the Renaissance. All right, so in the late 1500s, there was one particular Camerata. Remember there were many of these these sort of clubs throughout Italy and elsewhere, but there was one such club in particular which is referred to as either the Florentine Camerata, because it was located in Florence, Italy. Remember Florence is sort of ground zero for the Renaissance. Florence, more than any other city, is sort of where the Renaissance begins; that's where, you know, Michelangelo and Leonardo were both from; Florence spent significant time there. So Florence is really ground zero for the Renaissance; it spreads outward from there during the 1400s and 1500s. So the Florentine Camerata, it's also sometimes known as Bardi's Camerata, because the guy who hosted this group was named Count Bardi, and he and a few of his intellectual humanist friends would get together in Count Bardi's palace and they would have these meetings and discussions. That palace, by the way, still exists; it's been converted into apartments, I think. If you if you go online and look up the Bardi Palace in Florence, it's you can rent an apartment there if you're interested. Anyway, so these guys met, and as I said, they discussed their interests, which was the culture of ancient Greece and Rome. And, by the way, one of their members, a couple of their members, one of them was Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. Vincenzo Galilei was a fairly important composer and music theorist, right, and he was a member of this group, that Camerata. Another member of this group was Jacopo Peri, P-E-R-I, and his first name Jacopo, basically the Italian version of Jacob; probably his friends called him Jake. Jacopo Peri was probably the most famous singer of his time in Italy. Okay, um, no, he was also a composer, not really a first-rate composer, but definitely a first-rate singer. So Count Bardi, Vincenzo Galilei, Jacopo Peri, and a few other people, meeting every week, talking about the culture and the art and the music and the poetry and whatever of ancient Greece and Rome, and along the way someone got the idea, hey, you know, it'd be great, what if we were to recreate Greek drama, like start creating new Greek dramas, basically the way that the Greeks used to do it? Of course, we probably wouldn't want to do this in the Greek language; let's do it in Italian, since here we are in Italy, but otherwise let's make it as much like the Greek dramas of old as we possibly can. So that means it's going to be sung from beginning to end, and therefore we'll have to come up with a new way of singing recitative, right, and we are going to use the same kinds of Greek myths and historical stories that were the subject of those Greek dramas. All right, so that was the idea, the inspiration behind the invention of opera. The very first opera was composed by Jacopo Peri and another member of this group, Giulio Caccini. So Peri and Caccini jointly created the very first opera. Now this very first opera is called *Daphne*, and unfortunately it was it was composed in 1598, but unfortunately *Daphne*, this very first opera, has been lost. We don't know what happened to it; I mean the music is gone. However, they composed another opera shortly afterwards, in 1600. Now this is the earliest surviving opera, the oldest opera which has survived to the present day; the score is still in existence; you could still, you know, check it out of a library somewhere and put on a production of it if you wanted to. And this earliest surviving opera, composed and performed in the year 1600, is called *Eurydice*, and again it was a collaborative effort by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini. Now *Eurydice*, this is spelled, by the way, E-U-R-Y-D-I-C-E. Eurydice is a character from Greek myth, and Eurydice and Orpheus, actually Orpheus is really the main character in this story, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice; you could look it up on Wikipedia and find all kinds of information. Orpheus is spelled O-R-P-H-E-U-S. So Orpheus and Eurydice; here's the story in a nutshell: Orpheus is a son of Apollo's; be sort of a half-God, and because Apollo is the god of music, his son Orpheus is basically the most musically gifted human being who has ever lived. Orpheus sings his songs and plays the lyre, that sort of handheld harp, and when he sings his songs and plays the lyre, his powers are so tremendous that even the rocks and the trees would start to dance around. All right, so he has this sort of supernatural, God-like musical powers, even though he's a human being, or let's say a half-God. Orpheus is madly in love with Eurydice, and they are engaged to each other; they are very happy; they're young lovers. But on the day of their wedding, unfortunately Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies and goes into the underworld, right? Now the ancient Greek conception of the afterlife is a little bit different from, let's say, the later Christian conception. The Christian conception is, of course, you have heaven, you have hell, purgatory, but to the ancient Greeks, where you went after you died was a place called Tartarus, that was ruled over by a god named Hades. Sometimes you've heard of references to Hades and maybe thought that Hades was hell; actually Hades is the name of the God who was a brother of Zeus and a brother of Poseidon, who rules over the underworld. Zeus, of course, is the king of the gods and rules over like the earth and the heavens; Poseidon rules over the sea; and Hades rules over the underworld. The underworld, the place where the dead souls go, is a very dreary place; it's just sort of like a cave where the souls of the dead are kind of like mope around like zombies; they are just kind of like shadows of their former selves; they don't have a lot of energy; they just kind of mope around. So it's a very dreary place, and of course it's a place that you cannot return from; everybody, everybody, once you set foot in Hades, there is no coming back. So Eurydice's bitten by a snake, goes into Hades; Orpheus is left behind, and he's heartbroken, right? But he comes up with an idea; he figures, well, look, I'm the most gifted musician who's ever lived, right? I had the power to make the rocks and the trees dance when I sing my songs. So here's what I'm gonna do: I am going to go into the underworld, and I'm gonna find Hades, and I'm gonna make him a deal. Let me say, look, I'm gonna play my songs for you; I, you know, I love my Eurydice so much; I want to bring her back with me. I'm going to sing to you of how much I love her, and I'm gonna convince you to let me leave with her; and if I'm unsuccessful, if you're not gonna let me, if you're not gonna let her leave with me, then I'll just stay here with you; how's that? So Hades says, okay, you got yourself a deal; go ahead, sing your songs. And Orpheus sings his songs, and Hades is actually moved to tears, and he says, you got me; I'll let you go; I'll let both of you go, on one condition: when you leave here, you are gonna walk out first; Eurydice, she is gonna walk out behind you; she's gonna follow you; you may not turn around and check on her to make sure that she's following you; you have to take my word for it; I'm a God, after all. So you cannot turn around and look to see if she's following; you have to walk out and take it on faith that she is following behind you; if you can do that, then you can leave. Okay, so that's what happens. Orpheus starts walking; Eurydice starts walking behind. But wouldn't you know it, Orpheus just can't help himself; he loves Eurydice so much, then he kind of turns around to sneak a quick a quick peek, and Eurydice is snatched back into the underworld, and she can never leave. That's how the original myth goes. But Caccini, when Caccini and Peri, and I guess maybe it was Peri who did more of the work on this opera; I guess it's not really certain who did more, but I think people like the book usually says it's Jacopo Peri's opera, but it's really Peri and Caccini; they changed the ending to make it a happy ending. In their version, Orpheus and Eurydice get to leave and live happily ever after. And probably the reason that they did this was that this opera, it just so happened that this opera, the very first performance in the year 1600, it was performed as part of the entertainment and part of the festivities for what was then the marriage of the century; it was performed as part of the celebrations for the marriage of King Henry the Fourth of France to Marie de Medici. If that that name Medici sounds familiar to you, the Medici were the ruling family of Florence; had been for a long time, and they were also probably the richest people in Europe at the time because they were in the banking business. So this daughter of the Medici family married the King of France; it's a big deal, marrying the King of France. And of course, the the King invited the King and the father of the bride, I guess, invited a few thousand of their closest friends and had a two-week long party. And sort of the highlight of the entertainment which was arranged for this for this wedding was the performance of this earliest surviving opera, *Eurydice*, by Peri and Caccini. And in a way, when you think about it, it's really perfectly suited for that purpose, because first of all, in this opera, remember Orpheus, the main male character, is a musician, and that's a key plot point, right? Which means that there is a reason for there to be music and singing in the opera; it's not like an artificial thing that is tacked on; it's an integral part of the story because Orpheus is himself a musician. And of course Orpheus and Eurydice are young lovers, and they are married; it's a story; it's a love story; it's about love triumphing even over death. And again, perfectly suited to an occasion like a wedding. All right. But if you had that tragic ending in there, where Eurydice never gets to leave Hades, that would kind of leave a bad taste in people's mouths. So Peri and Caccini changed the ending so that there's a happy ending, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Okay, so that is the story of the very first opera, or at least the earliest surviving opera. Now Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini; now Peri was an excellent singer and a decent composer, but not really a first-rate composer. The first truly great, first-rate composer to try his hand at opera was Claudio Monteverdi. Claudio Monteverdi did not invent opera, but he wrote what is considered to be the first masterpiece of opera, the first great opera, in 1607, and this is the opera *Orfeo*. And the book talks about it quite a bit. *Orfeo*, spelled O-R-F-E-O, and guess what? It's the same exact story. In fact, *Orfeo* is just an Italianized spelling of Orpheus, the Greek name Orpheus. So Monteverdi took that that same story and also created an opera based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Monteverdi was not himself a member of the Camerata, right? This is only because he didn't live in Florence at the time; I believe he lived in Mantua and later actually moved to Venice and a very prestigious job in Venice as the music director at St. Mark's Cathedral. If you've ever seen pictures of Venice, usually that the pictures of St. Mark's Square and the canals and the pigeons and the tourists or whatever; if you if you go right now to your computer and Google for images of Venice, you will probably see an image of St. Mark's Cathedral, and that's where Monteverdi worked for something like 20 years as music director; very prestigious position. Well before he got that job, he was working as a court composer in for the Duke of Mantua. And although he was not a member of the Florentine Camerata, he was he was friends with several members of the Camerata, and he was in touch with them; he corresponded; he wrote letters back and forth; and he had many of the same ideas about creating this new musical genre based on sort of a revival of Greek tragedy. And he actually attended a later performance of Jacopo Peri's *Eurydice*. So now he did not go to the debut performance; he was not invited to the wedding of the century between King Henry the Fourth and Marie de Medici, but he attended a subsequent performance a couple years later and probably thought something like, oh, you know, this is this is really great; this is this is pretty good, but I think I can do better; I think I can do better with this same material, with the same story, with the same concept. So he set to work on his own version of an opera based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and he called it *Orfeo*. *Orfeo* is the earliest of several operas by Monteverdi, and it's considered the first masterpiece of opera, the first great opera. In your listening, and if you go on the YouTube channel and if you look for the liked videos by me, you will see all the different musical examples that you would need to know for the exam, all the examples that are referenced in the book, and among them is the recitative *Tu se morta* from Monteverdi's opera *Orfeo*. *Tu se morta* simply means "you are dead"; that's the title of this song in recitative style, and it's it's just an excerpt from that opera at the moment when Eurydice has died and Orpheus realizes this and sings of his emotions, basically, and also communicates to the audience this very important plot detail. He tells the audience, in effect, he tells anyone who will listen as he's singing what he plans to do about it. He says, I will go confidently, you know, first of all, first he sings, he says, "You are dead, you are dead, my dearest, and yet I live, yet I'm left behind," and then he says, no, no, I used to accept this; here's what I'm gonna do: I'm going to go into the deepest abyss—in other words, I'm gonna go into the underworld—and I'm gonna find the king of Shadows—that's a reference to Hades, of course, the the king of the underworld, the god Hades, the king of Shadows. I'm gonna find him; I'm gonna sing my songs to him and plead with him to let Eurydice go and let us leave and go back into the world of the living; and if it doesn't turn out—he sings—if pitiless fate denies me this, if that's not my destiny, then fine, I will stay in the underworld with you, Eurydice, because I'd rather be with her in the land of the dead than be out here in the world of the living without her. So touching love story. So he, in this in this recitative, *Tu se morta*, he he sings about first of all his emotions and then his plan to go and bring Eurydice back. So find that in the liked videos and click on it. Okay, see you next time.