OPERA

a drama set to music and made up of vocal pieces with orchestral accompaniment and orchestral overtures and interludes. In some operas, such as those of Richard Wagner, the music is continuous throughout an act; in others, it is broken up either by recitative (which is more like sung speech) or by dialogue. Opera had its origins in the liturgical drama of the Middle Ages, and this form was combined in 16th-century Florence with contemporary notions of classical Greek tragedy. The subjects chosen by such early operatic composers as Jacopo Peri, Jacopo Corsi, Francesco Cavalli, and Claudio Monteverdi were the old myths about Daphne, Ulysses, and Orpheus, though Monteverdi in his L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642; The Coronation of Poppaea) dealt with the Roman historical personages of Nero and Poppaea. In Paris at the court of Louis XIV the new art was encouraged in the lavish works of Jean-Baptiste Lully, while at the court in Vienna, the Italian operas of Pietro Antonio Cesti were performed. In England the development was more sketchy, but one operatic masterpiece was achieved: Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1689). When opera did become popular in London, in the mid-18th century, it was in a form imported from Italy and refined by the German-born composer George Frideric Handel, who was in turn largely influenced by the style of Alessandro Scarlatti, which formalized the music into recitative and arias. In these arias the action stopped while a character expressed his emotions of the moment at length. At this time the role of the leading singer became more important, with special attention devoted to the castrati, who sang most of the male roles. Contemporaneously in France, Jean-Philippe Rameau was developing opera along different lines, with an emphasis on declamation, a more flexible form, and heightened visual displays, including extensive ballet interludes. At the same time, a vein of more mundane, comic opera was coming to the fore. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) in England was a brilliant social and political satire. A series of operas on more common subjects was produced in Hamburg. Naples was also the source of pieces, such as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La serva padrona (1733; The Maid as Mistress), on popular themes. Christoph Willibald Gluck contributed to this genre in the early part of his career. Later he introduced his famous reforms, which were designed to reduce the role of the virtuoso singer and place emphasis on the drama. His Orfeo ed Eurydice (1762), Alceste (1767), and two operas about Iphigenia are samples of the new method, often severely classical in effect and tragic in emotional tone. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart followed a similar vein in his first masterpiece, Idomeneo (1781), but he soon managed to combine the attributes of his predecessors with comic opera in his three masterpieces, Le Nozze di Figaro (1786; The Marriage of Figaro), Don Giovanni (1787), and Cos fan tutte (1790), developing the importance of ensembles and using symphonic form in his finales. His Die Zauberflte (1791; The Magic Flute) raised the singspiel (a comic opera with spoken dialogue) into the realm of the sublime. Luigi Cherubini, with his Mde (1797), and Gaspare Spontini, with his La Vestale (1807), carried forward the ambitions of serious opera and influenced Ludwig van Beethoven, whose Fidelio (1805) is unique in operatic history. In the meantime, Domenico Cimarosa's comedy Il matrimonio segreto (1792; The Secret Marriage) formed the inspiration for Gioacchino Rossini's series of successful comic operas, including II barbiere di Siviglia (1816; The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola (1817; Cinderella). His later operas, however, are dignified and romantic in style. Their grandeur of manner led to the even grander style of Giacomo Meyerbeer. In the 19th century opera developed along national lines. Giovanni Bellini's affecting works and Gaetano Donizetti's tragedies and comedies (he wrote more than 60 operas) were the stepping stones to the glory of Giuseppi Verdi, who himself developed from such successes as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853; The Troubadour), La traviata (1853; The Fallen Woman), and Aida (1871) to the complete mastery of drama and music achieved in Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). In Germany, Carl Maria von Weber's Romantic opera Der Freischtz (1821) and the works of Heinrich August Marschner paved the way for the giant figure of Richard Wagner, whose music dramas revolutionized opera. His major worksDie Meistersinger (1868), Tristan und Isolde (1865), Parsifal (1882), and Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876; The Ring of the Nibelung)remain one of the peaks of operatic achievement to this day. After the brief popularity of Daniel-Franois-Esprit Auber, France moved on to the era of Charles Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Georges Bizet, and Jules Massenet, in whose works grand opera and opra-comique are ingeniously melded. Hector Berlioz meanwhile trod his own individual course, unrecognized as a master until the middle of the 20th century, when his Les Troyens (composed 185558) was recognized as a great tragic epic. Meanwhile nationalism exerted its influence on opera in Russia and elsewhere. The seminal works of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka led to the very different operas of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Modest Mussorgsky. In Czechoslovakia, Bedrich Smetana's patriotic works were followed by Antonn Dvork's more lyrical operas. In the 20th century Leo Jancek's realistic works have won increasing attention. Hungary produced Bla Bartk and his Bluebeard's Castle (1918), and Spain Manuel de Falla's La vida breve (1913). All these composers drew heavily from the folk-oriented music of their individual countries. In Italy the school of verismo, led by Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni, flourished, culminating in Puccini's mature works: La Bohme (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and La fanciulla del west (1910; The Girl of the Golden West). In Germany, Richard Strauss carried forward the aims of music drama in Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909), then tamed their epic qualities in his no less successful comedies, Der Rosenkavalier (1911) chief among them. In France, Claude Debussy's Pellas et Mlisande (1902), though a highly individual creation, was obviously influenced by Tristan. Maurice Ravel left two charming one-act pieces. Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (1957), Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937), Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (1951), Kurt Weill's satiric pieces, and Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (1945) have been acclaimed modern works. a drama set to music and made up of vocal pieces with orchestral accompaniment and with orchestral overtures and interludes. In some operas, such as those by Richard Wagner, the music is continuous throughout an act; in others, it is broken up either by recitative (which is more like sung speech) or by dialogue. The English word opera is an abbreviation of the Italian phrase opera in musica (work in music). It names a theatrical form consisting of a dramatic text (libretto, or little book) combined with music, usually singing with instrumental accompaniment. Besides solo, ensemble, and choral singers and a group of instrumentalists, the forces performing opera since its inception have often included dancers. A complex, often costly variety of musicodramatic entertainment, opera has attracted audiences for nearly five centuries. Although its supporters have greatly outnumbered its detractors, it has been the target of intense adverse criticism. Charles de Saint-vremond, a French man of letters in the 17th century, called it a bizarre thing consisting of poetry in music, in which the poet and the composer, equally standing in each other's way, go to endless trouble to produce a wretched result. The 18th-century English statesman and writer Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son: As for operas, they are essentially too absurd and extravagant to mention. I look upon them as a magic scene contrived to please the eyes and the ears at the expense of the understanding. At the opposite extreme of reaction to opera, it has been said that the mere existence of such a masterpiece as Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) suffices to justify Western civilization. Although the characteristic of opera that most clearly separates it from other theatrical forms is that its principals sing rather than speak their lines, to approach it or criticize it as simply one variety of the musical art is to misjudge it. Its multiple creators almost always have intended an opera to be a lofty and eloquent form of theatrical performance. What commonly differentiates it from other varieties of musicodramatic theatre such as operetta (literally small opera) and musical comedy is sobriety of workmanship, density of texture, and (even in operas with comic and farcical librettos) accompanying seriousness of musical tone. On the other hand, some lighter worksby Jacques Offenbach, Johann Strauss the Younger, Gilbert and Sullivan, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, and a few othersmake neat categorization impossible. In the preparation of an opera performance, many individual artists and artisans, sometimes spread out across a century and more, necessarily are or have been involved. The first, unintentional recruit is likely to have been the writer of the original story. Then comes the librettist, who puts the story or play into a form suitable for musical setting and singing, and the composer, who sets that libretto to music. Architects and acousticians have built an opera house suited or adaptable to performances that demand a sizable stage, a pit to house an ensemble of instrumentalists, and a reasonably large audience. A producer-director has to specify the work of designers, scene painters, costumers, and lighting experts. The producer, conductor, and musical staff have to work for long periods with chorus, dancers, orchestra, and extras as well as the principal singers to prepare the performancework that may last anywhere from a few days to many months. All this does not even take into account the part played by the administrative staff. Once the complete operatic scorethe final libretto and musicis available, what must rule all of those involved is dedication to fulfilling the wishes of the librettist and the composer. Overemphasis or underemphasis of any larger component of an operatic performance can be as damaging to it as off-pitch singing or false entries by instrumentalists. More than one desirable balance among the constituents of performance is often possible. What is certain is that one or another of them must be decided upon, worked toward, and achieved. by Donald Francis Tovey One of the authors most often mentioned when the literary glories of the Eleventh Edition (1910-11) are remembered is Donald (later Sir Donald) Tovey. A successful musician and composer, with numerous concert appearances at the piano as well as at the podium to his credit, Tovey is most remembered as a scholar and critic of music, one whose witty literary style made him a popularizer in the very best sense of the term. His many articles for the Eleventh were later collected in a volume published in 1944. opera Additional reading Books on all aspects of opera are overwhelmingly numerous, particularly in Italian, German, French, and English. The following suggested list is confined to books written in English, a few indicative titles excepted. Unique in its coverage of opera (as well as of the spoken theatre, ballet, the cinema, and the circus) is the 12-vol. Italian Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (195468). Among books on opera in general, useful basic information and informed opinion may be found in: Wallace Brockway and Herbert Weinstock, The World of Opera (1962); Edward J. Dent, Opera (1940); Donald Jay Grout, A Short History of Opera, 2nd ed. (1965); Joseph Kerman, Opera As Drama (1956); Gustav Kobbe, Complete Opera Book, rev. and enlarged by the Earl of Harewood (1954), particularly useful for its libretto stories; Alfred Loewenberg (comp.), Annals of Opera, 15971940, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1955), the basic source for data on premieres and the dates and places of important later productions; and Ernest Newman (ed.), Stories of the Great Operas (1927, reprinted 1948), More Stories of Famous Operas (1943), and Seventeen Famous Operas (1954), which extensively analyze both libretto and music. Later monographs include Gerald Bordman, American Operetta: From H.M.S. Pinafore to Sweeney Todd (1981), and American Musical Comedy: From Adonis to Dreamgirls (1982); and Milton Cross and Karl Kohrs, The New Milton Cross' More Stories of Great Operas, rev. ed. (1980).Among books treating opera in individual cities and opera houses, reliable data may be found in: Anton Bauer, Opern und Operetten in Wien (1955); Arthur J. Bloomfield, The San Francisco Opera, 19231961 (1961); John Frederick Cone, Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company (1966); Ronald L. Davis, Opera in Chicago (1966); Quaintance Eaton, The Boston Opera Company (1965); Carlo Gatti, Il Teatro alla Scala (17781963), 2 vol., the second, compiled by Giampiero Tintori, being a detailed chronology of operatic and other performances (1964); Irving Kolodin, The Metropolitan Opera, 18831966 (1966); Marcel Prawy, The Vienna Opera (1970); Harold D. Rosenthal, Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden (1958); William H. Seltsam (comp.), Metropolitan Opera Annals: A Chronicle of Artists and Performances (1947; also two supplements, 1957, 1968); and Stephanie Wolff, Un Demi-sicle d'opra-comique, 19001950 (1953) and L'Opra au Palais Garnier, 18751962 (1962).A 122-page bibliography, including periodical and monographic articles of importance, may be found in vol. 2 of the first, 2-vol., edition of Donald Jay Grout, A Short History of Opera (1947). A prime source of operatic events since 1950 is the volumes (with annual index) of the London periodical Opera. History of opera is well covered in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, ed. by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack, 2nd ed. (1979); Robert Donington, The Rise of Opera (1981); and John D. Drummond, Opera in Perspective (1980).