Category Archives: Dramatic arts

by | November 12, 2013 · 1:00 am

Borodin’s operatic satire

Borodin

Italian opera has played an important role in Russian musical life since the early 17th century, but by the 19th century it was being promoted there more than Russian opera. In retaliation, Russian composers used their operas to make fun of Italian opera’s stock situations and styles, and brought Russian opera back into prominence.

For example, in his early comic farce Богатыри (Bogatyri, Heroic warriors), Borodin used familiar music and arias from Italian and French operas (by Rossini, Verdi, Offenbach, Meyerbeer, and others) to set up situations where the original intention of the music and its new setting were at humorous extremes.

This according to “Italians in a Russian manner: One step from serious to funny” by Svetlana Sergeevna Martynova (Fontes artis musicae LVI/1 [January–March 2009] pp. 1–6).

Today is Borodin’s 180th birthday! Below, the opening of his B-minor symphony, which Massine used for his ballet Bogatyri, illustrated with images of the heroic warriors of Russian folklore.

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by | October 18, 2013 · 1:00 am

Šalâpin and Diaghilev

feodor_chaliapin_1929

In 1906, at the age of 34, Serge Diaghilev made his first impact on Western Europe with a widely acclaimed exhibition of Russian art in Paris; he followed this success with well-received concerts of Russian music in 1907 and 1908, which included the Western European debut of the celebrated Russian bass Fëdor Ivanovič Šalâpin.

Even these achievements were overshadowed by the rapturous reception of the newly formed Ballets Russes in 1909, which performed the entire second act of Borodin’s Knâz’  Igor’ (Prince Igor), featuring the singing of Šalâpin and the dancing of the now-famous Poloveckie plâski (Polovtsian dances).

In 1913 Diaghilev produced performances featuring Šalâpin in both Paris and London. An archival document from that year records Šalâpin’s payment for an extra performance of Musorgskij’s Boris Godunov in London; at the bottom one can see the singer’s handwritten note: Finito!

This according to “Diaghilev, Chaliapine, and their contracts” by Cecil Hopkinson (The music review XXV/2 [May 1964] pp. 149–53). The article also includes full English translations of Šalâpin’s contracts with Diaghilev for the 1909 and 1913 seasons.

Above, Šalâpin with a different associate in 1929; below, a performance of a scene from Godunov in 1927.

Related article: Rahmaninov and Tolstoj

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by | October 9, 2013 · 1:00 am

Verdi’s pigs

verdi-pig

Archivists at the American Institute for Verdi Studies discovered a document that sheds new light on Verdi’s activity just prior to the composition of his final opera, Falstaff.

A letter from the publisher Giulio Ricordi dated 22 August 1890 congratulates Verdi on the successful launching of a new business devoted to the sale of pork prepared at the composer’s Sant’Agata farm.

Ricordi, having purchased a “G.V. brand” pork shoulder, reports that he found the bill “a bit salty”, but for such exquisite meat he would pay “neither a lira more nor a lira less”.

This according to “New Verdi document discovered” by Martin Chusid (Verdi newsletter XX [1992] p. 23). (The information in this article, delicious as it is, appears to be outdated; see the comment below.)

Today is Verdi’s 200th birthday! Below, in Falstaff’s finale, the opera’s characters prepare to dine together—no doubt anticipating the composer’s own homegrown prosciutto.

Related article: Verdi’s gastromusicology

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by | August 21, 2013 · 1:00 am

The compleat mezzo

 

In a 2005 interview,  Dame Janet Baker explained some of her career choices.

“With the greatest respect to mainstream opera, a great many of the mezzo roles are not that interesting. You are either a nurse or a nanny or a companion or something…and I thought ‘My goodness me, I’m going to be bored witless!’”

“I wanted to do things that interested me from the theatrical point of view and from the musical point of view, which meant that I went down very lesser-known, interesting paths, because I was free from the repertory system. And I was glad about that.”

This from “The compleat mezzo´by David J. Baker (Opera news LXX/4 [October 2005] pp. 32–35).

Today is Dame Janet’s 80th birthday! Below, in recital with Schubert’s An die Musik.

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by | June 28, 2013 · 1:00 am

Mise en scène

Mise en scène

In 2012 Brepols launched the series Mise en scène with Giacomo Puccini et Albert Carré: Madame Butterfly à Paris.

Musicologists and stage directors are familiar with the staging manuals (disposizioni sceniche) for Verdi’s later operas, which resulted directly from the composer’s contact with French practice. Yet the French livrets de mise en scène, intended to provide theater directors wishing to produce a work with its complete mise en scène, are still little known.

The publication with annotations and illustrations of a series of stage manuals for important works in the French operatic repertoire, from Auber’s La Muette de Portici (Paris Opéra, 1828) to more modern works—Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole—will provide researchers and directors with very useful tools, giving access to the original visual, dramatic, and decorative elements of Parisian productions (often thought out by the librettist and the composer). Knowing how works were originally staged can be both enlightening and inspiring. These manuals, providing faithful accounts of theatrical works, have much to offer theater historians and those working in opera.

Below, Anna Moffo sings Butterfly’s Death Scene.

Related article: Italian opera manuals

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by | May 22, 2013 · 1:00 am

The Ring recast

Gotterdammerung new3

Gil Kane’s and Roy Thomas’s graphic novel Richard Wagner’s “The ring of the Nibelung”  (New York: DC Comics, 1997) transforms Wagner’s dramma in musica into dramma in pittura.

Kane’s artwork visually follows Wagner’s musical fabric while retaining the means of expression characteristic of the comic-book format. His images do not autonomously narrate the tale; rather, they double the musical narrative form established by Wagner.

For example, the drama of Die Walküre begins not with the curtain opening on the first scene, but with its instrumental Vorspeil, which depicts the storm through which Siegmund is running. In his graphic version of the opera, Kane begins with four pages of pictures without text, depicting visually the action painted by Wagner’s orchestral score.

This according to “Od glazbene do slikovne drame: Roy Thomasov i Gil Kaneov strip Wagnerova Prstena Nibelunga by Zdravko Blažeković (Hrvatsko slovo: Tjednik za kulturu I/18 [25 August 1995] pp. 22–23).

Today is Wagner’s 200th birthday! Above, the immolation scene and finale from Götterdämmerung (click to enlarge); below, Anne Evans’s legendary performance  at Bayreuth in 1992.

Related article: Operas as graphic novels

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by | April 12, 2013 · 1:00 am

Caballé, Mercury, and Barcelona

 

After Queen’s 1985 tour of Spain, the group’s frontman Freddie Mercury amazed his fans by declaring on Spanish television that the Spaniard he most longed to meet was Montserrat Caballé. Mercury hoped to collaborate with the legendary diva, and in March 1987 he finally arranged a meeting in the Garden Room of the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona with a grand piano, state-of-the art recording and playback equipment, and a sumptuous buffet.

She later described the scene: “We spent the whole time listening to music, eating, and improvising…Barcelona as such did not exist at that time—it was only a musical sketch of just a few bars that Freddie sang. But I liked it and he promised to develop it for me to celebrate the Olympic success.” (Barcelona had just been selected for the 1992 Summer Olympics.)

Mercury worked quickly on the song, and Caballé’s recital in London later that month dovetailed with a recording session at his home. Working until 6:00 in the morning, they produced what effectively became Barcelona’s unofficial Olympic anthem.

This according to Montserrat Caballé: “Casta diva” by Stephen Taylor and Robert Pullen (London: Gollancz, 1995, pp. 302–05).

Caballé is 80 years old today! Below, a memorable performance of Barcelona.

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by | October 19, 2012 · 1:00 am

The first musical comedy

The earliest known secular stage play with music, Adam de la Halle’s Le jeu de Robin et de Marion, has been touted as the first musical comedy.

Of the two extant sources, the Paris version is by far the rowdier one—three characters that do not appear in the Aix version engage in mooning the audience, playing with sheep dung, and speaking in unimaginable metaphors worthy of Hungarians.

Common to both versions, Robin, Marion, and the seducing knight are more stock characters, but their lines are pithy and suggestive—e.g., from the scene depicted above:

Knight: You surely won’t put up a fight—you’re just a peasant, I’m a knight!

Marion: Money can’t buy love, you know.

Knight: It can buy something like it, though.

This according to “The hows and whys of Adam de la Halle’s Robin & Marion” by Lucy E. Cross (Early music America XVII/1 [Spring 2011] pp. 38–42). Below, a complete family-friendly performance of the work.

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by | August 27, 2012 · 1:00 am

Operatic degeneracy II

 

La verità mascherata (Milan, 1681), an anonymous and apparently fictional account of a libertine’s reform, includes a description of an elaborate opera performance on the occasion of a royal wedding.

The account suggests that 17th-century Italian audiences were neither silent nor attentive during overtures and instrumental interludes; that the danced intermezzi were barely considered part of the opera at all (Italians apparently regarded stage dancing as comical and grotesque at that time); and that drunkenness and lasciviousness were freely depicted on the stage. The story ends with the hero renouncing opera and retiring to a monastery.

This according to “A Jesuit at the opera in 1680” by Edward Joseph Dent, an essay included in Riemann-Festschrift: Gesammelte Studien–Hugo Riemann zum sechzigsten Geburtstage überreicht von Freunden und Schülern (Leipzig: Hesse, 1909, pp. 381–393); the book is covered in RILM’s Liber amicorum: Festschriften for music scholars and nonmusicians, 1840–1966 (2009, 100 years after the article was published).

Below, an excerpt from a 1996 performance of La Calisto, a 1651 opera by Francesco Cavalli that could have helped to form the impression of Italian comic opera depicted in La verità mascherata.

Related article: Operatic degeneracy I

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by | July 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

Coloratura tuba

Much vocal music has been transcribed for tuba, but little is available for advanced-level players. Coloratura opera arias offer material that would be challenging for more experienced tubists, and these types of arias are much less text-dependent than other kinds of vocal music.

This according to Guidelines for transcribing coloratura opera arias for tuba, with transcriptions of three arias by Vivaldi, Gluck, and Delibes by Robert Lynn, a 2005 dissertation for Ball State University.

Above, a performance by TubaDiva (Jennifer Paradis-Hagar); below, Alessandro Fossi performs Musetta’s aria “Quando me’n vo” from Puccini’s La Bohème.

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