Rigoletto and the Verdi baritone

After La Boheme, Puccini wrote Tosca and Madam Butterfly, a trio of masterpieces that have remained in the repertoire ever since. Fifty years earlier, Verdi had accomplished a similar trick only more quickly with Rigoletto (premiered in 1851), Il Trovatore (1853) and La Traviata (also 1853). All three are tuneful, compelling works but each is also very different from the others.

Titta Ruffo as Rigoletto

A Tenor Playlist

Most commonly playing the romantic hero, it's no surprise that often the tenors have the best tunes in opera. Attached is a link to a playlist of some of the most popular tenor arias, sung by a variety of tenors:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5C5195F7B0919DA8

Wagner, the Bayreuth Festival and the beginnings of Regie Theatre

Wagner was a pioneer. His Ring cycle of four operas was 25 years in the making and demanded a whole new type of art form. But it also demanded a new opera theatre. The Ring opens with the Rhinemaidens swimming at the bottom of the river Rhine, moves to a mountain in the clouds, passes through forests with dwarves and dragons, and ends with the burning of Valhalla in the heavens while the earth is flooded with the waters of the Rhine. Staging this was not going to be easy....

And it still isn't easy. A staging of The Ring remains the biggest challenge for any opera company and one of the biggest challenges in the theatre. Wagner decided that the only way to stage his work satisfactorily was to build a new theatre. He settled in the town of Bayreuth in northern Bavaria, and with the financial support of King Ludwig, a huge (and impressionable) Wagner fan, built his theatre. And so, the Bayreuth Festival, which is run every summer by a member of the Wagner family and which only performs the operas of Richard Wagner, was born.

The Rhinemaidens at the Bayreuth premier, 1876

A Wagner playlist

Many Italian operas were composed as "number operas" with linking recitative. For example, no 1: Overture, no 2: opening chorus, recitative, no 3: hero's aria, recitative, no 4: hero's cabaletta with chorus. Each number therefore, had a very clear beginning and end. Wagner's operas, however, are much more through-composed: they have less defined beginnings and ends and so are often less excerptable than Italian operas. These excerpts are sometimes known as "bleeding chunks" as they are pulled out of their musical context with a fade or by editing the music. In addition, Wagner's music, with its use of leitmotivs and declamatory style, is often less "tuneful" or "melodic" than some Italian operas. Below are some of the "highlights" from Wagner's operas.

Madama Butterfly

The failure of Puccini's Madama Butterfly at La Scala, Milan in 1904 is one of opera's most celebrated fiascos. Puccini immediately withdrew the work, made a few judicious cuts and re-writes, and a couple of months later it emerged triumphant in Brescia. Since then, it has become one of the most popular and loved works in the repertory.

Richard Wagner

It's been said that with the exception of Napoleon and Jesus, there have been more books written about Richard Wagner than anybody else. A hugely controversial figure, he was undoubtedly a pioneer and a visionary who did much to advance music and theatre. He remains one of the most influential artists of all time.

A Verdi playlist

Below are some of the major "highlights" from Verdi's operas. As before, some are audio, some are video. Hopefully by now you will be familiar with some of the singers.

Viva Verdi and Va, pensiero

We began with Puccini and have looked at his major operas. From there, we looked at his contemporaries in the verismo school and some of the 19th century Italian operas on the edge of the repertoire. The mid to late 19th century Italian opera is, though, dominated by one name: Verdi.

Verismo

As touched upon in the last post, verismo is the name given to a movement in Italian opera and literature which sought a truth or realism in the art form. Out went the historical settings, the kings and queens, the courts, the etiquette: the verismo artists wanted to depict life in all its unattractive glory with characters and situations that you might find in any small Italian town at the turn of the twentieth century. In truth, perhaps the most famous verismo opera is not Italian at all, but French. Bizet's Carmen tells an earthy story about a decade before the Italian movement started. In opera terms (and record company marketing), the term verismo  has also expanded to mean, roughly, 'those composers writing at the turn of the century, whatever the subject matter.' It may well be that Giordano is a true verismo composer: it's just that Andrea Chenier's setting (revolutionary France) does not really fit with the verismo principles.

La mamma morta: Andrea Chenier

We have already looked at this famous aria from Umberto Giordano's 1896 opera Andrea Chenier (the same year as Puccini's La Boheme). The librettist of Chenier was Luigi Illica, who also worked on La Boheme (and Tosca and Madam Butterfly) in collaboration with Giuseppe Giacosa. Now let's look a bit more at the opera itself, some of the music, some new voices and a new style of opera.

Tosca

Puccini's opera Tosca (1900) was the first opera I really got to know. The first opera that I saw in the theatre was Mozart's The Magic Flute, sung in English, but it was Tosca that I watched on video and listened to on LP. And it was Tosca that really got me hooked.

I remember sitting in the circle of the Liverpool Empire Theatre to watch the production by Welsh National Opera. It was the first time I had ever experienced a live orchestra and I can still recall the shivers down the back of my neck when I first heard those opening chords. I still have the programme: 24th November, 1992. I remember that Cavaradossi's painting rolled down from the flies rather than being on an easel; I remember a bunch of plastic candles and the train of Tosca's dress getting caught on them and having to be yanked off; I remember Scarpia carrying a whip; I remember Scarpia laying cushions on the floor before he seduced Tosca. And I remember the thrill, the elation of it all, the genuine excitement of that sound of singers and an orchestra coming together to tell a dramatic story.

Some musical terms: forms and structures

In the Western world, theatre owes the biggest debt to Greek drama. The stories of gods and heroes, the philosophy and moral dilemmas, the vulgar comedies, the epic dramas: the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles are still performed today. Here you had one actor, discussing his ideas with a chorus of people before Aeschylus expanded the dramatic possibilities by including a second actor; then Sophocles added a third. Monologues became conversations: dialogues and arguments. The scope for conflicting emotions was increased; events could now be acted rather than described. There were now three actors and a chorus and inventive playwrights could use them in different combinations. And what has all this to do with opera?

Some musical terms: voices

Let's start with the voices, from high to low:

Female: soprano, mezzo soprano (or mezzo), contralto.

Male: countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, bass.

Here are some examples:

Callas and Tebaldi: the beauty and drama of the human voice

In the last post, we looked a little at Maria Callas and her unique gift that she brought to the world of opera. I also mentioned Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004), a celebrated Italian soprano of the 50s and 60s, and the "rivalry" between these singers. There may well have been a personal animosity between the two, but it was fuelled as much by the fans of each diva and the management of the opera houses as by the singers themselves. 

Both singers had enviable recording contracts. Callas was exclusive to EMI/Columbia, where she recorded much of her repertoire with the La Scala company, partnered by tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and baritone Tito Gobbi; Tebaldi on the other hand, was recorded by Decca/ London, often with the orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and partnered by tenor Mario del Monaco. On the whole, there is more subtlety and finesse to be found on the EMI recordings: does that make them better, or make Callas the greater artist? Not necessarily. It's all a matter of personal taste.

Maria Callas, La Divina

The soprano you hear singing La mamma morta in Philadelphia is Maria Callas, one of the most important names in opera. In this post, I'd like to talk briefly about this great artist. First of all, let's hear the aria without Tom Hanks:

La mamma morta: Opera in film (part two)

We saw a number of different excerpts in the last post and I think there are some things in there that require further comment. So, rather than put them all in the comments, I thought I'd make a new post. Firstly, though, here are the answers:

La mamma morta: Opera in film (part one)

Here, by request, is a famous clip featuring an aria from Umberto Giordano's opera Andrea Chenier (1896):

A quick round-up

I thought it might be useful, as we're about a week in and about to come out of the holiday period to have a look back at what we've covered so far:

A Puccini playlist

Now that you are hopefully a little more familiar with Puccini and some of his major works, as well as with the names of some singers, I thought I'd put together a playlist of the main Puccini extracts, duets and arias. This is more a list to familiarise yourself with the music rather than the stories of the operas and to meet some new singers, so some performances are from concerts, some audio only, some in performance etc. Do you have a favourite track?

Thomas Allen

One of the best ways to discover more about the opera repertoire, find new composers and operas, is to be guided by a favourite artist. Although I enjoyed listening to and watching the Three Tenors, the first singer who really stood out was Thomas Allen.

Sir Tom is a baritone (a lower voice than a tenor and the voice that most males naturally have), born in Seaham, County Durham in the north-east of England in 1944. A mining town, the story of Allen's move away from this background and into the arts is said (by the writer himself) to have influenced Lee Hall's film Billy Elliot. I first met in the video of La Boheme where he plays the painter and friend, Marcello. Here is another clip, from the third act: