Semi-Scholarly Summary: Bringing Back Euridice

Photo (c) Cantanti Project/Lucas Godlewski

It is a truth universally acknowledged that claimants to the title of First Opera are many, though Monteverdi's Orfeo usually makes it into the textbooks. This weekend, NYC will get the Cantanti Project's performance of the earliest extant operatic score. As a historian, I like the phrase "first extant operatic score": it fills the mouth and rolls off the tongue. Not only is Giulio Caccini's Euridice thus a landmark in the hectically productive years of the early seventeenth century (it was published in 1600), it is a highly self-conscious manifesto about the power of music.

Conductor Dylan Sauerwald, who will conduct the performances, has argued that, although "lines in music history are usually blurry... the baroque was an explosion." Not only was Caccini visibly influential in this creative explosion, he was determined to be. His Euridice, written to a libretto also used by Peri, was on the only possible topic for a composer seeking to recapture the power harnessed by the ancient Greeks -- that of music to create harmony, to inspire madness, and indeed to overcome death itself. From the 1580s onwards, the philosophers and artists of Florentine salons had been having vigorous debates about what music should do, and what music could be -- if only their own age could recapture the genius of the ancients. I confess that, even as a habitual operagoer who grew up on Greek mythology as retold by Bulfinch and Hamilton, I observed the early operatic fascination with Orpheus and Euridice without having the penny drop: that it was chosen precisely because it was the narrative of how skillful poetry, skillfully set against music, could break the heart and change the world.

Serpent and Fire: Anna Prohaska's Mythical Queens

I've been fascinated with Anna Prohaska since this came out several years ago. Her latest album, Serpent and Fire, displays a similar flair for the theatrical, and still more range of vocal color. The title alludes to two great queens of myth and history, Dido and Cleopatra; the disc explores how they were characterized on the operatic stage. I had never before considered the fact that these two larger-than-life figures proved so popular in early opera, and now I can't stop thinking about it (or listening to the CD.) The brief essay accompanying the disc--on the different operatic styles developing in the seventeenth century, and their different approaches to portraying the queens--argues that there is "nichts von das Ewig-Weibliche" in this popularity; this may be an excessively optimistic assessment. True, the queens are very different from each other. Moreover, as the disc showcases, the ways they were dramatically and vocally characterized could vary widely. Still, I find it suggestive that these two powerful and alluring queens of myth/history were so frequently staged at a time when state power, as embodied by the rulers of Europe, was threatened, redefined, and (to a considerable degree) gendered male. What did it mean to show these queens conquering and conquered? I've written elsewhere about the uses of Anne Boleyn as romantic heroine; it strikes me that a similar (more scholarly) investigation into these questions would be warranted. Prohaska's musical exploration is very welcome, covering three languages, two different settings of a Metastasio libretto, and showcasing her impressive range of vocal technique and emotional expression.

Le roi et le fermier: Il ne faut s'étonner de rien

The forces of Opera Lafayette are currently giving "Le roi et le fermier," Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny's 1762 opera, its "modern world premiere" on a tour which started in Washington, D.C., came to NYC on Thursday, and will finish up at Versailles. In musical and dramatic style, the piece is in transition between genres. (An early printing of the text by Sedaine calls it a "comedy with bits of music.") There is a great deal of dialog, a little recit, and quite a few ariettes and ensembles. The whole is, if not sensational, clever and charming, and the performers of Opera Lafayette put it across well.

Monsigny himself complained of the difficulties of mounting the piece, remarking that it needed not only an able musician and accomplished artist, but a friend who would trust him in his risky experiment with "a new genre of music." The plot was drawn from the English theater "or rather," according to Monsigny, "from an old story which has nothing but to substantiate it but tradition. Charles V or Henri IV (says tradition) got lost in a forest one night, as he was returning from the hunt. He took shelter with a woodcutter, and there experienced, for perhaps the first time, how a man behaves to another man when lacking, through ignorance, the profound respect which he ought to have for his king." Monsigny was enchanted by the dramatic possibilities this opened up for the articulation of truths about human nature and human society. The censors of 1762 were less delighted. Although the social critique seemed relatively gentle to my post-1789 sensibilities--wickedness lies in the abuse of power, not the system of power--it was sufficiently sharp to earn its composer respect in his old age as "Citizen Monsigny."

Se vuol ballare: operatic histories of the French Revolution

Verily, Gentle Readers, opera follows me around, even into the fastnesses of the library. I have been spending the past week immersed in the historiography of the French Revolution, and uncovering some intriguing aspects of opera history in the process. The eighteenth-century opera house was a theater of political representation and an arena for political debate; the disappearance of the ancien regime glories of Lully and Rameau were precipitated more by changes in public mood than changes in musical taste. The public debates over the style of Gluck vs. that of Piccini were as heated as more overtly political disputes (if not quite at the level of the mid-century querelle des bouffons.) The 1774 premiere of Iphigenie en Aulide caused furor not only because of its style, but also because of its subject matter. (Go here to hear Clytemnestre defy the authority of a king and father.) Piccini's rococo dramas were immensely popular. His Italian style, however, was decried by those who wanted natural simplicity and national character in their music. Here an excerpt from Piccini's 1760 work "La Cecchina, ossia la buona figliuola:"


As seen in the above clip, the opera flirts with social transgression despite the subtitle: La Cecchina, a sweet-tempered maidservant, is in love with a marquis. Shall their union be prevented by class boundaries? Fortunately not... as she turns out to be the daughter of a baron. Rousseau himself penned a musical drama entitled Le Devin du Village, extolling sentiment and simplicity. Gretry, meanwhile, was quoted with inflammatory effect at a military banquet, where an aria from Richard Coeur-de-Lion ("O Richard, o mon roi") was sung in commiseration with Louis XVI at "the universe being arrayed against him." And so, indeed, it might have seemed to be. The much-touted changes in mentality which facilitated the social revolutions of the end of the century find eloquent utterance in Mozart. After years of defying tyranny in opera seria, Mozart has Figaro kick over the cart, with a little help from Beaumarchais:

La bella scena: I due Figaro at Amore Opera (U.S. premiere)

Amore Opera's season continues ambitiously, with the American premiere of I due Figaro, an 1826 opera by Saverio Mercadante. Following the recent rediscovery of the manuscript score in Madrid, Mercadante's work returned to the stage in Salzburg this summer under the auspices of Riccardo Muti (production video here.) The festival of Figaro operas Fred Plotkin speculated about at the time is now being brought to the stage by Amore Opera. I due Figaro postdates Rossini's Barbiere, and its narrative is the latest of the Mozart-Rossini-Mercadante triad, but it is based not on the third part of Beaumarchais' trilogy, but on a French play of 1795. Mercadante's setting of the libretto by Felice Romani not only exploits its comedy, but explores its emotional subtleties. The controversial plot sees Count Almaviva's attempts to assert himself as a domestic tyrant aided and abetted by Figaro. The latter is considerably changed here from his earlier incarnations: he wants to remain in his master's good graces, and earn a considerable fee, by promoting the suit of the socially ambitious lackey who wants to marry Inez, the daughter of the Almavivas. Inez, however, loves another: Cherubino, who has grown into a handsome and self-assured colonel (and is still a mezzo.) Poor Inez despairs with the extremity of the adolescent she is, and Rosina wants to help her daughter marry for love ("What misery," she sings in her aria, "to marry for convenience alone!") The hundred tricks in this opera, though, are chiefly carried out by Susanna. As the latter says, "Alfin siam femmine, cervello abbiamo"; after all, we are women, and are clever. This explicit overturning of the right order of the world--the libretto plays extensively with the idea of the household as a microcosm of society at large, and the count's 'rightful place' at its head--scandalized conservative regimes of the early nineteenth century, and makes for delicious and thought-provoking comedy.

Whether thanks to longer rehearsals or the bel canto experience of conductor Gregory Buchalter, the orchestra seemed more coordinated and energetic in the Mercadante than the Mozart. There were a few moments where stage and pit threatened to come unstuck, but on the whole things were carried off smoothly and with sensitivity to the nuances of the action. The staging (put together by Nathan Hull, who must be as busy as Figaro himself) was straightforward, wittily emphasizing the piece's comedy. Spanish dance rhythms abounded; this local color was reinforced for the fandango-ignorant audiences of the twenty-first century by dancing where possible, and deployment of fans by the ladies. In the ensembles, especially, I found Mercadante's style reminiscent of Rossini (which I mean to use as a stylistic point of reference for this unfamiliar score, rather than a 'poor relation' slight.) In a number of instances, the tone of the music undermined the stated irony of the characters' actions... or their stated sincerity.

Allons, allons, accourez tous: Lully's Atys at BAM

Les Arts Florissants. Photo (c) Pierre Grosbois

At the conclusion of Wednesday's performance of Atys at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I was standing in the last row, clapping and shouting to express my delight and my gratitude; but I might as well have been silent upon a peak in Darien. My only previous acquaintance with Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera (Really Shameful Confession) had been through Les Arts Florissants' 1987 recording. Experiencing the ensemble's live performance of the work was a revelation. The device of employing the sumptuous decor and costumes of the ancien régime made sense of the opera's masques and dances, and its earnest debates on love and reason, tyranny and freedom, duty and desire. The magic of the evening, though, lay in the miracle of its coherence: orchestra, singers, and dancers together created an elegant, expressive performance.

Iphigénie en Tauride: partage mon bonheur

Christoph Willibald von Gluck, c. 1775

I think it's shocking that there should be unsold tickets going for student prices for the opening night of Iphigénie en Tauride with Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo.   Shocking (I'm trying not to gloat.)  I don't know where the usual buyers of orchestra prime seats were, but they were missing out.  It was my first live experience of any Gluck opera (Really Shameful Confession,) and I loved it (for a quick summary of the plot go here.)  The dark intensity and haunting beauty of the music were beautifully communicated, and Stephen Wadsworth's production--not to mention the vocal performances--caught nicely both the emotional immediacy and the ritual unfolding of the drama.  And before I go any further, Gentle Readers, I must confess that I am woefully under-informed on the debates of baroque performance, so I'm just going to give my impressions and beg for your clemency.