Eighteenth Century Opera.

Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe in the C18th, with the possible exception of France. It was the most popular form of entertainment and the most lucrative for the composer. Here, we find composers such as Pergolesi, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Cherubini and Vivaldi. This last composer, as well as being a Venetian priest, was also a virtuoso violinist. This, of course, is reflected in his best-known piece, The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti. His operas, however, are perhaps less famous today. Nor were they always an instant success and, on occasion, Vivaldi had problems with censorship. Arsilda regina di Ponto (1716), for example, proved objectionable to the state censor as the main character, Arsilda, falls in love with another woman, Lisea, who is pretending to be a man.

Italy continued to attract foreign composers. Such was the case of George Frideric Handel. Born in Germany, he travelled to this Mediterranean country at the invitation of Gian Gastone de' Medici. While the public performance of opera was temporarily banned at this time by the prudish Pope Clement XI, Handel found work as a composer of sacred music writing many cantatas in operatic style for gatherings in the palace of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. (Despite the Pope's ban, Rome's leading arts patrons were senior priests, who made sure the papal edict didn't interfere with musical performances in their own opulent residences. Getting around the ban, they commissioned oratorios and cantatas from opera composers. Technically, because the librettos dealt with religious themes, these were considered sacred works. But they were intrinsically operatic, for they had all the drama, expressivity and sensuousness of opera and were performed by the same players and singers.) Rodrigo, his first all-Italian opera, was produced in Florence in 1707.

In 1710, Handel moved to London, England, where he was strongly influenced by Henry Purcell. His opera, Scipione (1726) was performed for the first time here. It was based upon the life of Roman General Scipio Africanus.

Opera Seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until the German composer, Christopher Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. His Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) represents a benchmark in the development of opera; here, Gluck attempted to replace what he considered "the abstruse plots" and "overly complex music" with a "noble simplicity" in both the music and the drama.

Today, one of the most renowned figures of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, or opere buffe, especially The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte (1790) and The Magic Flute (1791). This last work was considered a landmark in German operatic tradition. It is in the form of Singspiel, a popular style that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The opera is also influenced by Enlightenment philosophy, and can be regarded as an allegory advocating enlightened absolutism. The Queen of the Night represents a dangerous form of obscurantism, whereas her antagonist Sarastro symbolises the reasonable sovereign who rules with paternalistic wisdom and enlightened insight.

Mozart, as well as Haydn, had a powerful influence on the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven knew much of Mozart's work, and modelled a number of his own compositions on this composer. Haydn was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. He was also attracted to the ideas of the Enlightenment. His only opera did not appear until the first year of the C19th; Fidelio (1801) tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband, Florestan, from death in a political prison.

The story of politics, poverty and injustice was taken up in England in The Beggar's Opera, (1728) by John Gay. The original idea of the opera came from Jonathan Swift, who wrote to Alexander Pope asking "...what think you, of a Newgate pastoral among the thieves and whores there?" Their friend, Gay, decided that it would be a satire rather than a pastoral opera. For his original production in 1728, Gay intended all the songs to be sung without any accompaniment. However, a week before the opening night, the theatre director insisted on having Johann Christoph Pepusch write a formal French overture and to arrange the 69 songs. This work satirises Italian opera, which was popular in London at the time. However, instead of the grand music and themes, it used familiar tunes and personages that would be recognised by ordinary people. Thus, the audience could identify with the characters and hum along to the music.

In France, it was the Opéra comique which became highly fashionable. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles and combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of this type of opera. Les Indes Galantes (1735) is an opera-ballet by Rameau which includes a Gracious Turk, Indians of Peru, an eruption of a volcano, a Persian love intrigue and "Savages" of North America, where a Spaniard and a Frenchman compete for the love of Zima, daughter of a native chief, who prefers one of her own people.

Once again, despite its name, opéra comique is not necessarily comic or light in nature; indeed, Bizet's Carmen (1875) possibly the most famous opéra comique, is, in effect a tragedy. We shall look at this opera more fully in our section on opera in the C19th.

Sources:
Delagado Cabrera, A. El Siglo XVIII. Iniciación a la Ópera. 2008-2009. Talleres y Cursos de Cultura. ULPGC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rameau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi

Image: Don Giovanni by Beppe Giacobbe.