Discovering the Opera of the Classical Period & the Bel Canto

CLASSICAL PERIOD OPERA
The age of enlightenment brought to the opera 'order' and 'classic taste'. Christoph Willibald Gluck turned his back on the Baroque concept of 'showcasing fantastic singers' and opted for coherence and dramatic sensibility in telling the story of the opera via music with his first reformed opera, 'Orfeo ed Euridice'. By the time Wolfgang Mozart came around, he had all the ingredients available for writing opera music that is emotional but not without restraints. The story has to be told in a believable manner, too. This is a blessing. It is a lot easier to tell one aria from another now than it was in the Baroque Period.

The preference of orchestrally accompanied recitative over secco recitative (where the sung speech is only accompanied by a harpsichord or a piano) surfaced toward the end of this era, along with the surge in popularity of the opera buffe (comic opera on story of everyday life) among the common folks while the nobles still preferred the more serious story and the formal structure of the opera seria (dramatic works on mythological or heroic theme). Also, this period benefited from a few key additional instruments to the orchestra. The most prominent one is perhaps the clarinets, which Mozart never tired of using. Also emerging in this period is the genre of Singspiel, which are German opera where the songs are connected by spoken dialog rather than sung speech.

1. GLUCK's Orphée et Eurydice
Clip:Vesselina Kasarova (Orphée) and Rosemary Joshua (Eurydice)
Another retelling of the famous myth of Orpheus. Orphée, the marvelously sympathetic Thrace musician, lost his wife Eurydice to snake bite. His lament is so unbearably heart-wrenching that Jupiter cries 'Uncle!' and sends his messenger, Cupid, to offer him a deal allowing him to descend to Hades (the Land of the Dead) to try to reason with the furies in reclaiming his wife.

There is a catch, though, Orphée is banned from looking at her face until they have crossed the River Styx back to the Land of the Living, or he would 'lose her forever'. Orphée proves equal to all the difficult tasks he encounters on his mission except for one, the tears of Eurydice (she is miffed that her husband follows her all the way to Hades only to shun her good look)! Like most men, he can't stand a weeping woman and look at her before they could cross the river. The despaired Orphée is about to drown himself from grief when his 'act of love' touches Cupid enough that his wife is restored to him after all.

2. MOZART's Apollo et Hyacinthus
Clip: Maximilian Kiener & Christiane Karg sing the Oebalus/Melia duet Natus cadit
Mozart wrote his very first opera at age 11, to a Latin text of the story of how the flower Greek hyacinth got its characteristic marking. Since this story was adapted to be played at an all boys Catholic school, it is modified to eliminate the homosexual relationship between Apollo and Hyacinth. Instead, Hyacinthus is given a beautiful sister, Melia, who is courted by both Apollo and Zephyrus.

When her father, Oebalus, agrees to let Melia marry Apollo, Zephyrus kills Hyacinthus with a discuss, framing Apollo as the murderer. The irated Apollo blows Zephyrus away with the West Wind, while Oebalus and Melia learn the truth from the dying Hyacinth, whose corpse is turned into a flower by the mourning Apollo. This opera isn't staged often now, but the music gives a good sense of the changing in musical style of the time. Mozart was also a virtuoso viola player, and wrote viola-like melodies for his singers!

3 MOZART's Le Nozze di Figaro
Clip: Act IV finale from the Met
Based on the 2nd of Beaumarchaise's Figaro trilogy plays, this comic opera is a marvelous satire of how the nobles don't really earn the respect they demand from their serfs. Count Almaviva's attempt to get under the skirt of Susanna (who is marrying Figaro, the Count's valet), is repeatedly foiled by the quick-witted servants. In the end, with the help of the Countess Almaviva, the servants prove to be both smarter and more gracious than the noble they serve. The opera is full of timelessly beautiful and dramatically adept melodies that really make the rather complicated plot flow. Have a look/listen at this ending sequence and you'll get a good idea of how short 4 hrs can go by when the music is written by Wolfgang Mozart.

4 MOZART's Don Giovanni (Don Juan)
Clip: Bryn Terfel & Hei-Kyung Hong sing La ci darem la mano
Don Giovanni (the infamous Don Juan) spends the last day of his life being extremely unsuccessful at winning over a woman, never mind that his servant, Leporello, makes it a point to boast about how his master has scored 1003 Spanish women to date. In a violent day that begins with a failed attempt to rape Donna Anna, a bloody duel that ends with the murder of her father, the Commandatore, on to the rejections by Donna Elvira and young Zerlina, Don Giovanni caps it off by inviting the statue of the man he killed (the Commandatore) to dinner. To his horror, the statue accepts and shows up right on the dot.

Playing the part of the anti-hero to his final moment, Don Giovanni is dragged off to hell by the statue when he refuses to repent and reform his life. The clip above is from the scene when he tries to seduce the peasant girl, Zerlina, even though she is marrying her beloved Masetto on the same day! Did you ever imagine hearing such a 'country' sounding song in an opera by Mozart?

5. MOZART's Die Zauberflöte
Clip: Diana Damrau sings Der Hölle rache
This is a Singspiel, with spoken German dialog between singing numbers. The ambitious Queen of the Night wants her husband's 7 Circles of Stars magical thingy back, even if it means ordering her own daughter to murder a priest to regain it for her. Motherly love is often intense like that. Fortunately, the young Prince Tamino, her daughter Pamina, and their helper Papageno, learn quickly to listen to the priest (Sarastro) instead of to the Queen. The opera is based on the Masonic theme and is full of Masonic symbolism (things occur in three... even in the musical motifs!).

The clip above shows the famous Act II aria of the Queen of the Night, being extremely miffed when her daughter, Pamina, recoils from her order that she gives Sarastro a hard iron supplement... I hope Diana Damrau is saving the DVD to scare her kids into shape if they try to talk back to her in real life. She is deliciously murderous! This song is famous for its 4 soprano high F's.

6. MOZART's La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus)
Clips: Dorothea Röschmann sings Vitellia's Deh, se piace mi vuoi
: Vesselina Kasarova, Dorothea Röschmann, & Luca Pisaroni sing Se al volto mai ti senti
Vitellia loves Tito (the Roman Emperor Titus Vespasianus) but is sleeping with his best friend Sesto. But when Tito fails to pick her to be his consort, she demands that Sesto disposes of his friend and emperor and install her as Empress instead. 'If you wish to please me, you must obey my wishes without questioning them', she says. Being such an obedient lover, Sesto tries to kill Tito while rallying his co-conspirators to set fire to the capitol. He is caught and finally earns some affection from Vitellia when he refuses to implicate her, agreeing to meet death alone in the arena. And what does Tito think about all this? Well.... the opera isn't called 'The Clemency of Titus' for no reason!

Many Vitellia have graced the stage without convincing me that she is worth sacrificing that much for, but I find this Vitellia strangely mesmerizing. It isn't her beauty, but her personality. She is so convinced of her own authority that doubting her is not an option. From the way she acts and sings, this girl bites. The 2nd clip is from Act II when it appears that the assassination attempt had failed and Publio, the Captain of the Guards, had came to arrest Sesto for the crime. Sesto is bitter about his expected death sentence but is resolute in refusing to implicate Vitellia in the plot. Vitellia is suddenly struck by remorse that he is going to take the blame for her. Publio is also struck with a bout of compassion for his prisoner, but must take him all the same.

BEL CANTO OPERA
Bel canto means beautiful singing. The emphasis is indeed on the singing voice. Having just a beautiful voice isn't enough, though, the interest is also in how much control the singers have of their voice. So the bel canto composers demand from their singers long, refined (smooth) legato line, very wide vocal range, and spotlessly effortless agility. All done with minimal instrumental accompaniment from the orchestra (it's the voices the audience paid big bucks to hear, after all). A wonderful recipe for us listeners... I imagine it is something more scary a repertoire for the singers, however.

The Bel Canto style began with Gioacchino Rossini in the mid 1800's (Romantic Era) and pretty much ended with Donizetti. With the abolition of the practice of castrating boy soprani to preserve their singing voice, the composers of this period placated the audience that was still used to hearing a dark soprano voice from the male leads by writing many virtuoso trouser lead roles for the lower female voice. On the instrumental front, those who enjoy the floating calls of the French horns would really love the opera of Bellini and Donizetti.

1. Vincenzo BELLINI's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues)
Clips: Montserrat Caballé sings Act I Oh quante volte
Vesselina Kasarova as Romeo at Paris Opera-Bastille in 1997
The story is of Romeo and Giulietta (Juliet), of course. Romeo's Montecchi clans has been in a bloody conflict with Capellio's Capuleti clan even though Romeo is (mutually) in love with Giulietta, Capellio's daughter. Upon having killed Capellio's only son in a battle, Romeo comes to sue for peace under the disguise of his own ambassador, proposing to seal the agreement with the marriage between him and Giulietta. Capellio decrees that his daughter marries Tebaldo instead. The distraught Giulietta is comforted by her physician, Dr Lorenzo, who gives her a strong sleeping potion that would allow her to play dead and escape to be with Romeo. Unfortunately, Lorenzo is prevented from being able to inform Romeo of the plan before the hero comes upon her funeral procession. Despaired, Romeo drinks poison in order to die with his beloved. Before he expires, Giulietta awakes to find that the plan has gone awry. After one of the most haunting duet in operatic repertoire, the lovers fall dead (he from the poison, she... from heart-break). This is one of the few opera that is so musically beautiful that I can listen to the entire CD set over and over without skipping any track.

Montserrat Caballé is a living legend for a good reason. Nobody else has her silky soft and smoothly floating legato (the notes are so seamlessly connected they seem supernaturally buoyant). The Kasarova clip shows her as Romeo in various scenes from the opera.

2. ROSSINI's Tancredi
Clip: Marilyn Horne & Montserrat Caballé sing Act II duet Lasciami, non ascolto!/Ah come mai quell'anima?
Based on Voltaire's tragedy, Tancrede, this is a story of the tragic love between Tancredi and Amenaide as their home town, Saracen, is being besieged. O, the clip is from a concert rather than a staged performance of the opera (otherwise Horne would be cross-dressing as a knight). Tancredi and Amenaide love each other, but spend most of the opera misunderstanding the other. Now he's heading off to seek death in war thinking her guilty of infidelity. She is helpless.... ¾ of the opera had passed her by and she still hasn't managed to get anyone to believe anything she says. I must confess to not liking this performance all that much (too showy a bunch of singing for my sensibilities), but Marilyn Horne was the great Tancredi of her generation for good reasons. Heroic.... much?

3. ROSSINI's The Barber of Seville
Clip: Vesselina Kasarova sings Act I Una voce poco fa
This is the prequel to Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, and tells the story of the first of Beaumarchaise's Figaro trilogy play. Rosina, the young heiress under the care of sleazy Dr Bartolo, is wooed by the dashing Lindoro, who turns out to be Count Almaviva in disguise. With the help of the witty Figaro, the town's barber, the young lovers out-wit Don Bartolo and his agents and become the Count and Countess Almaviva.

The clip is from the first Act, after young Lindoro caught the eyes (and a few more things) of Rosina, who muses to herself how she would not only romantically capture him, but on how venomous she intends to be if he ever proves untrue to her. Devious, doesn't she sound? But Rossini bestows such gorgeously spunky music upon her that it is hard not to love the gal. Vesselina Kasarova is a rich-voiced Rosina with an even richer attitude to match any slippery as an eel Lindoro and his human Teflon of a valet, Figaro. And I want to know what the liquid in those tubes really is!

4. BELLINI's Norma
Clip: Joan Sutherland & Marilyn Horne sing Mira, o Norma
set in Gaul during Roman occupation, this tragic love between the Druid Priestess Norma and the Roman Proconsul Pollione is Bellini's foremost masterpiece. Norma is the leader of her people but is powerless in commanding her lover to be faithful to her. Her competitor turns out to be the young Druid Priestess in training Adalgisa. After a few confrontations and a failed attempt to kill her own kids by our title role, our heroine does the right thing and sacrifice herself to save the lovers and her own kids. It's a story full of drama and melodrama, all told with Bellini's most inspired blend of gorgeously dramatic music.

The clip: Sisterly love has never been aired in such a combustible manner... Norma and Adalgisa, both Druid priestesses (did you really think that overly loving thy brothers is something only seen in Catholic priesthood?) loved the same man, which made them rather unhappy at first. But girls must stick together, and so they say to heck with Pollione, my tribal sister here is better looking anyhow! (well, not exactly in those words, but the music is rather suggestive). It's a long duet that comes in 3 sections. If you like the first one, why not try the other two also?

5. DONIZETTI's Lucia di Lammermoor
Clip: Edita Gruberova sings Lucia's Mad Scene
A batty tragedy that is actually based on real events in Scotland (Sir Walter Scott's play 'The Bride of Lammermoor' was based on a true story). Lucia of Lammermoor is caught in a conflict between her brother Enrico and her lover Edgardo. Unfortunately for her, the brother puts money before her happiness and tries to force her to marry a rich man she doesn't love. Instead of getting some sympathy from her true love, Edgardo denounced her in public. What's the girl to do but to knief her betrothed on their wedding night and then escape into insanity. If all mad folks can sing this beautifully, the insane asylum would be an attraction worth paying entrance fee to enter! I'm afraid Frau Gruberova isn't much of an actress, but music comes first when it comes to opera.

The Classical and the bel canto opera are my favorites, though they still make up only a fraction of the entire operatic genre. If you enjoy what you hear/see in these clips, why not check out the CD or DVD recordings, or even live performances at the theater near you? Maybe you are an opera-fan just waiting to break out!