Types of opera performances. What genres are there in opera? Moscow State University of Culture

1. THE EMERGENCE OF THE GENRE ……………………………………………………… p.3
2. OPERA GENRES: OPERA SERIA AND OPERA BUFFA…………...p.4
3. WESTERN EUROPEAN OPERA OF THE 19TH CENTURY……………………...p.7
4. RUSSIAN OPERA …………………………………………………p.10
5. MODERN OPERA ART…………………………..p.14
6. STRUCTURE OF AN OPERA WORK………………………...p.16

References ………………………………………………………….p.18

1. THE EMERGENCE OF THE GENRE
Opera as a musical genre arose due to the fusion of two great and ancient arts - theater and music.
“... Opera is an art that was born from the mutual love of music and theater,” writes one of the outstanding opera directors of our time, B.A. Pokrovsky.- It also looks like a theater expressed by music.
Although music has been used in the theater since ancient times, however, opera as an independent genre appeared only at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. The very name of the genre - opera - arose around 1605 and quickly replaced the previous names of this genre: "drama through music", "tragedy through music", "melodrama", "tragicomedy" and others.
It was at this historical moment that special conditions developed that gave life to the opera. First of all, it was the invigorating atmosphere of the Renaissance.
Florence, where the culture and art of the Renaissance flourished first in the Apennines, where Dante, Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini began their journey, became the birthplace of opera.
The emergence of a new genre is directly related to the revival in the literal sense of ancient Greek drama. It is no coincidence that the first opera compositions were called musical dramas.
When at the end of the 16th century a circle of talented poets, actors, scientists and musicians formed around the enlightened philanthropist Count Bardi, none of them thought of any discovery in art, and even more so in music. The main goal set by the Florentine enthusiasts was to bring back to life the dramas of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. However, the staging of the works of ancient Greek playwrights required musical accompaniment, and samples of such music have not been preserved. It was then that it was decided to compose their own music, corresponding (as the author imagined) to the spirit of ancient Greek drama. So, trying to recreate ancient art, they discovered a new musical genre, which was destined to play a decisive role in the history of art - opera.
The first step taken by the Florentines was to set small dramatic passages to music. As a result, monody was born (any monophonic melody, an area of ​​​​musical culture based on monophony), one of the creators of which was Vincenzo Galilei, a subtle connoisseur of ancient Greek culture, composer, lutenist and mathematician, father of the brilliant astronomer Galileo Galilei.
Already the first attempts of the Florentines were characterized by a revival of interest in the personal experiences of the heroes. Therefore, instead of polyphony, a homophonic-harmonic style began to predominate in their works, in which the main carrier of the musical image is a melody, developing in one voice and accompanied by a harmonic (chord) accompaniment.
It is very characteristic that among the first examples of opera created by various composers, three were written on the same plot: it was based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The first two operas (both called Euridice) belonged to the composers Peri and Caccini. However, both of these musical dramas turned out to be very modest experiments compared to Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Orpheus, which appeared in 1607 in Mantua. A contemporary of Rubens and Caravaggio, Shakespeare and Tasso, Monteverdi created a work from which the history of opera art actually begins.
Monteverdi made much of what the Florentines only outlined complete, creatively convincing and viable. This was the case, for example, with recitatives, first introduced by Peri. This special type of musical expression of the heroes should, according to its creator, be as close as possible to colloquial speech. However, only with Monteverdi did recitatives acquire psychological strength, vivid imagery, and truly begin to resemble living human speech.
Monteverdi created a type of aria - lamento - (plaintive song), a brilliant example of which was the complaint of the abandoned Ariadne from the opera of the same name. “Ariadne’s Complaint” is the only fragment that has survived to this day from this entire work.
“Ariadne touched me because she was a woman, Orpheus because he was a simple man... Ariadne aroused true suffering in me, together with Orpheus I begged for pity...” In these words, Monteverdi expressed not only his creative credo, but also conveyed the essence of the discoveries that he made in the art of music. As the author of Orpheus rightly pointed out, composers before him tried to compose “soft”, “moderate” music; He tried, first of all, to create “excited” music. Therefore, he considered his main task to be the maximum expansion of the figurative sphere and expressive possibilities of music.
The new genre - opera - had yet to establish itself. But from now on, the development of music, vocal and instrumental, will be inextricably linked with the achievements of the opera house.

2. OPERA GENRES: OPERA SERIA AND OPERA BUFFA
Having originated in the Italian aristocratic environment, the opera soon spread to all major European countries. It became an integral part of court festivities and a favorite entertainment at the courts of the French king, the Austrian emperor, the German electors, other monarchs and their nobles.
The bright entertainment, the special festivity of the opera performance, impressive due to the combination in the opera of almost all the arts that existed at that time, fit perfectly into the complex ceremony and life of the court and the elite of society.
And although during the 18th century opera became an increasingly democratic art and in large cities, in addition to the courtiers, public opera houses were opened for the general public, it was the tastes of the aristocracy that determined the content of operatic works for more than a century.
The festive life of the court and aristocracy forced composers to work very intensively: every celebration, and sometimes just another reception of distinguished guests, was certainly accompanied by an opera premiere. “In Italy,” says music historian Charles Burney, “an opera that has already been heard once is looked upon as if it were last year’s calendar.” Under such conditions, operas were “baked” one after another and usually turned out to be similar to each other, at least in terms of plot.
Thus, the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti wrote about 200 operas. However, the merit of this musician, of course, is not in the number of works created, but primarily in the fact that it was in his work that the leading genre and forms of operatic art of the 17th and early 18th centuries, the serious opera (opera seria), finally crystallized.
The meaning of the name opera seria will easily become clear if we imagine an ordinary Italian opera of this period. It was a pompous, extraordinarily lavishly staged performance with a variety of impressive effects. “Real” battle scenes, natural disasters or extraordinary transformations of mythical heroes were depicted on stage. And the heroes themselves - gods, emperors, generals - behaved in such a way that the entire performance left the audience with a feeling of important, solemn, very serious events. Opera characters performed extraordinary feats, crushed enemies in mortal battles, and amazed with their extraordinary courage, dignity and greatness. At the same time, the allegorical comparison of the main character of the opera, so favorably presented on stage, with a high-ranking nobleman, on whose order the opera was written, was so obvious that each performance turned into a panegyric to the noble customer.
Often different operas used the same plots. For example, dozens of operas were created on themes from two works alone - Ariosto's Roland Furious and Tasso's Jerusalem Liberated.
Popular literary sources were the writings of Homer and Virgil.
During the heyday of opera seria, a special style of vocal performance was formed - bel canto, based on the beauty of sound and virtuoso control of the voice. However, the lifelessness of the plots of these operas and the artificial behavior of the characters caused many complaints among music lovers.
The static structure of the performance, devoid of dramatic action, made this opera genre especially vulnerable. Therefore, the audience listened to the arias in which the singers demonstrated the beauty of their voices and virtuoso skill with great pleasure and interest. At her request, the arias she liked were repeated several times as an encore, but the recitatives, perceived as a “load,” were so uninteresting to the listeners that during the performance of the recitatives they began to talk loudly. Other ways to "kill time" were also devised. One of the “enlightened” music lovers of the 18th century advised: “Chess is very suitable for filling the emptiness of long recitatives.”
The opera experienced the first crisis in its history. But it was precisely at this moment that a new opera genre appeared, which was destined to become no less (if not more!) beloved than the opera seria. This is a comic opera (opera - buffa).
It is characteristic that it arose precisely in Naples, the birthplace of opera seria; moreover, it actually arose in the bowels of the most serious opera. Its origins were comic interludes played during intermissions between acts of the play. Often these comic interludes were parodies of the events of the opera.
Formally, the birth of opera buffa occurred in 1733, when Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s opera “The Maid and Mistress” was first performed in Naples.
Opera buffa inherited all the main means of expression from opera seria. It differed from “serious” opera in that instead of legendary, unnatural heroes, characters whose prototypes existed in real life came to the opera stage - greedy merchants, flirtatious maids, brave, resourceful military men, etc. That is why opera buffa with was received with admiration by the broadest democratic public in all corners of Europe. Moreover, the new genre did not at all have a paralyzing effect on domestic art like opera seria. On the contrary, he brought to life unique varieties of national comic opera based on domestic traditions. In France it was a comic opera, in England it was a ballad opera, in Germany and Austria it was a singspiel (literally: “play with singing”).
Each of these national schools produced remarkable representatives of the comedy opera genre: Pergolesi and Piccini in Italy, Grétry and Rousseau in France, Haydn and Dittersdorf in Austria.
Here we should especially remember Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Already his first singspiel “Bastien and Bastien”, and even more “The Abduction from the Seraglio” showed that the brilliant composer, having easily mastered the techniques of opera buffa, created examples of truly national Austrian musical dramaturgy. The Abduction from the Seraglio is considered the first classical Austrian opera.
A very special place in the history of opera art is occupied by Mozart’s mature operas “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Don Giovanni”, written to Italian texts. The brightness and expressiveness of the music, not inferior to the highest examples of Italian music, are combined with a depth of ideas and drama that the opera theater has never known before.
In “The Marriage of Figaro,” Mozart managed to create individual and very lively characters of the heroes through musical means, conveying the diversity and complexity of their mental states. And all this, it would seem, without going beyond the comedy genre. The composer went even further in the opera Don Giovanni. Using an ancient Spanish legend for the libretto, Mozart creates a work in which comedic elements are inextricably intertwined with the features of serious opera.
The brilliant success of the comic opera, which made its victorious march through European capitals, and, most importantly, Mozart’s creations showed that opera can and should be an art organically connected with reality, that it is capable of truthfully depicting very real characters and situations, recreating them not only in comically, but also in a serious way.
Naturally, leading artists from different countries, primarily composers and playwrights, dreamed of updating the heroic opera. They dreamed of creating works that, firstly, would reflect the era’s desire for high moral goals and, secondly, would assert an organic fusion of music and dramatic action on stage. This difficult task was successfully solved in the heroic genre by Mozart’s compatriot Christoph Gluck. His reform became a true revolution in world opera, the final meaning of which became clear after the production of his operas Alceste, Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris in Paris.
“When starting to create music for Alceste,” the composer wrote, explaining the essence of his reform, “I set myself the goal of bringing the music to its true goal, which is to give poetry more new expressive power, to make individual moments of the plot more confusing, without interrupting the action and without dampening it with unnecessary decorations.”
Unlike Mozart, who did not set a special goal to reform opera, Gluck consciously came to his operatic reform. Moreover, he concentrates all his attention on revealing the inner world of the heroes. The composer did not make any compromises with aristocratic art. This happened at a time when the rivalry between serious and comic opera reached its highest point and it was clear that opera buffa was winning.
Having critically rethought and summed up the best that the genres of serious opera and the lyrical tragedies of Lully and Rameau contained, Gluck creates the genre of musical tragedy.
The historical significance of Gluck's operatic reform was enormous. But his operas also turned out to be an anachronism when the turbulent 19th century began - one of the most fruitful periods in world opera.

3. WESTERN EUROPEAN OPERA IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Wars, revolutions, changes in social relations - all these key problems of the 19th century are reflected in opera themes.
Composers working in the opera genre try to penetrate even deeper into the inner world of their heroes, to recreate on the opera stage such relationships between characters that would fully correspond to complex, multifaceted life collisions.
Such figurative and thematic scope inevitably led to further reforms in the art of opera. Opera genres, developed in the XVIII century, passed the test for modernity. The opera seria virtually disappeared by the 19th century. As for the comic opera, it continued to enjoy constant success.
The vitality of this genre was brilliantly confirmed by Gioacchino Rossini. His “The Barber of Seville” became a true masterpiece of comedic art of the 19th century.
The bright melody, the naturalness and liveliness of the characters depicted by the composer, the simplicity and harmony of the plot - all this ensured the opera a real triumph, making its author “the musical dictator of Europe” for a long time. As the author of the buffa opera, Rossini places the accents in The Barber of Seville in his own way. Much less than, for example, Mozart, he was interested in the internal significance of the content. And Rossini was far from Gluck, who believed that the main goal of music in opera is to reveal the dramatic idea of ​​the work.
With every aria, every phrase in The Barber of Seville, the composer, as it were, reminds us that music exists for joy, enjoyment of beauty, and that the most valuable thing in it is a charming melody.
Nevertheless, "Europe's minion, Orpheus," as Pushkin called Rossini, felt that the events taking place in the world, and above all the struggle for independence waged by his homeland - Italy (oppressed by Spain, France and Austria), require him to turn to serious topic. This is how the idea of ​​the opera "William Tell" was born - one of the first works of the opera genre on a heroic-patriotic theme (according to the plot, the Swiss peasants rebel against their oppressors - the Austrians).
The bright, realistic characterization of the main characters, the impressive mass scenes depicting the people with the help of the choir and ensembles, and most importantly, the unusually expressive music earned William Tell fame as one of the best works of operatic drama of the 19th century.
The popularity of "Welhelm Tell" was explained, among other advantages, by the fact that the opera was written on a historical plot. And historical operas were widely spread on the European opera stage at that time. So, six years after the premiere of William Tell, the production of Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Les Huguenots, which tells about the struggle between Catholics and Huguenots at the end of the 16th century, became a sensation.
Another area conquered by the operatic art of the 19th century was fairytale-legendary plots. They became especially widespread in the works of German composers. Following Mozart's fairy-tale opera The Magic Flute, Carl Maria Weber creates the operas The Free Gunner, Euryanta and Oberon. The first of these was the most significant work, in fact the first German folk opera. However, the most complete and large-scale incarnation of the legendary theme, the folk epic was found in the work of one of the greatest opera composers - Richard Wagner.
Wagner is a whole era in musical art. Opera became for him the only genre through which the composer spoke to the world. Wagner was also faithful to the literary source that gave him plots for his operas, which turned out to be the ancient German epic. Legends about the Flying Dutchman doomed to eternal wanderings, about the rebel singer Tangeyser, who challenged hypocrisy in art and for this renounced the clan of court poets and musicians, about the legendary knight Lohengrin, who rushed to the aid of an innocent girl condemned to execution - these legendary , bright, prominent characters became the heroes of Wagner’s first operas “The Wandering Sailor”, “Tannhäuser” and “Lohengrin”.
Richard Wagner dreamed of embodying in the operatic genre not individual plots, but an entire epic dedicated to the main problems of humanity. The composer tried to reflect this in the grandiose concept of “The Ring of the Nibelung” - a cycle consisting of four operas. This tetralogy was also based on legends from the Old Germanic epic.
Such an unusual and grandiose idea (the composer spent about twenty years of his life on its implementation) naturally had to be solved by special, new means. And Wagner, trying to follow the laws of natural human speech, refuses such necessary elements of an operatic work as aria, duet, recitative, chorus, ensemble. He creates a single musical action-narrative, not interrupted by the boundaries of numbers, which is led by singers and an orchestra.
Wagner's reform as an opera composer also affected him in another way: his operas are built on a system of leitmotifs - bright melodies-images that correspond to certain characters or their relationships. And each of his musical dramas - and this is how, like Monteverdi and Gluck, he called his operas - is nothing more than the development and interaction of a number of leitmotifs.
Another direction, called “lyrical theater,” was no less important. The birthplace of the “lyric theater” was France. The composers who formed this movement - Gounod, Thomas, Delibes, Massenet, Bizet - also resorted to both fabulously exotic subjects and everyday ones; but this was not the main thing for them. Each of these composers, in their own way, strove to depict their heroes in such a way that they were natural, vital, and endowed with qualities characteristic of their contemporaries.
A brilliant example of this operatic trend was Georges Bizet's Carmen, based on a short story by Prosper Mérimée.
The composer managed to find a unique method for characterizing the characters, which is most clearly seen in the example of the image of Carmen. Bizet reveals the inner world of his heroine not in an aria, as was customary, but in song and dance.
The fate of this opera, which conquered the whole world, was very dramatic at first. Its premiere ended in failure. One of the main reasons for such an attitude towards Bizet’s opera was that he brought ordinary people onto the stage as heroes (Carmen is a tobacco factory worker, Jose is a soldier). The aristocratic Parisian public of 1875 could not accept such characters (it was then that Carmen premiered). She was repulsed by the realism of the opera, which was believed to be incompatible with the “laws of the genre.” Pujin’s then authoritative Dictionary of Opera said that Carmen needed to be remade, “weakening the realism inappropriate for opera.” Of course, this was the point of view of people who did not understand that realistic art, filled with life’s truth and natural heroes, came to the opera stage quite naturally, and not at the whim of any one composer.
It was precisely the realistic path that Giuseppe Verdi, one of the greatest composers who ever worked in the opera genre, followed.
Verdi began his long journey in operatic work with heroic and patriotic operas. "Lombards", "Ernani" and "Attila", created in the 40s, were perceived in Italy as a call for national unity. The premieres of his operas turned into massive public demonstrations.
Verdi's operas, written by him in the early 50s, had a completely different resonance. “Rigoletto”, “Il Trovatore” and “La Traviata” are three operatic canvases by Verdi, in which his outstanding melodic gift was happily combined with the gift of a brilliant composer-playwright.
Based on Victor Hugo's play The King Amuses himself, the opera Rigoletto describes the events of the 16th century. The setting of the opera is the court of the Duke of Mantua, for whom human dignity and honor are nothing compared to his whim, the desire for endless pleasures (Gilda, the daughter of the court jester Rigoletto, becomes his victim). It would seem like another opera from court life, of which there were hundreds. But Verdi creates a most truthful psychological drama, in which the depth of the music fully corresponded to the depth and truthfulness of the feelings of its characters.
La Traviata caused a real shock among his contemporaries. The Venetian public, for whom the opera's premiere was intended, booed it. Above we talked about the failure of Bizet’s “Carmen,” but the premiere of “La Traviata” took place almost a quarter of a century earlier (1853), and the reason was the same: the realism of what was depicted.
Verdi was very upset about the failure of his opera. “It was a decisive fiasco,” he wrote after the premiere. “Let’s not think about La Traviata anymore.”
A man of enormous vitality, a composer with rare creative potential, Verdi was not, like Bizet, broken by the fact that the public did not accept his work. He would create many more operas, which would later form a treasury of operatic art. Among them are such masterpieces as “Don Carlos”, “Aida”, “Falstaff”. One of the highest achievements of the mature Verdi was the opera Othello.
The grandiose achievements of the leading countries in the art of opera - Italy, Germany, Austria, France - inspired composers of other European countries - the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary - to create their own national opera art. This is how “Pebble” by the Polish composer Stanislav Moniuszko, the operas of the Czechs Berdzhich Smetana and Antonin Dvorak, and the Hungarian Ferenc Erkel were born.
But Russia rightly occupied the leading place among young national opera schools in the 19th century.

4. RUSSIAN OPERA
On the stage of the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater on November 27, 1836, the premiere of “Ivan Susanin” by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, the first classical Russian opera, took place.
In order to more clearly understand the place of this work in the history of music, we will try to briefly outline the situation that developed at that moment in Western European and Russian musical theater.
Wagner, Bizet, Verdi have not yet said their word. With rare exceptions (for example, the success of Meyerbeer in Paris), everywhere in European opera the trendsetters - both in creativity and in the manner of performance - are Italians. The main opera “dictator” is Rossini. There is an intensive “export” of Italian opera. Composers from Venice, Naples, Rome travel to all corners of the continent, working for long periods in different countries. Bringing along with their art the invaluable experience accumulated by Italian opera, they at the same time suppressed the development of national opera.
This was the case in Russia as well. Such Italian composers as Cimarosa, Paisiello, Galuppi, Francesco Araya stayed here, who was the first to attempt to create an opera based on Russian melodic material with the original Russian text by Sumarokov. Later, a noticeable mark on St. Petersburg musical life was left by the activities of a native of Venice, Caterino Cavos, who wrote an opera under the same title as Glinka - “A Life for the Tsar” (“Ivan Susanin”).
The Russian court and aristocracy, at whose invitation Italian musicians arrived in Russia, supported them in every possible way. Therefore, several generations of Russian composers, critics, and other cultural figures had to fight for their own national art.
Attempts to create a Russian opera date back to the 18th century. Talented musicians Fomin, Matinsky and Pashkevich (the latter two were co-authors of the opera “St. Petersburg Gostiny Dvor”), and later the wonderful composer Verstovsky (today his “Askold’s Grave” is widely known) - each tried to solve this problem in their own way. However, it took a powerful talent, like Glinka’s, for this idea to be realized.
Glinka's outstanding melodic gift, the closeness of his melody to Russian song, the simplicity in the characterization of the main characters, and most importantly, his appeal to a heroic-patriotic plot allowed the composer to create a work of great artistic truth and power.
The genius of Glinka was revealed in a different way in the opera fairy tale "Ruslan and Lyudmila". Here the composer masterfully combines the heroic (the image of Ruslan), the fantastic (the kingdom of Chernomor) and the comic (the image of Farlaf). Thus, thanks to Glinka, for the first time the images born of Pushkin stepped onto the opera stage.
Despite the enthusiastic assessment of Glinka’s work by the leading part of Russian society, his innovation and outstanding contribution to the history of Russian music were not truly appreciated in his homeland. The tsar and his entourage preferred Italian music to his music. Visiting Glinka's operas became a punishment for offending officers, a kind of guardhouse.
Glinka had a hard time with this attitude towards his work from the court, the press, and theater management. But he was firmly aware that the Russian national opera must follow its own path, feed on its own folk musical sources.
This was confirmed by the entire further course of development of Russian opera art.
Alexander Dargomyzhsky was the first to pick up the baton of Glinka. Following the author of Ivan Susanin, he continues to develop the field of opera music. He has several operas to his credit, and the happiest fate befell the lot of “Rusalka”. Pushkin's work turned out to be excellent material for an opera. The story of the peasant girl Natasha, deceived by the prince, contains very dramatic events - the suicide of the heroine, the madness of her miller father. All the most complex psychological experiences of the characters are resolved by the composer with the help of arias and ensembles, written not in the Italian style, but in the spirit of Russian song and romance.
In the second half of the 19th century, the operatic work of A. Serov, the author of the operas “Judith”, “Rogneda” and “Enemy Power”, had great success, of which the latter (based on the text of the play by A. N. Ostrovsky) was in line with the development of Russian national art.
Glinka became a real ideological leader in the struggle for national Russian art for composers M. Balakirev, M. Mussorgsky, A. Borodin, N. Rimsky-Korsakov and Ts. Cui, united in the “Mighty Handful” circle. In the work of all members of the circle, except for its leader M. Balakirev, opera occupied the most important place.
The time when the “Mighty Handful” was formed coincided with extremely important events in the history of Russia. In 1861, serfdom was abolished. For the next two decades, the Russian intelligentsia was carried away by the ideas of populism, which called for the overthrow of the autocracy by the forces of the peasant revolution. Writers, artists, and composers are beginning to be especially interested in subjects related to the history of the Russian state, and especially the relationship between the tsar and the people. All this determined the theme of most of the operatic works that came from the pen of the “kuchkists”.
M. P. Mussorgsky called his opera “Boris Godunov” “folk musical drama”. In fact, although the human tragedy of Tsar Boris lies at the center of the opera's plot, the real hero of the opera is the people.
Mussorgsky was essentially a self-taught composer. This greatly complicated the process of composing music, but at the same time did not limit it to any musical rules. Everything in this process was subordinated to the main motto of his work, which the composer himself expressed with a short phrase: “I want the truth!”
Mussorgsky also sought truth in art, extreme realism in everything that happens on stage in his other opera, Khovanshchina, which he did not have time to complete. It was completed by Mussorgsky's colleague in The Mighty Handful, Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the largest Russian opera composers.
Opera forms the basis of Rimsky-Korsakov's creative heritage. Like Mussorgsky, he opened up the horizons of Russian opera, but in completely different areas. Using operatic means, the composer wanted to convey the charm of Russian fabulousness, the originality of ancient Russian rituals. This can be clearly seen from the subtitles that clarify the genre of the opera, which the composer provided to his works. He called “The Snow Maiden” a “spring fairy tale”, “The Night Before Christmas” - a “true carol”, “Sadko” - an “opera-epic”; fairy tale operas also include “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, “Kashchei the Immortal”, “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia”, “The Golden Cockerel”. Rimsky-Korsakov's epic and fairy-tale operas have one amazing feature: they combine elements of fairy-tale and fantasy with vivid realism.
Rimsky-Korsakov achieved this realism, so clearly felt in every work, by direct and very effective means: he widely developed folk melodies in his operatic work, skillfully wove into the fabric of the work genuine ancient Slavic rituals, “the traditions of deep antiquity.”
Like other "kuchkists", Rimsky-Korsakov also turned to the genre of historical opera, creating two outstanding works depicting the era of Ivan the Terrible - "The Pskov Woman" and "The Tsar's Bride". The composer masterfully depicts the difficult atmosphere of Russian life of that distant time, pictures of the cruel reprisal of the Tsar against the Pskov freemen, the controversial personality of Ivan the Terrible himself (“The Pskov Woman”) and the atmosphere of general despotism and oppression of the individual (“The Tsar’s Bride”, “The Golden Cockerel”);
On the advice of V.V. Stasov, the ideological inspirer of the “Mighty Handful”, one of the most gifted members of this circle, Borodin, creates an opera from the life of princely Rus'. This work was “Prince Igor”.
"Prince Igor" became a model of Russian epic opera. As in an old Russian epic, the opera slowly and gradually unfolds the action, which tells the story of the unification of Russian lands and scattered principalities to jointly repel the enemy - the Polovtsians. Borodin’s work is not of such a tragic nature as Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” or Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Pskov Woman,” but the plot of the opera also centers on the complex image of the leader of the state, Prince Igor, experiencing his defeat, deciding to escape from captivity and finally gathering a squad to crush the enemy in the name of their homeland.
Another direction in Russian musical art is represented by the operatic work of Tchaikovsky. The composer began his journey in operatic art with works on historical subjects.
Following Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky turns to the era of Ivan the Terrible in Oprichnik. Historical events in France, described in Schiller's tragedy, served as the basis for the libretto of The Maid of Orleans. From Pushkin's Poltava, which describes the times of Peter I, Tchaikovsky took the plot for his opera Mazepa.
At the same time, the composer creates lyrical-comedy operas (“Blacksmith Vakula”) and romantic operas (“The Enchantress”).
But the peaks of operatic creativity - not only for Tchaikovsky himself, but for the entire Russian opera of the 19th century - were his lyrical operas “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades”.
Tchaikovsky, having decided to embody Pushkin’s masterpiece in the operatic genre, faced a serious problem: which of the diverse events of the “novel in verse” could constitute the libretto of the opera. The composer settled on showing the emotional drama of the heroes of Eugene Onegin, which he managed to convey with rare convincingness and impressive simplicity.
Like the French composer Bizet, Tchaikovsky in Onegin sought to show the world of ordinary people, their relationships. The composer's rare melodic gift, the subtle use of Russian romance intonations characteristic of everyday life described in Pushkin's work - all this allowed Tchaikovsky to create a work that is extremely accessible and at the same time depicts the complex psychological states of the characters.
In The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky appears not only as a brilliant playwright with a keen sense of the laws of the stage, but also as a great symphonist, constructing the action according to the laws of symphonic development. The opera is very multifaceted. But its psychological complexity is completely balanced by captivating arias, permeated with bright melodies, various ensembles and choirs.
Almost simultaneously with this opera, Tchaikovsky wrote an opera-fairy tale, “Iolanta,” amazing in its charm. However, The Queen of Spades, along with Eugene Onegin, remain unsurpassed Russian opera masterpieces of the 19th century.

5. MODERN OPERA
Already the first decade of the new 20th century showed what a sharp change of eras took place in the art of opera, how different the opera of the last century and the century of the future are.
In 1902, the French composer Claude Debussy presented the opera “Pelléas et Mélisande” (based on Maeterlinck’s drama) to the audience. This work is unusually subtle and elegant. And just at the same time, Giacomo Puccini wrote his last opera “Madama Butterfly” (its premiere took place two years later) in the spirit of the best Italian operas of the 19th century.
Thus ends one period in opera and begins another. Composers representing opera schools established in almost all major European countries try to combine in their work the ideas and language of modern times with previously developed national traditions.
Following C. Debussy and M. Ravel, the author of such brilliant works as the opera buffa “The Spanish Hour” and the fantastic opera “The Child and the Magic,” a new wave in the art of music appears in France. In the 1920s, a group of composers emerged here, which went down in music history as the “Six”. It included L. Durey, D. Milhaud, A. Honegger, J. Auric, F. Poulenc and J. Taillefer. All these musicians were united by the main creative principle: to create works devoid of false pathos, close to everyday life, not embellishing it, but reflecting it as it is, with all its prose and everyday life. This creative principle was clearly expressed by one of the leading composers of the Six, A. Honegger. “Music,” he said, “must change its character, become truthful, simple, music of wide gait.”
Like-minded creative composers of the “Six” followed different paths. Moreover, three of them - Honegger, Milhaud and Poulenc - worked fruitfully in the genre of opera.
An unusual work, different from the grandiose mystery operas, was Poulenc’s mono-opera “The Human Voice.” The work, lasting about half an hour, is a telephone conversation between a woman abandoned by her lover. Thus, there is only one character in the opera. Could opera authors of past centuries imagine anything like this!
In the 30s, the American national opera was born, an example of this is “Porgy and Bess” by D. Gershwin. The main feature of this opera, as well as Gershwin’s entire style as a whole, was the widespread use of elements of black folklore and expressive means of jazz.
Domestic composers have written many wonderful pages into the history of world opera.
For example, Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (“Katerina Izmailova”), written based on the story of the same name by N. Leskov, caused heated debate. The opera does not have “sweet” Italian melodies, there are no lush, spectacular ensembles and other colors familiar to the opera of past centuries. But if we consider the history of world opera as a struggle for realism, for a truthful portrayal of reality on stage, then “Katerina Izmailova” is undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of operatic art.
Domestic operatic creativity is very diverse. Significant works were created by Y. Shaporin (“Decembrists”), D. Kabalevsky (“Cola Brugnon”, “The Family of Taras”), T. Khrennikov (“Into the Storm”, “Mother”). S. Prokofiev's work was a major contribution to the world opera art.
Prokofiev made his debut as an opera composer back in 1916 with the opera The Gambler (based on Dostoevsky). Already in this early work his handwriting was clearly felt, as in the opera “The Love for Three Oranges” that appeared somewhat later, which was a great success.
However, Prokofiev’s outstanding talent as an opera playwright was fully revealed in the operas “Semyon Kotko”, written based on the story “I am the son of the working people” by V. Kataev, and especially in “War and Peace”, the plot of which was the epic of the same name by L. Tolstoy .
Subsequently, Prokofiev would write two more operatic works - “The Tale of a Real Man” (based on the story by B. Polevoy) and the charming comic opera “Betrothal in a Monastery” in the spirit of opera buffa of the 18th century.
Most of Prokofiev's works had a difficult fate. The striking originality of the musical language in many cases made it difficult to immediately appreciate them. Recognition came late. This was the case with both his piano and some of his orchestral works. A similar fate awaited the opera War and Peace. It was truly appreciated only after the death of the author. But the more years have passed since the creation of this work, the more deeply the scale and grandeur of this outstanding creation of world operatic art have been revealed.
In recent decades, rock operas based on modern instrumental music have become the most popular. Among these are “Juno and Avos” by N. Rybnikov, “Jesus Christ Superstar”.
In the last two or three years, such outstanding rock operas as “Notre Dame de Paris” by Luc Rlamon and Richard Cochinte, based on the immortal work of Victor Hugo, have been created. This opera has already received many awards in the field of musical art and has been translated into English. This summer the opera premiered in Moscow in Russian. The opera combined amazingly beautiful character music, ballet performances, and choral singing.
In my opinion, this opera made me look at the art of opera in a new way.
In 2001, the same authors created another rock opera, Romeo and Juliet, based on the Shakespearean tragedy. This work is not inferior in its entertainment and musical content to “Notre Dame Cathedral”.

6. STRUCTURE OF AN OPERA WORK
It is the idea that is the starting point in the creation of any work of art. But in the case of opera, the birth of a concept has a special significance. Firstly, it predetermines the genre of opera; secondly, it suggests what could serve as a literary outline for a future opera.
The primary source from which the composer starts is usually a literary work.
At the same time, there are operas, for example Verdi's Il Trovatore, which do not have specific literary sources.
But in both cases, work on the opera begins with the preparation of a libretto.
To create an opera libretto so that it is truly effective, meets stage laws, and most importantly, allows the composer to build a performance as he hears it internally, and to “sculpt” each opera character, is not an easy task.
Since the birth of opera, poets have been the authors of the libretto for almost two centuries. This did not mean at all that the text of the opera libretto was presented in verse. Something else is important here: the libretto must be poetic and the future music must already sound in the text - the literary basis of arias, recitatives, ensembles.
In the 19th century, composers who wrote future operas often wrote the libretto themselves. The most striking example is Richard Wagner. For him, the artist-reformer who created his grandiose canvases - musical dramas, word and sound were inseparable. Wagner's fantasy gave birth to stage images, which in the process of creativity were “overgrown” with literary and musical flesh.
And even if in those cases when the composer himself turned out to be the librettist, the libretto lost in literary terms, but the author did not deviate in any way from his own general plan, his idea of ​​​​the work as a whole.
So, having a libretto at his disposal, the composer can imagine the future opera as a whole. Then comes the next stage: the author decides which operatic forms he should use to implement certain turns in the opera’s plot.
The emotional experiences of the characters, their feelings, thoughts - all this is clothed in the form of an aria. At the moment when an aria begins to sound in the opera, the action seems to freeze, and the aria itself becomes a kind of “snapshot” of the hero’s state, his confession.
A similar purpose - conveying the internal state of an opera character - can be fulfilled in opera by a ballad, romance or arioso. However, the arioso occupies, as it were, an intermediate place between the aria and another important operatic form - the recitative.
Let's turn to Rousseau's "Musical Dictionary". “Recitative,” the great French thinker argued, “should only serve to link the position of the drama, to divide and emphasize the meaning of the aria, to prevent hearing fatigue ...”
In the 19th century, through the efforts of various composers striving for the unity and integrity of the opera performance, the recitative practically disappears, giving way to large melodic episodes that are close to recitative in purpose, but approaching arias in musical embodiment.
As we said above, starting with Wagner, composers refuse to divide the opera into arias and recitatives, creating a single integral musical speech.
An important constructive role in the opera, in addition to arias and recitatives, is played by ensembles. They appear in the course of the action, usually in those places when the heroes of the opera begin to actively interact. They play a particularly important role in those fragments where conflict, key situations occur.
The composer often uses the chorus as an important means of expression - in the final scenes or, if the plot requires it, to show folk scenes.
So, arias, recitatives, ensembles, choral, and in some cases ballet episodes are the most important elements of an opera performance. But it usually begins with an overture.
The overture mobilizes the audience, includes them in the orbit of musical images, characters who will act on the stage. Often the overture is built on themes that are then carried through the opera.
And now, finally, a huge amount of work is behind us - the composer created the opera, or rather, made its score, or clavier. But there is a huge distance between fixing music in notes and performing it. In order for an opera - even if it is an outstanding piece of music - to become an interesting, bright, exciting performance, the work of a huge team is needed.
The production of the opera is led by a conductor, assisted by a director. Although it happened that great directors of the drama theater staged an opera, and the conductors helped them. Everything that concerns musical interpretation - the orchestra's reading of the score, working with singers - is the domain of the conductor. It is the director's responsibility to implement the stage design of the play - to build the mise-en-scène, to perform each role as an actor.
Much of the success of a production depends on the artist who sketches the sets and costumes. Add to this the work of a choirmaster, a choreographer and, of course, singers, and you will understand what a complex undertaking, uniting the creative work of many dozens of people, is staging an opera on stage, how much effort, creative imagination, perseverance and talent must be put in to give birth to this greatest a festival of music, a festival of theater, a festival of art, which is called opera.

Bibliography

1. Zilberkvit M.A. The world of music: Essay. - M., 1988.
2. History of musical culture. T.1. - M., 1968.
3. Kremlev Yu.A. About the place of music among the arts. - M., 1966.
4. Encyclopedia for children. Volume 7. Art. Part 3. Music. Theater. Cinema./Ch. ed. V.A. Volodin. – M.: Avanta+, 2000.

© Posting material on other electronic resources only accompanied by an active link

Test papers in Magnitogorsk, buy test papers, course papers on law, buy course papers on law, course papers at RANEPA, course papers on law at RANEPA, diploma papers on law in Magnitogorsk, diplomas on law at MIEP, diplomas and course papers at VSU, tests at SGA, master's theses in law in Chelgu.

The content of the article

OPERA COMIC, in the original meaning of the term: a set of national varieties of the opera genre that arose in the 1730s and lasted until the beginning of the 19th century. Subsequently, the term lost its unambiguity; today it is often used in relation to various types of musical and entertainment performances of comedic content (farce, buffoonery, vaudeville, operetta, musical, etc.).

The origin and features of the genre.

Comic opera developed in countries with a developed opera culture as an alternative to the court opera seria (it. opera seria - serious opera), the principles of which were developed in the 17th century. Italian composers of the Neapolitan school (in particular, A. Scarlatti). By the 18th century The Italian court opera entered a period of crisis in its development, turning into "costume concerts" - a brilliant, saturated with virtuoso vocal effects, but a static spectacle. In contrast, the comic opera had more flexibility, which is characteristic of new, young art forms, and therefore had greater dynamics and development potential. The new theatrical genre became widespread throughout Europe, with each country developing its own variety of comic opera.

However, despite all the national peculiarities, the general development paths of the comic opera were similar. Its formation was determined by the democratic principles of the Enlightenment. Thanks to them, new trends in music and operatic drama arose in the comic opera: proximity to everyday life, folk melody (both in vocal and dance episodes), parody, original, “masked”, characterization of characters. In the plot constructions of the comic opera, the solemn antique and historical-legendary lines, which remained a genre feature of the opera seria, were not consistently developed. Democratic tendencies are also seen in the formal features of the comic opera: colloquial dialogues, recitatives, dynamism of the action.

National varieties of comic opera.

Italy is considered the birthplace of comic opera, where this genre was called opera buffa (Italian opera buffa - comic opera). Its sources were the comedic operas of the Roman school of the 17th century. and commedia dell'arte. At first, these were funny interludes inserted for emotional release between the acts of the opera seria. The first opera buffa was Maid-mistress G.B. Pergolesi, written by the composer as an interlude to his own opera seria Proud Captive(1733). Later, opera buffas began to be performed independently. They were distinguished by their small scale, a small number of characters, buffoon-type arias, patter in vocal parts, strengthening and development of ensembles (as opposed to the opera seria, where solo parts were the basis, and ensembles and choirs were almost never used). Song and dance folk genres served as the basis for musical dramaturgy. Later, lyrical and sentimental features penetrated the buffa opera, shifting it from the rough commedia dell'arte to the whimsical problems and plot principles of C. Gozzi. The development of opera buffa is associated with the names of composers N. Piccini, G. Paisiello, D. Cimarosa.

The Spanish variety of comic opera became tonadilla(Spanish tonadilla – song, shortened from tonada – song). Like opera buffa, tonadilla was born from a song and dance number that opened a theatrical performance or was performed between acts. Later it formed into a separate genre. First tonadilla - Innkeeper and driver(composer L. Mison, 1757). Other representatives of the genre are M. Pla, A. Guerrero, A. Esteve y Grimau, B. de Lacerna, J. Valledor. In most cases, composers themselves wrote librettos for the tonadilla.

In France the genre developed under the name opera comedy(French - comic opera). It arose as a satirical parody of “grand opera”. Unlike the Italian line of development, in France the genre was initially shaped by playwrights, which led to a combination of musical numbers with spoken dialogues. Thus, the author of the first French opera comique is considered to be J. J. Rousseau ( Village Sorcerer, 1752). The musical dramaturgy of opera comique developed in the works of composers E. Douni and F. Philidor. In the pre-revolutionary era, opéra comique acquired a romantic orientation, rich in serious feelings and topical content (composers P. Monsigny, A. Grétry).

In England, the national variety of comic opera was called ballad opera and developed primarily in the genre of social satire. Classic sample - Beggar's Opera(1728) by composer J. Pepusha and playwright J. Gay, which became a witty parody of the morals of the English aristocracy. Among other English composers who worked in the genre of ballad opera, the most famous is Charles Coffey, whose work had a serious influence on the development of the genre in Germany .

The German and Austrian varieties of comic opera had a common name Singspiel(German: Singspiel, from singen - sing and Spiel - play). However, the German and Austrian singspiels had their own characteristics. If in Germany the genre was formed under the influence of English ballad opera, then in Austria - under the influence of the Italian commedia dell'arte and the French opéra comique. This is due to the cultural uniqueness of the capital of Austria, Vienna, which became by the 18th century. an international center where the musical art of different nations was synthesized. The Austrian singspiel, unlike the German one, along with verse and ballad numbers, includes large operatic forms: arias, ensembles, well-developed finales. The orchestral part also receives greater development in the Austrian Singspiel. The most famous Singspiel composers are I. Standfuss, I. A. Giller, W. Müller, K. Dietersdorf and others.

Transformations of the genre.

By the end of the 18th century. the development of national genres of comic opera in their “pure” form began to decline. However, on their basis, new principles of several types of musical and entertainment art forms were formed. And here the leading role again belongs to the Viennese music school.

On the one hand, comic opera in general and singspiel in particular contributed to the reformation of classical opera, in which W.A. Mozart played a huge role. Following the path of internal renewal and synthesis of previous musical forms, Mozart created his own concept of opera, enriching the rather simple scheme of singspiel and opera buffa, introducing into them psychological persuasiveness, realistic motives, and also supplementing them with the musical forms of serious opera. So, The Marriage of Figaro(1786) organically combines the form of opera buffa with realistic content; Don Juan(1787) combines comedy with a real tragic sound; magical flute(1791) includes a variety of musical genres in the classical singspiel: extravaganza, chorale, fugue, etc.

In parallel with Mozart and on the same principles in Austria, an innovative reworking of the opera was carried out by J. Haydn ( True Permanence, 1776; Lunar world, 1977; Soul of a Philosopher, 1791). Echoes of the Singspiel are clearly audible in L. van Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio (1805).

The traditions of Mozart and Haydn were comprehended and continued in the work of the Italian composer G.A. Rossini (from Promissory notes for marriage, 1810, before Barber of Seville, 1816, and Cinderella, 1817).

Another branch of the development of comic opera is associated with the emergence and formation of the school of Viennese classical operetta. If in the 18th century. operetta was often called a type of comic opera (Italian operetta, French opérette, lit. - small opera), then in the 19th century. it has emerged as a separate independent genre. Its principles were formed in France, by the composer J. Offenbach, and received their formation in his Bouffe-Parisienne theater.

The Viennese classical operetta is associated primarily with the name of I. Strauss (son), who came to this genre late, in the fifth decade of his life, when he was already a world-famous author of numerous classical waltzes. Strauss's operettas are characterized by melodic richness and variety of musical forms, exquisite orchestration, extensive symphonic motifs of dance episodes, and a strong reliance on Austro-Hungarian folk music. In all this, undoubtedly, the traditions of comic opera can be read. However, in the development of operetta as a genre, the main emphasis was placed on musical and performing (both orchestral and vocal-choreographic) skills. The textual line of dramaturgy, which successfully developed in English ballad opera and French opéra comique, came to naught and degenerated into primitive dramatic crafts - librettos. In this regard, of the 16 operettas written by Strauss, only three have survived in the repertoire of subsequent theaters: Bat, Night in Venice And Gypsy Baron. It is with schematic librettos that the traditional classification of operetta as a light entertainment genre is associated.

The desire to return depth and volume to the synthetic musical entertainment theater caused the further formation and development of the musical genre, in which textual, plastic and musical dramaturgy exist in inextricable unity, without the prevailing pressure of any one of them.

Comic opera in Russia.

Development of musical theater in Russia until the last third of the 18th century. was based on Western European art. In particular, this was facilitated by Catherine II’s special penchant for “foreign” artists. If in the Russian drama theater by this time the names of domestic playwrights A. Sumarokov, M. Kheraskov, Y. Knyazhnin, D. Fonvizin and others were already well known, then the performances of ballet and opera troupes were based only on the works of foreign authors. Along with Russian amateur and professional groups, the French opera comique and the Italian opera buffa were invited by the cabinet secretary of Catherine II, Ivan Elagin, who was responsible for the theatrical “staff,” to tour in the court theater. This was largely due to the non-theatrical interests of influential courtiers of Catherine II (Prince Potemkin, Count Bezborodko, etc.): having affairs with foreign actresses at that time was considered good manners.

Against this background, the formation of the Russian opera school and the secular school of composition began with the formation of the national comic opera. This path is quite logical: it is comic opera, due to its fundamentally democratic nature, that provides maximum opportunities for the manifestation of national self-awareness.

The creation of a comic opera in Russia is associated with the names of composers V. Pashkevich ( Misfortune from the carriage, 1779; Stingy, 1782), E. Fomina ( Coachmen on a stand, or Play by chance, 1787; Americans, 1788), M. Matinsky ( St. Petersburg Gostiny Dvor, 1782). The music was based on the melody of Russian songs; the stage interpretation is characterized by a free alternation of recitative and melodic singing, a lively realistic development of folk characters and everyday life, elements of social satire. Comic opera was the most popular Miller - sorcerer, deceiver and matchmaker to the libretto by the playwright A. Ablesimov (composer - M. Sokolovsky, 1779; from 1792 it was performed to the music of E. Fomin). Later, the Russian comic opera (as well as its European varieties) was supplemented with lyrical and romantic motifs (composers K. Kavos - Ivan Susanin,Nikitich,Firebird and etc.; A.Verstovsky - Pan Tvardovsky,Askold's grave and etc.).

Russian comic opera began its formation in the 19th century. two directions of the national musical and entertainment theater. The first is classical Russian opera, the rapid development of which was caused by the talents of M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Mussorgsky, A. Borodin, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, P. Tchaikovsky and others. However, in this branch of musical art only a few reduced features of the original genre: reliance on folk melodies and individual comedy episodes. In general, Russian opera organically entered into the general world tradition of opera classics.

The second direction more clearly preserved the specific features of comedy. This is Russian vaudeville, in which dialogue and entertaining action, built on amusing intrigue, were combined with music, verses and dances. In a certain sense, Russian vaudeville can be considered a kind of "light genre" of European operetta, but it has its own distinctive features. The dramatic basis of vaudeville is not a libretto, but a well-crafted play. For example, one of the first Russian authors of vaudeville was A. Griboedov ( Your own family, or a married bride, in collaboration with A. Shakhovsky and N. Khmelnitsky, 1817; Who is brother, who is sister, or Deception after deception, co-authored with P. Vyazemsky, 1923). A. Pisarev worked in the vaudeville genre, later - F. Koni, D. Lensky (his vaudeville Lev Gurych Sinichkin is staged to this day), V. Sollogub, P. Karatygin and others. Thus, the basis of Russian vaudeville is not musical, but literary dramaturgy, while music is given an auxiliary role in inserted couplets. In the second half of the 19th century. A. Chekhov made his contribution to the development of vaudeville ( Bear,Offer,Anniversary,Wedding etc.), taking it out of the static framework of the genre and enriching the characters of the characters.

At the beginning of the 20th century, attempts to develop the comic opera genre based on a combination of the traditions of the operetta with a detailed psychological development of characters were made in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, including by the Moscow Art Theater. Thus, V. Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1919 created a Music Studio (Comic Opera) and, with its actors, staged the Moscow Art Theater Ango's daughter Lecoq and Pericola Offenbach, resolved as a “melodrama-bouffe”. In the early 20s, Nemirovich-Danchenko staged comic operas here Lysistrata Aristophanes, 1923; Carmencita and the soldier, 1924.

In Soviet times, which proclaimed socialist realism as the main principle of art, the frivolous genre definition of “operetta” was increasingly masked by the neutral “musical comedy.” In fact, within the framework of this general term there were many varieties - from classical operetta to no less classic vaudeville; from jazz approaches to musicals to Brechtian zong operas; even “pathetic comedy”, etc.

The interest of Russian dramatic artists in musical theater has always been very great: they were attracted by the opportunity to try themselves in a new genre, to reveal their vocal and plastic abilities. At the same time, undoubtedly, the synthetic musical genre was especially attractive: the traditional Russian acting school consistently cultivates psychologism, which is not very necessary for operetta or vaudeville. The destruction of the “Iron Curtain” and joining the global flow of culture gave Russia new opportunities to develop the synthetic genre of the musical, which by that time had conquered the whole world. And today, few people remember that the history of the world’s most popular musical genre began in the first half of the 18th century. from a comic opera.

Tatiana Shabalina

Instructions

Opera-ballet appeared in France in the 17th-18th centuries as a form of court art. It combines dance numbers with various opera forms. The opera-ballet included several scenes that were not related to each other by plot. By the 19th century, this genre had practically disappeared from the stage, but individual ballets appeared over the following centuries. Operas include "Gallant India" by Jean Philippe Rameau, "Gallant Europe" and "Venetian Holidays" by André Campra.

Comic opera finally took shape as a genre at the beginning of the 17th century and met the needs of the democratic part of the audience. It is characterized by simple characteristics of characters, orientation towards folk song creativity, parody, dynamism of action and comedy. Comic opera has certain... Italian (opera-buffa) is characterized by parody, everyday scenes, simple melody and buffoonery. The French opera-comique combines musical numbers with spoken inserts. Singspiel (German and Austrian variety) also contains dialogues in addition to musical numbers. The music of the Singspiel is simple, the content is based on everyday subjects. Ballad opera (an English type of comic opera) is related to English satirical comedy, which includes folk ballads. In terms of genre, it was primarily a social satire. The Spanish variety of comic opera (tonadilla) began as a song and dance number in a performance, and then formed into a separate genre. The most famous comic operas include Falstaff by G. Verdi and The Beggar's Opera by G. Gay.

The opera of salvation appeared in France at the end of the 18th century. It reflects the realities of the times of the Great French Revolution. Heroic plots and dramatic expressiveness of music were combined with elements of comic opera and melodrama. The plots of rescue operas are most often based on the rescue of the main character or his beloved from captivity. It is characterized by civic pathos, denunciation of tyranny, monumentality, and modern plots (as opposed to the previously dominant ancient plots). The most prominent representatives of the genre: “Fidelio” by Ludwig van Beethoven, “Horrors of the Monastery” by Henri Montand Berton, “Elise” and “Two Days” by Luigi Cherubini.

Romantic opera originated in Germany in the 1920s. Its libretto is based on a romantic plot and is characterized by mysticism. The brightest representative of romantic opera is Carl Maria von Weber. In his operas Silvana, Free Gunner, Oberon, the features of this genre are clearly expressed, as a national German version of opera.

The Grand Opera established itself as the main direction in musical theater in the 19th century. It is characterized by the scale of the action, historical plots, colorful scenery. Musically, it combines elements of serious and comic operas. In grand opera, the emphasis is not on performance, but on vocals. Major operas include Rossini's William Tell, Donizetti's The Favorite, and Verdi's Don Carlos.

The roots of operetta go back to comic opera. Operetta as a genre of musical theater developed in the second half of the 19th century. It uses both typical operatic forms (arias, choirs) and colloquial elements. The music is of a pop nature, and the plots are everyday, comedic. Despite the light character, the musical component of the operetta inherits a lot from academic music. The most famous operettas are Johann Strauss's (The Bat, A Night in Venice) and Imre Kalman (Silva, La Bayadère, The Circus Princess, The Violet of Montmartre).

History of the genre

Jacopo Peri

The origins of opera can also be considered ancient tragedy. As an independent genre, opera originated in Italy at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries in a circle of musicians, philosophers, and poets in the city of Florence. The circle of art lovers was called “camerata”. The participants of the "kamerata" dreamed of reviving the ancient Greek tragedy, combining drama, music and dance in one performance. The first such performance was given in Florence in 1600 and told about Orpheus and Eurydice. There is a version that the first musical performance with singing was staged in 1594 on the plot of the ancient Greek myth about the struggle of the god Apollo with the serpent Python. Gradually, opera schools began to appear in Italy in Rome, Venice, and Naples. Then the opera quickly spread throughout Europe. At the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, the main varieties of opera were formed: opera - seria (large serious opera) and opera - buffa (comic opera).

At the end of the 18th century, the Russian Theater was opened in St. Petersburg. At first only foreign operas were shown. The first Russian operas were comic. Fomin is considered one of the creators. In 1836, the premiere of Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” took place in St. Petersburg. Opera in Russia has acquired a perfect form, its features have been determined: the bright musical characteristics of the main characters, the absence of colloquial dialogues. In the 19th century, all the best Russian composers turned to opera.

Varieties of opera

Historically, certain forms of operatic music have developed. While there are some general patterns of operatic dramaturgy, all its components, depending on the types of opera, are interpreted differently.

• grand opera ( opera series- Italian, tragedy lyrique, later grand opera- French),
• semi-comic ( semiseria),
• comic opera ( opera buffa- Italian, opera-comique- French, Spieloper- German),
• romantic opera with a romantic plot.
• semi-opera, half-opera, quarter-opera ( semi- lat. half) - a form of English baroque opera, which combines oral Drama (genre) drama, vocal mise-en-scenes, howek and symphonic works. One of the adherents of the semi-opera is the English composer Henry Purcell /

In comic opera, German and French, dialogue is allowed between musical numbers. There are also serious operas in which dialogue is inserted, for example. "Fidelio" by Beethoven, "Medea" by Cherubini, "The Magic Shooter" by Weber.

• From the comic opera came the operetta , which gained particular popularity in the second half of the 19th century .
• Operas for children's performance (for example, Benjamin Britten's operas - The Little Chimney Sweep, Noah's Ark, Lev Konov's operas - King Matt the First, Asgard, The Ugly Duckling, Kokinvakashu).

Elements of Opera

This is a synthetic genre that combines various types of arts in a single theatrical action: dramaturgy, music, fine arts (decorations, costumes), choreography (ballet).

The composition of the opera group includes: soloist, choir, orchestra, military band, organ. Opera voices: (female: soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto; male: countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass).

An operatic work is divided into acts, pictures, scenes, and numbers. Before the acts there is a prologue, at the end of the opera there is an epilogue.

Parts of an operatic work - recitatives, arioso, songs, arias, duets, trios, quartets, ensembles, etc. From symphonic forms - overture, introduction, intermissions, pantomime, melodrama, processions, ballet music.

The characters' characters are most fully revealed in solo numbers(aria, arioso, arietta, cavatina, monologue, ballad, song). Opera has various functions recitative- musical intonation and rhythmic reproduction of human speech. Often he connects (in plot and musical terms) separate completed numbers; is often an effective factor in musical dramaturgy. In some genres of opera, mostly comedy, instead of recitative, Speaking, usually in dialogues.

Corresponds to stage dialogue, the scene of a dramatic performance in an opera musical ensemble(duet, trio, quartet, quintet, etc.), the specificity of which makes it possible to create conflict situations, show not only the development of the action, but also the clash of characters and ideas. Therefore, ensembles often appear at the climax or final moments of an opera action.

Choir in the opera it is interpreted differently. It can be background, unrelated to the main storyline; sometimes a kind of commentator on what is happening; its artistic capabilities make it possible to show monumental pictures of folk life, to reveal the relationship between the hero and the masses (for example, the role of the choir in the folk musical dramas of M. P. Mussorgsky “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina”).

In the musical dramaturgy of the opera, a large role is assigned to orchestra, symphonic means of expression serve to more fully reveal images. The opera also includes independent orchestral episodes - overture, intermission (introduction to individual acts). Another component of an opera performance is ballet, choreographic scenes where plastic images are combined with musical ones.

Opera theatre

Opera theaters are musical theater buildings that are specifically designed to display opera productions. Unlike open-air theaters, the opera house building is equipped with a large stage with expensive technical equipment, including an orchestra pit and an auditorium in one or more tiers, located one above the other or designed in the form of boxes. This architectural model of the opera house is the main one. The largest opera houses in the world by the number of seats for spectators are the Metropolitan Opera in New York (3,800 seats), the San Francisco Opera (3,146 seats) and La Scala in Italy (2,800 seats).

In most countries, the maintenance of opera house buildings is unprofitable and requires government subsidies or donations from patrons. For example, the annual budget of the La Scala Theater (Milan, Italy) as of 2010 was 115 million euros (40% government subsidies and 60% private donations and ticket sales), and in 2005 the La Scala Theater received 25 % of 464 million euros - the amount provided by the Italian budget for the development of the fine arts. And the Estonian National Opera received 7 million euros (112 million crowns) in 2001, which amounted to 5.4% of the funds of the Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Opera voices

At the time of the birth of opera, when electronic sound amplification had not yet been invented, the technique of operatic singing developed in the direction of extracting a sound loud enough to drown out the sound of the accompanying symphony orchestra. The power of the operatic voice, thanks to the coordinated work of three components (breathing, the work of the larynx and the regulation of resonating cavities), reached 120 dB at a distance of one meter.

Singers, according to opera roles, are classified by voice type (texture, timbre and character). Among male operatic voices there are:

• counter-tenor,

and among women:

• The most popular opera composers during the same period were Verdi, Mozart and Puccini - 3020, 2410 and 2294 performances respectively.

Literature

• Keldysh Yu. V. Opera // Musical encyclopedia in 6 volumes, TSB, M., 1973-1982, T. 4, pp. 20-45.
• Serov A. N., The fate of opera in Russia, “Russian Stage”, 1864, No. 2 and 7, the same, in his book: Selected articles, vol. 1, M.-L., 1950.
• Serov A. N., Opera in Russia and Russian opera, “Musical Light”, 1870, No. 9, the same, in his book: Critical Articles, vol. 4, St. Petersburg, 1895.
• Cheshikhin V., History of Russian Opera, St. Petersburg, 1902, 1905.
• Engel Yu., At the opera, M., 1911.
• Igor Glebov [Asafiev B.V.], Symphonic Etudes, P., 1922, L., 1970.
• Igor Glebov [Asafiev B.V.], Letters about Russian opera and ballet, “Weekly of the Petrograd State. Academic Theaters", 1922, No. 3-7, 9-10, 12-13.
• Igor Glebov [Asafiev B.V.], Opera, in the book: Essays on Soviet musical creativity, vol. 1, M.-L., 1947.
• Bogdanov-Berezovsky V. M., Soviet opera, L.-M., 1940.
• Druskin M., Questions of musical dramaturgy of opera, Leningrad, 1952.
• Yarustovsky B., Dramaturgy of Russian opera classics, M., 1953.
• Yarustovsky B., Essays on the dramaturgy of 20th century opera, book. 1, M., 1971.
• Soviet opera. Collection of critical articles, M., 1953.
• Tigranov G., Armenian musical theater. Essays and materials, vol. 1-3, E., 1956-75.
• Tigranov G., Opera and Ballet of Armenia, M., 1966.
• Arkhimovich L., Ukrainian classical opera, K., 1957.
• Gozenpud A., Musical theater in Russia. From the origins to Glinka, L., 1959.
• Gozenpud A., Russian Soviet Opera Theatre, L., 1963.
• Gozenpud A., Russian opera theater of the XIX century, vol. 1-3, L., 1969-73.
• Gozenpud A., Russian Opera Theater at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and F. I. Chaliapin, L., 1974.
• Gozenpud A., Russian Opera House between two revolutions, 1905-1917, L., 1975.
• Ferman V.E., Opera Theatre, M., 1961.
• Bernandt G., Dictionary of operas first staged or published in pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR (1736-1959), M., 1962.
• Khokhlovkina A., Western European Opera. The end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century. Essays, M., 1962.
• Smolsky B.S., Belarusian Musical Theatre, Minsk, 1963.
• Livanova T. N., Opera criticism in Russia, vol. 1-2, no. 1-4 (issue 1 jointly with V.V. Protopopov), M., 1966-73.
• Konen V., Theater and Symphony, M., 1968, 1975.
• Questions of operatic dramaturgy, [collection], ed.-comp. Yu. Tyulin, M., 1975.
• Danko L., Comic opera in the 20th century, L.-M., 1976.
• Arteaga E., Le rivoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano, v. 1-3, Bologna, 1783-88.
• Clement F., Larousse P., Dictionnaire lyrique, ou histoire des opéras, P., 1867, 1905.
• Dietz M., Geschichte des musikalischen Dramas in Frankreich während der Revolution bis zum Directorium, W.-Lpz., 1885, 1893.
• Riemann H., Opern-Handbuch, Lpz., 1887.
• Bullhaupt H., Dramaturgie der Oper, v. 1-2, Lpz., 1887, 1902.
• Soubies A., Malherbe Ch. Th., Histoire de l'opéra comique, v. 1-2, P., 1892-93.
• Pfohl F., Die moderne Oper, Lpz., 1894.
• Rolland R., Les origines du theater lyrique moderne. L'histoire de l'opéra avant Lulli et Scarlatti, P., 1895, 1931.
• Rolland R., L’opéra au XVII siècle en Italie, in the book: Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire…, fondateur A. Lavignac, pt. 1, , P., 1913 (Russian translation - Rolland R., Opera in the 17th century, M., 1931).
• Goldschmidt H., Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Oper in 17. Jahrhundert, Bd 1-2, Lpz., 1901-04.
• Solerti A., Le origini del melodrama, Torino, 1903.
• Solerti A., Gli albori del melodrama, v. 1-3, Palermo, 1904.
• Dassori C., Opère e operisti. Dizionario lirico. Genua, 1903.
• Hirschberg E., Die Enzyklopädisten und die französische Oper im 18. Jahrhundert, Lpz., 1903.
• Sonneck O., Catalog of opera scores, 1908.
• Sonneck O., Catalog of opera librettos printed before 1800, v. 1-2, Wash., 1914.
• Sonneck O., Catalog of 19th century librettos, Wash., 1914.
• Towers J., Dictionary-catalogue of operas and operettas which have been performed on the public stage, Morgantown, .
• La Laurencie L., L'opéra comique française en XVIII siècle, in the book: Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire de con-cervatoire, , P., 1913 (Russian translation - La Laurencie L., French comic opera of the 18th century, M., 1937).
• Bie O., Die Oper, B., 1913, 1923.
• Kretzschmar H., Geschichte der Oper, Lpz., 1919 (Russian translation - Kretschmar G., History of Opera, L., 1925).
• Kapp J., Die Oper der Gegenwart, B., 1922.
• Delia Corte A., L'opéra comica Italiana nel" 700. Studi ed appunti, v. 1-2, Bari, 1923.
• Delia Corte A., Tre secoli di opera italiana, Torino, 1938.
• Bücken E., Der heroische Stil in der Oper, Lpz., 1924 (Russian translation - E. Bukken, Heroic style in opera, M., 1936).
• Bouvet Ch., L'opéra, P., 1924.
• Prodhomme J. G., L'opera (1669-1925), P., 1925.
• Abert H., Grundprobleme der Operngeschichte, Lpz., 1926.
• Dandelot A., L'évolution de la musique de théâtre depuis Meyerbeer Jusqu'à nos Jours, P., 1927.
• Bonaventure A., L'opera italiana, Firenze, 1928.
• Schiedermair L., Die deutsche Oper, Lpz., 1930, Bonn, 1943.
• Baker P., Wandlungen der Oper, Z., 1934.
• Capri A., Il melodrama dalle origini ai nostri giorni, Modena, 1938.
• Dent E.J., Opera, N.Y., 1940.
• Gregor J., Kulturgeschichte der Oper, W., 1941, 1950.
• Brockway W., Weinstock H., The opera, a history of its creation and performance, 1600-1941, N.Y., 1941 (additional ed.: The world of opera, N.Y., 1966).
• Skraup S., Die Oper als lebendiges Theater, Würzburg, 1942.
• Mooser R. A., L opéra comique française en Russie durant le XVIIIe siècle, Bale, 1945, 1964.
• Grout D.J., A short history of opera, v. 1-2, N.Y., 1947, Oxf., 1948, N.Y., 1965.
• Cooper M., Opéra comique, N.Y., 1949.
• Cooper M., Russian opera, L., 1951.
• Wellesz E., Essays in opera, L., 1950.
• Oper im XX. Jahrhundert, Bonn, 1954.
• Paoli D., De, L'opéra italiana dalle origini all'opera verista, Roma, 1954.
• Sip J., Opera in Czechoslovakia, Prague, 1955.
• Bauer R., Die Oper, B., 1955, 1958.
• Leibowitz R. L'histoire de l'opera, P., 1957.
• Serafin T., Toni A., Stile, tradizioni e con-venzioni del melodramma italiano del settecento e dell’ottocento, v. 1-2, Mil., 1958-64.
• Schmidt-Garre H., Oper, Köln, 1963.
• Stuckenschmidt H., Oper in diezer Zeit, Hannover, 1964.
• Szabolcsi B., Die Anfänge der nationalen Oper im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Bericht über den Neunten Internationalen Kongreß Salzburg 1964, Lfg. 1, Kassel, 1964.
• Die moderne Oper: Autoren, Theater, Publikum, ibid., Lfg. 2, Kassel, 1966.

see also

Notes

Links

• The most complete Russian-language site dedicated to opera and opera events
• Reference book "100 operas" edited by M. S. Druskin. Brief contents (synopses) of operas

Theater directions
Theater

Opera(Italian opera - business, labor, work; from Latin opera - work, product, work) - a genre of musical and dramatic art in which the content is embodied by means of musical dramaturgy, mainly through vocal music. The literary basis of the opera is the libretto.

History of the genre

Opera appeared in Italy, in mysteries, that is, spiritual performances in which occasionally introduced music was at a low level. Spiritual comedy: “Conversion of St. Paul" (1480), Beverini, represents a more serious work in which music accompanied the action from beginning to end. In the middle of the 16th century, pastorals or shepherd's games, in which the music was limited to choirs, in the nature of a motet or madrigal, were very popular. In Orazio Vecchi's Amfiparnasso, choral singing offstage, in the form of a five-voice madrigal, served to accompany the actors' performances on stage. This Commedia armonica was given for the first time at the Court of Modena in 1597.

At the end of the 16th century, attempts to introduce monophonic singing (monody) into such works brought opera to the path on which its development quickly advanced. The authors of these attempts called their musical and dramatic works drama in musica or drama per musica; the name "opera" began to be applied to them in the first half of the 17th century. Later, some opera composers, for example Richard Wagner, again returned to the name “musical drama”.

The first opera house for public performances was opened in 1637 in Venice; previously opera served only for court entertainment. The first major opera can be considered “Daphne” by Jacopo Peri, performed in 1597. The opera soon spread to Italy, and then to the rest of Europe. In Venice, since the opening of public spectacles, 7 theaters have appeared within 65 years; 357 operas were written for them by different composers (up to 40). The pioneers of opera were: in Germany - Heinrich Schütz (Daphne, 1627), in France - Camber (La pastorale, 1647), in England - Purcell; in Spain the first operas appeared at the beginning of the 18th century; in Russia, Araya was the first to write an opera (“Mullet and Procris”) based on an independent Russian text (1755). The first Russian opera written in Russian manners is “Tanyusha, or Happy Meeting,” music by F. G. Volkov (1756).

Varieties of opera

Historically, certain forms of operatic music have developed. While there are some general patterns of operatic dramaturgy, all its components, depending on the types of opera, are interpreted differently.

grand opera (opera seria - Italian, trag "edie lyrique, later grand-op" era - French),

semi-comic (semiseria),

comic opera (opera-buffa - Italian, op"era-comique - French, Spieloper - German),

romantic opera with a romantic plot.

In comic opera, German and French, dialogue is allowed between musical numbers. There are also serious operas in which dialogue is inserted, for example. “Fidelio” by Beethoven, “Medea” by Cherubini, “The Magic Shooter” by Weber.

Operas for children's performance (for example, Benjamin Britten's operas - The Little Chimney Sweep, Noah's Ark, Lev Konov's operas - King Matt the First, Asgard, The Ugly Duckling, Kokinvakashu).

Elements of Opera

Opera is a synthetic genre that combines various types of arts in a single theatrical action: drama, music, visual arts (scenery, costumes), choreography (ballet).

The opera ensemble includes: soloist, choir, orchestra, military band, organ. Opera voices: (female: soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto; male: countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass).

An operatic work is divided into acts, pictures, scenes, and numbers. Before the acts there is a prologue, at the end of the opera there is an epilogue.

Parts of an operatic work - recitatives, arioso, songs, arias, duets, trios, quartets, ensembles, etc. From symphonic forms - overture, introduction, intermissions, pantomime, melodrama, processions, ballet music.

The characters' characters are most fully revealed in solo numbers (aria, arioso, arietta, cavatina, monologue, ballad, song). Recitative has various functions in opera - musical, intonation and rhythmic reproduction of human speech. Often he connects (in plot and musical terms) separate completed numbers; is often an effective factor in musical dramaturgy. In some genres of opera, mainly comedic, colloquial speech is used instead of recitative, usually in dialogues.

The stage dialogue, the scene of a dramatic performance in an opera corresponds to a musical ensemble (duet, trio, quartet, quintet, etc.), the specifics of which make it possible to create conflict situations, to show not only the development of action, but also the clash of characters and ideas. Therefore, ensembles often appear at the climax or final moments of an opera action.

The chorus in opera is interpreted in different ways. It can be background, unrelated to the main storyline; sometimes a kind of commentator on what is happening; its artistic capabilities make it possible to show monumental pictures of folk life, to reveal the relationship between the hero and the masses (for example, the role of the choir in the folk musical dramas of M. P. Mussorgsky “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina”).

In the musical dramaturgy of the opera, a large role is assigned to the orchestra; symphonic means of expression serve to more fully reveal the images. The opera also includes independent orchestral episodes - overture, intermission (introduction to individual acts). Another component of an opera performance is ballet, choreographic scenes where plastic images are combined with musical ones.