Chapter 55

FIRST CENTURY OF ITALIAN OPERA AND DRAMATIC SONG.

During the last decade of the sixteenth century a company of Florentine gentlemen were in the habit of meeting at the house of Count Bardi for the study of ancient literature. Their attention had concentrated itself upon the drama of the Greeks, and the one thing which they sought to discover was the music of ancient tragedy, the stately and measured intonation to which the great periods of Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles had been uttered. The alleged fragments of Pindar's music since discovered by Athanasius Kircher (p. 69) were not yet known, and they had nothing whatever to guide their researches beyond the mathematical computations of Ptolemy and the other Greek writers. At length, one evening, Vincenzo Galilei, father of the astronomer Galileo, presented himself with a monody. Taking a scene from Dante's "_Purgatorio_" (the episode of Ugolini), he sang or chanted it to music of his own production, with the accompaniment of the viola played by himself. The assembly was in raptures. "Surely," they said, "_this_ must have been the style of the music of the famous drama of Athens." Thereupon others set themselves to composing monodies, which, as yet, were not arias, but something between a recitative and an aria, having measure and a certain regularity of tune, but in general the freedom of the chant. Among the number at Count Bardi's was the poet Rinuccini, who prepared a drama called "Dafne." The music of this was composed in part by an amateur named Caccini, and in part by Jacopo Peri, all being members of this studious circle meeting at the house of Count Bardi. "Dafne" was performed in 1597 at the house of Count Corsi, with great success, but the music has been lost, and nothing more definite is known about it. This beginning of opera, for so it was, was also the beginning of opera in Germany, as we shall presently see, for about twenty years later a copy of "Dafne" was carried to Dresden for production there before the court, but when the libretto had been translated into German, it was found unsuited to the music of the Italian copy, whereupon the Dresden director, Heinrich Schütz, wrote new music for it, and thus became the composer of the first German opera ever written. In 1600 the marriage of Catherine de Medici with Henry IV of France was celebrated at Florence with great pomp, and Peri was commissioned to undertake a new opera, for which Rinuccini composed the text "Eurydice." The work was given with great _éclat_, and was shortly after printed. Only one copy of the first edition is now known to be in existence, and that, by a curious accident, is in the Newberry Library at Chicago. The British Museum has a copy of the second edition of 1608. The opera of "Eurydice" is short, the printed copy containing only fifty-eight pages, and the music is almost entirely recitative. There are two or three short choruses; there is one orchestral interlude for three flutes, extending to about twenty measures in all, but there is nothing like a finale or ensemble piece. Nevertheless, this is the beginning, out of which afterward grew the entire flower of Italian opera. On page 225 is an extract.

The new style thus invented was known to the Italians as _il stilo rappresentivo_, or the representative style, that is to say, the dramatic style, and there is some dispute as to the real author of the invention. About the same time with the production of "Eurydice," a Florentine musician, Emilio del Cavaliere, wrote the music to a sacred drama, of which the text had been composed for him by Laura Guidiccioni, the title being "_La Rappresentazione del Anima e del Corpo_." The piece was an allegorical one, very elaborate in its structure, and written throughout in the representative style, of which Cavaliere claimed to be the inventor. This oratorio, which was the first ever written, was produced at the oratory of St. Maria in Vallicella, in the month of February, ten months before the appearance of "Eurydice" at Florence. It is evident, therefore, that if the style had been in any manner derived from the Florentine experiments already noted, it must have been from the earlier opera "Dafne" and not from "Eurydice." The principal characters were "_Il Tempo_" (time), "_La Vita_" (life), "_Il Mondo_" (the world), etc. The orchestra consisted of one lira doppia, one clavicembalo, one chitarrone and two flutes. No part is written for violin. At one part of the performance there was a ballet. The whole was performed in church, as already noticed, as a part of religious service.

Seven years later we enter upon the second period of the opera, when, on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco Gongeaza with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy, Rinuccini prepared the libretti for two operas, entitled "Dafne" and "Arianna," the second of which was set to music by Claudio Monteverde, the ducal musical director, a man of extraordinary genius. The first of these operas has long since been forgotten, but Monteverde made a prodigious effect with his. The scene where Ariadne bewails the departure of her faithless lover affected the audience to tears. Monteverde was immediately commissioned to write another opera, for which he took the subject of "_Orfeo_," and, being himself an accomplished violinist, he made an important addition to the orchestral appointments previously attempted in opera. The instruments used were the following:

2 Gravicembani. 2 Contrabassi de viola. 10 Viole da brazzo. 1 Arpa doppio. 2 Violini piccolo alla Francese. 2 Chitaroni. 2 Organi de Legno. 2 Bassa da Gamba. 4 Tromboni. 1 Regale. 2 Cornetti. 1 Flautino alla vigesima secunda. 1 Clarino, con 3 trombi sordine.

[Music illustration: FLUTE TRIO AND SCENE.

(From the first opera, "Eurydice" (1600). Jacopo Peri.)

Nel pur' ar-dor del-la più bel-la stel-la au-rea sa-cel-la di bel foc' accen-di E qui dis-cen-di su l'au-ra-te plu-me, etc.]

A very decided attempt is made in this work at orchestra coloring, each character being furnished with a combination of instruments appropriate to his place in the drama. These works were not given in public, but only in palaces for the great, and it was not for more than twenty years that a public opera house was erected in Venice. In 1624 Monteverde at the instance of Girolamo Mocenigo composed an intermezzo, "_Il Combatimento di Tancredi e Clorinda_," in which he introduced for the first time two important orchestral effects: The _pizzicati_ (plucking the strings with the fingers) and the _tremolo_. These occur in the scene where Clorinda, disguised as a knight, fights a duel with her lover Tancredi, who, not knowing his opponent, gives her a fatal wound. The strokes of the sword are accompanied by the _pizzicati_ of the violins, and the suspense when Clorinda falls is characterized by the tremolo--two devices universal in melodrama to the present day.

Monteverde had already for some time been a resident in Venice as director of the music at St. Mark's, where his salary had originally been established at 300 ducats per annum, and a house in the canon's close. In 1616 his salary was raised to 500 ducats, and he gave himself up entirely to the service of the republic. The first opera house was erected in 1637 and was followed within a few years by two other opera houses in Venice. In these places Monteverde's subsequent works were produced. The greater number of his manuscripts are hopelessly lost. We possess only eight books of madrigals, a volume of canzonettes, the complete edition of "Orpheus," and a quantity of church music.

The new path opened by this great composer was followed assiduously by a multitude of Italian musicians. Among these the more distinguished names are those of Cavalli, who wrote thirty-four operas for Venice alone, Legrenzi and Cesti. The latter wrote six operas, some of which were very successful. By 1699 there were eleven theaters in Venice at which operas were habitually given; at Rome there were three; in Bologna one; and in Naples one. It would take us too far to discuss in detail the successive steps in the history during this century, since in the nature of the case, an individual work like an opera can with difficulty rise above the popular musical phraseology of the day, the object being immediate success with a public largely uncultivated. Hence, popular operas for the most part are short-lived, rarely retaining their popularity more than thirty years.

The greatest genius in opera in this century after Monteverde was Alessandro Scarlatti, of Naples, the principal of the conservatory there, and, we might say, the inventor of the Italian art of singing--_bel canto_. For as there had been no monody, so there had been no solo singing, and as the operas of the first three-quarters of this century, in spite of the improvements of Monteverde, consisted mostly of recitative, there was still no singing in the modern acceptation of the term. Scarlatti introduced new forms. To the _recitativo secco_, or unaccompanied recitative, which until now had been the principal dependence for the movement of the drama, he added the _recitativo stromentato_, or accompanied recitative, in which the instruments afforded a dramatic coloring for the text of the singer. To these, again, he added a third element, the aria. The first he employed for the ordinary business of the stage; the second for the expression of deep pathos; the third for strongly individualized soliloquy. These three types of vocal delivery remain valid, and are still used by composers in the same way as by Scarlatti. His first opera was produced in Rome at the palace of Christina, ex-queen of Sweden, in 1680. This was followed by 108 others, the most of which were produced in Naples. The most celebrated of these were "_Pompei_" (Naples, 1684), "_La Theodora_" (Rome, 1693), "_Il Triompho de la Liberta_" (Venice, 1707) and, most celebrated of all, "_La Principessa Fidele_." In addition to this he wrote a large number of cantatas, more or less dramatic in character. Scarlatti not only created the aria, calling for sustained and impassioned singing, but also invented or discovered methods of training singers to perform these numbers successfully. He was the founder of the Italian school of singing, and the external model upon which it was based undoubtedly was furnished by the violin which, having been perfected by the Amati, as already noted in the previous chapter, and its solo capacities having been brought out by Archangelo Corelli, whose first violin sonatas were published a few years before Scarlatti's first opera, had now established a standard of melodic phrasing and impassioned delivery superior to anything which had previously been known. It was a pupil of Scarlatti, Nicolo Porpora (1686-1766), who carried forward the work begun by his master. Porpora was even a greater teacher of singing than Scarlatti himself, and his pupils became the leading singers in Europe during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The progress of vocal cultivation was remarkably helped by the fact that at this time women were not permitted to appear upon the stage, all the female parts being taken by male sopranos, _castrati_. These artificial sopranos, having no other career before them than that of operatic singing, devoted themselves vigorously to the technique of their art, and were efficient agents in awakening a taste for florid singing impossible for ordinary or untrained voices. Women did not appear upon the stage in opera until toward the middle of this century. Händel, in London, had male sopranos such as Farinelli, Senesimo, and the earlier of the female sopranos, of whom the vicious Cuzzoni was a shining example. The artistic merits of Porpora have been greatly exaggerated by certain writers, notably by Mme. George Sand in her "_Consuelo_," where he figures as one of the greatest and most devoted of artists. Her work, however, has the excellence of affording a very good representation of the artistic end proposed by the Italian masters of singing in their best moments. Porpora spent the early part of his life in Naples, but afterward he resided for some time in Dresden, Vienna, Rome and Venice, being principal of a conservatory in the latter place. In the latter years of his life (1736) he was invited to London to compose operas in competition with Händel, in which calling he but poorly succeeded. Porpora represents the ideal which has ruled Italian opera from his time to the present, the ideal, namely, of the pleasing, the well sounding, and the vocally agreeable. He is responsible for the fanciful roulades, the long arias and the many features of this part of dramatic music which please the unthinking, but mark such a wide departure from the severe and noble, if narrow, ideal of the original inventors of this form of art.

It is to be regretted that the limits of the present work do not permit the introduction of selections of music sufficiently extended for illustrating the finer modifications of style effected by the successive masters named in the text. The brief extracts following are taken from the excellent lectures of the late John Hullah upon "Transitional Periods in Musical History." The same valuable and suggestive work contains a number of more extended selections from these and other little known masters of the period, for which reason the book forms a useful addition to the library of teachers, schools, etc. Other illustrations will be found in Gevaert's "_Les Gloires d'Italie_" ("The Glories of Italy"). There are sixty arias in this collection, all well edited, and chosen for their effectiveness for public performance at the present day.

[Music illustration: ARIA PARLANTE.--"LASCIATE MI MORIR."

(From the opera "Ariadne," 1607. Monteverde.)

La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re, La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re, E che vo-le-te voi che mi con-for-ti in co-sì du-re sor-te, in co-sì gran mar-ti-re? La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re, La-scia-te mi mo-ri-re.]

[Music illustration: EXTRACT FROM SONG, "VAGHE STELLE."

(From the opera "Erismena," 1655. Francesco Cavalli.)

Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le, Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te. Va-ghe stel-le, Lu-ci-bel-le, Non dor-mi-te, non dor-mi-te.]

[Music illustration: ARIA.--"LASCIAMI PIANGERE."

(From a cantata. Alessandro Scarlatti.)

La-scia-mi, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè io sò, io sò, io sò per-chè. La-scia-mi pian-ge-re, la-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè, per-chè, ch'io sò perchè, La-scia-mi pian-ge-re ch'io sò per-chè, io sò, io sò, io sò per-chè. Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non è, sa-zia non è. Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non è, Del-le mie la-gri-me La sor-te per-fi-da Sa-zia non è nò, nò, nò, nò, nò, sa-zia non è. _Da capo._ La-scia-mi....]