French Opera Section D

Question 1

What role did opera play in 19th century life?

Answer 1

Central role
Opera houses sprang up all over Europe
Composers continued to follow national trends while developing new forms
Operatic stories varied but appealed to middle class
Music became the most important element of opera
The composer became an increasingly dominant force

Question 2

What role did opera play in France in the 19th century?

Answer 2

Paris became the new operatic capital of Europe
A new theatre was built for French opera in 1821 during the Restoration
The increasing power and interest of the middle class led to a new kind of opera: Grand opera

Question 3

What is rescue opera?

Answer 3

A type of libretto about the attempted rescue of a hero/heroine shut up in prison by a villanous tyrant - this makes the situation worse - but the happy end is brought about by a chorus of soldiers who arrest the tyrant.
Leading figure: Spontini (1774-1851) – Italian working in Paris
Strong focus on emotions of suspense, loyalty and the triumph of virtue over evil.
Excitement built by danger/suspense from the last-minute rescue
Precursor of the Grand Operas of Meyerbeer

Question 4

What is La Vestale?

Answer 4

La Vestale (1807) – Spontini
Tragédie lyrique in three acts
Spontini combined a lyrical, Italianate style with the seriousness of Gluck’s French operas
Looks forwards to the works of Berlioz, Wagner and French Grand Opera.
La Vestale is a ‘rescue opera’, but it also contains a magnificent stage spectacle in the triumphal march in the finale of Act I, which points forward to similar scenes in the Grand Operas of Meyerbeer
It is a number opera, but the joins between numbers are carefully contrived, almost concealing, so that there are long continuous stretches:
the scene between Julia and the High Priestess and then Julia alone in Act 1 – linked by orchestral reminiscence with the previous number and by key (dominant-tonic) with the following march.

Question 5

What is Grand opera?

Answer 5

Genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events.
Leading figures: Eugène Scribe, librettist, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), composer.

Spectacle was as important as music.
Machinery
Ballets
Choruses
Crowd scenes

Meyerbeer and Scribe established the features of grand opera with two works:
Robert le diable(Robert the Devil, 1831)
Les Huguenots(1836)

Question 6

What is Robert le Diable?

Answer 6

1831 opera by Meyerbeer
Set a pattern for Grand Opera that was continued in Meyerbeer’s later works and in similar operas by other composers.
Characteristics:
The action, though entirely fictitious, had a historical setting and involves one or more genuine historical characters
The central character is the son of the devil and its most sensational scene is a ballet in Act 3 danced by the ghosts of nuns who have broken their vows
Five acts
Grandiose scenes involving complex sets and large numbers of people on stage
There is a sensationalist element in the action
The vocal writing for the main characters is often extremely demanding
There is a ballet

Question 7

What is Les Huguenots?

Answer 7

Les Huguenots (1836) – Meyerbeer 
An example of grand opera
Based on the Saint Bartholomew Massacre in France during the sixteenth century, the opera relates the tragic fate of two lovers.

Question 8

Characteristics of Grand Opera

Answer 8

Five acts
Large cast
Ballet
Dramatic scenery and lighting effects

Question 9

What is the musical writing of Grand opera like? (Specifically in Les Huguenots)

Answer 9

French declamation
Florid Italianate vocal writing
Germanic emphasis on harmonic and orchestral colour
Highly inventive orchestration: especially in his use of woodwind, brass and divisi strings. He frequently employed Saxhorns (often in large numbers in on-stage bands), and cornets à cylindres alongside natural trumpets.
Huge multiple choruses, as for instance in the Pré-aux-Clercs scene at the start of Act 3, when Protestant soldiers sing a “rataplan” chorus, Catholic girls cross the stage chanting praise to the Virgin with a third chorus of law clerks.

Question 10

What unusual orchestral effects are employed in Les Huguenots?

Answer 10

Meyerbeer revived an archaic instrument, the viola d’amore, which had fallen into complete disuse in the 19th century, for Raoul’s aria “Plus blanche que la blanche hermine”
Used the bass clarinet for the first time in an opera in the scene in the last act during which Marcel “marries” Valentine and Raoul just before they are murdered, creating an other-worldly, funereal effect

Question 11

What are some other Grand Operas?

Answer 11

1. William Tell(1829) by Rossini
2. La muette de portici(The Mute Girl of Portici) (1828) by Auber:
   Ends with the eruption of Vesuvius
   The title role of a mute is danced and not sung.

Question 12

What is Opera Comique?

Answer 12

Differences from grand opera:
Spoken dialogue instead of recitative
Less pretentious and requires fewer singers
The plots are comedies or semi-serious dramas.

In the early nineteenth century, there were two kinds of opéra comiques: romantic and comedy.

Example:Fra Davolo(Brother Devil, 1830) by Auber.

Question 13

What is Opera Bouffe?

Answer 13

A new genre from the 1850s, opéra bouffe emphasized the smart, witty, and satirical elements of comic opera.
It used its freedom from government control to satirize French society.

The founder was Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880):
Ofphée aux enfers(Orpheus in the Underworld, 1858) introduced a can-can dance for the gods.
Offenbach influenced comic opera in England, Vienna, and the United States.
His music has a deceptively naïve quality that satirizes opera and society.

Question 14

What is Lyric Opera?

Answer 14

Another new operatic genre, it lies between opéra comique and grand opera.
Like opéra comique, the main appeal is through melody.
The subject matter is usually romantic drama or fantasy.
The scale is larger than opéra comique, but smaller than grand opera.

Faustby Charles Gounod (1818-1893):
This lyric opera was the most frequently performed opera in Europe and the Americas in the last third of the nineteenth century.
It was first performed as an opéra comique, with spoken dialogue, and was later arranged with recitatives.

Question 15

What happened to opera after the French Revolution?

Answer 15

After the French Revolution (1789), spectacular and melodramatic operas became popular.
Extensive use was made of plots involving rescue

Question 16

What traits do all french opera share?

Answer 16

Unity of dramatic action with the music that was seldom found in the Italian style.
There was also less virtuosity with more emphasis on the lyric quality of melody.
Moreover, French Romantic opera rarely displayed the intensity and passion of either the Italian or the German
but was more conservative in its music and in its dramatic content.