pallas_athena (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pallas_athena) wrote2009-09-26 12:44 am
pallas_athena) wrote2009-09-26 12:44 am
Sex, drugs and baroque roles
I think I'm going to talk a little about what I've been working on lately, in the event that it interests anyone who might like to learn more about what I do, or who may be coming to see Giulio Cesare (which I hope you will.)
Opera was invented in Italy in the 1600s by people trying to find a modern equivalent of classical Greek theatre. By the 1700s, the goals weren't so lofty: opera had gone from being edifying entertainment for nobles to being spectacular entertainment for nobles to being blockbuster entertainment for everyone. Stage technology had advanced to the point where instant scene changes and spectacular effects were possible. Composers, too, wrote to thrill the crowds: rapid coloratura fireworks, sustained phrases that tested the limits of a singer's breath capacity, and tunes you were sure to leave the theatre humming. Opera stars were like rock stars and movie stars combined, and the stakes were high: the rivalry between two sopranos, Cuzzoni and Faustina, often led to violence among the fans and, once, to an onstage brawl between the divas themselves. It wasn't enough just to sing a good aria onstage. You had to sing it wearing the latest fashion and the biggest hat imaginable; you had to sing faster and quieter and louder and hold notes longer than your rival at the theatre down the street; and of course, you had to invent the best ornaments.
Ornaments are very important in Baroque music, especially opera. Most arias of this period follow a certain form: the composer writes two sections, which we'll call A and B. In performance, you sing the A-section, you sing the B-section, then you go back to the beginning and sing the A-section again, ornamenting the melody with little flourishes of your own. Every singer invented their own ornaments, both to show off their best vocal tricks and to display their musical creativity. The audience would listen for these and applaud particularly graceful or well-executed ones; they would be just as quick to boo ornaments they found tasteless, or worse, recognised as stolen from another singer.
Generally, a Baroque aria represents a single emotional moment, whether that emotion is love, despair, anger, desire for forgiveness, desire for revenge, or madness (an old favourite.) Good ornaments will serve to heighten that emotion in the repeated A-section. Bad ones will detract from it (for example, if you're singing a sad song, you don't put trills all over the place.)
In Giulio Cesare, Cesare has one aria that's basically a "Christmas tree"-- an excuse for as many ornaments as possible. Here's a YouTube video of countertenor Andreas Scholl having fun with it-- though not as much fun as the violinist. Enjoy!
The words translate as:
("Lidia" is really Cleopatra in disguise. Caesar is happy because she's just sung him a song.)
Opera was invented in Italy in the 1600s by people trying to find a modern equivalent of classical Greek theatre. By the 1700s, the goals weren't so lofty: opera had gone from being edifying entertainment for nobles to being spectacular entertainment for nobles to being blockbuster entertainment for everyone. Stage technology had advanced to the point where instant scene changes and spectacular effects were possible. Composers, too, wrote to thrill the crowds: rapid coloratura fireworks, sustained phrases that tested the limits of a singer's breath capacity, and tunes you were sure to leave the theatre humming. Opera stars were like rock stars and movie stars combined, and the stakes were high: the rivalry between two sopranos, Cuzzoni and Faustina, often led to violence among the fans and, once, to an onstage brawl between the divas themselves. It wasn't enough just to sing a good aria onstage. You had to sing it wearing the latest fashion and the biggest hat imaginable; you had to sing faster and quieter and louder and hold notes longer than your rival at the theatre down the street; and of course, you had to invent the best ornaments.
Ornaments are very important in Baroque music, especially opera. Most arias of this period follow a certain form: the composer writes two sections, which we'll call A and B. In performance, you sing the A-section, you sing the B-section, then you go back to the beginning and sing the A-section again, ornamenting the melody with little flourishes of your own. Every singer invented their own ornaments, both to show off their best vocal tricks and to display their musical creativity. The audience would listen for these and applaud particularly graceful or well-executed ones; they would be just as quick to boo ornaments they found tasteless, or worse, recognised as stolen from another singer.
Generally, a Baroque aria represents a single emotional moment, whether that emotion is love, despair, anger, desire for forgiveness, desire for revenge, or madness (an old favourite.) Good ornaments will serve to heighten that emotion in the repeated A-section. Bad ones will detract from it (for example, if you're singing a sad song, you don't put trills all over the place.)
In Giulio Cesare, Cesare has one aria that's basically a "Christmas tree"-- an excuse for as many ornaments as possible. Here's a YouTube video of countertenor Andreas Scholl having fun with it-- though not as much fun as the violinist. Enjoy!
The words translate as:
Se in fiorito ameno prato
L'augellin tra fiori e fronde
Si nasconde,
Fa più grato il suo cantar.
Se così Lidia vezzosa
Spiega ancor note canore,
Più graziosa
Fa ogni core innamorar.
A-section: "If, in the flowery field, a little bird hides itself among the branches, its song gives even greater pleasure."
B-section: "So, if the charming Lidia sings while hidden, she makes all hearts fall even more in love."
("Lidia" is really Cleopatra in disguise. Caesar is happy because she's just sung him a song.)