MUSIC 100
WEEK 10
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY II: MID
TO LATE-ROMANTIC MUSIC
Lesson 10b: Opera – Verdi and Puccini
Romantic Opera
▪ Grand opera
– Lofty subject matter, spectacular staging, ballet, choruses, and crowd scenes
– Recitatives, arias, and choruses
– No spoken dialogue
▪ Opéra comique (comic opera)
– Much smaller cast and orchestra with a simpler musical style and more down-to-earth
plots with humorous or romantic interest
– Some spoken dialogue
– Carmen (1875) by George Bizet.
• Set the stage for verismo (realism) in opera toward the end of the 19th century.
▪ Lyric opera
– Between grand opera and lyric opera
– Melodious
– Subject matter was tragic love
Romantic Opera
– Italian opera
◦ dominated by the achievements of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
◦ Composers of Italian opera: Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti
– German opera
▪ Central figure was Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
• Each became the symbol of opera for his own country.
• They both had long careers, writing their last operas in their 70s.
• They made opera the central genre of Romanticism.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
▪ “Music Drama” vs “Opera”
▪ “Total Work of Art”
▪ Leitmotif: Musical phrases associated with objects, characters, events, thoughts,
and feelings, blended into the music, interwoven
▪ musical continuity through the orchestra & harmonies
▪ The Ring of the Nibelungs: 4 long music dramas
▪ The Rhinegold
▪ The Valkyries
▪ Siegfried
▪ The Twilight of the God
▪ Best known passage, “Ride of the Valkyries”
▪ Listen to it at this link
Giuseppe Verdi (Italian, 1813-1901)
◦ dominant figure in Italian music for 50 years after Donizetti
◦ born in northern Italy, son of an innkeeper
◦ age 9, worked as church organist
◦ pursued career in Milan as opera composer
◦ two children died in infancy, followed by his wife Margherita’s early death
◦ 1842: Nabucco launched him as star composer, next 11 years busiest of his career
◦ after La traviata (1853), slowed production of new operas
◦ 1871, retired from the stage, focused on his farm
◦ major works: 26, including Nabucco, Macbeth, Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, Il trovatore,
La traviata, Les vépres siciliennes, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, La
forza del destino, Don Carlos, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff; Requiem and other Latin
sacred choral works
Verdi's Music
• Between 1840 and 1880, Verdi's compositional style became more fluid.
– Instead of the recitative-arias style of earlier compositions, he created
a continuing musical flow in which the drama unfolded.
– The music was held together by the orchestral accompaniment.
◦ Binds voices together in duet, trios, and ensembles.
◦ Keeps action moving.
◦ Supplies rich, colorful harmonies.
◦ Verdi also uses the orchestra to present motives that represent people
in the story, thus approaching Wagner's concept of the leitmotif
Verdi's Music: Otello, 1887
• Otello (excerpt), 1887 (libretto: Arrigo Boïto)
– The last of Verdi's tragic operas
– Dramatic interest lies in the portrayal of human emotions.
– Story:
◦ Iago, a junior officer in the Venetian army, is intensely jealous of
the promotion of his friend, Cassio.
◦ Iago tries to destroy Cassio's career by deceiving Otello into
thinking that Cassio is having an affair with his new wife,
Desdemona.
◦ (end of Act II): “Era la notte”
◦ Iago tries to convince Otello that Cassio is in love with Desdemona
Verdi's Music: Otello, 1887
• Otello (excerpt), 1887.
– Form is somewhere halfway between recitative and aria
◦ Accompanied recitative.
– Scene ends with a huge orchestral climax: sworn revenge
Link: Kiri te Kanawa as Desdemona, “Ave Maria”, Act IV Otello.
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
◦ Most successful Italian opera composer after Verdi
◦ 1858: born in Lucca: family of musicians
◦ Composed & played organ as a teen
◦ 1876: he heard Verdi's Aida: decided to become an opera composer.
◦ 1880: Milan conservatory
◦ 1884: opera Le villi (The Fairies, opera-ballet): expanded, published, huge success
◦ 1893: Manon Lescaut premiered in Turin
◦ 1896: La Bohème premiered in Turin
◦ 1900: Premiere of Tosca in Rome
◦ 1904: Madama Butterfly
◦ 1912: Giulio Ricordi passed away
◦ 1924: working on Turandot, died of throat cancer
◦ 1926: opera finished by Alfano, premiered posthumously La Scala
◦ 9 operas, including La Bohème; Tosca; Madama Butterfly; and Turandot & one
triptych of 1-act operas
• Verismo (Realism): movement in opera towards
struggles of regular people, often brutal, violent subject
matter:
– La Bohème tells the story of poor students and artists
living in Paris. Giacomo Puccini
– Tosca contains scenes of attempted rape, murder,
execution, and suicide.
– Madama Butterfly describes the death of a devoted
young Japanese geisha.
Puccini's Music
• Stirs the strongest emotions
• Senses of timing, drama, and poignancy were perfect.
• Sets a scene or mood with just a few phrases of music
• Melodies soar, and vocal lines are enhanced by the orchestra, especially the
strings.
Puccini's Music
• Wrote in fresh, modern harmonies
– Used strong dissonances and unexpected chord progressions, which heightened
the drama
– Used unusual scales, such as pentatonic, to suggest an exotic locale
• Action is continuous with short orchestra phrases woven together under the
sung dialogue.
– Little distinction between recitative and aria most of the time
– In some operas, however, there are arias that are unforgettable.
Puccini's Music: Madama Butterfly
◦ 1904: La Scala premiere
– Oriental customs and exotic scenery set the stage for the tragic plot of this
opera.
The Story:
– Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American lieutenant, has rented a Japanese
house and with it comes "betrothal" to Cio-Cio-San ("Butterfly," a young
Japanese girl).
– Pinkerton treats the marriage as a casual affair, returns to America, and marries
an American woman.
– When he brings his American wife to Japan 3 years later, the grief-stricken Cio-
Cio-San commits suicide.
Puccini's Music: Madama Butterfly
"One Fine Day" ("Un bel di"):
– Act II: "Un bel di" comes at a time when Cio-Cio-San is trying to convince
herself that her husband will return to her.
– It contains soaring melodies and “Asian” sounds.
– Form: Da Capo Aria: A B A.
– It contains doubling and tripling of the vocal line in the orchestra.
