Chapter 26: Dramatic Alternatives: Exoticism, Operetta, and Verismo

I. Stereotyping the Other: “Orientalism” A. Through colonialism European powers followed expansionist policies throughout the nineteenth century. These made all things “Eastern” fashionable. B. Opera was the most likely vehicle for musical Orientalism. 1. Examples include Meyebeer’s L’Africaine, Delibes’s Lakmé, and others by Bizet, Massenet, Thomas, and Saint-Saëns. 2. All of these are love stories told in a straightforward and yet sensual fashion—which would not have been appropriate for European (Christian) subjects. a. Women were exotic sex symbols. b. Taboo situations (sacrifices, violence, etc.) were allowed because they occurred elsewhere. C. Musical Orientalism was encoded. 1. One of the most commonly used devices to suggest Orientalism is the augmented second. 2. Masculine barbarity and feminine sexuality were two often-used stereotypes.

II. Bizet’s Carmen A. While not typically Oriental by the usual definition, Carmen has the most familiar use of Oriental devices. B. The main character is exotic and an ethnic minority. C. It premiered at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra Comique, and the conductor resigned rather than be a part of such a passionate production in a family theater. D. As an outsider, Carmen threatened good French values. 1. Bizet heightened her “otherness” by giving her arias an explicitly Spanish or Latin- American dance form. 2. The darker-skinned sensual woman corrupts the light-skinned man, and she is punished for it. E. Traditional values win as Don José stabs Carmen, vindicating virtue.

III. Russian Orientalism A. Orientalism was particularly popular in Russia, in part due to Russian expansion into Islamic territories. B. It became an identifying characteristic of Russian music. C. Glinka and the “Mighty Five” all delved into Orientalism, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s very popular Scheherazade. D. The pinnacle of Russian Orientalism is Borodin’s Prince Igor, which tells the story from a twelfth-century epic conflict between a Russian prince and Turkish nomads in Central Asia. 1. The most famous example here are the “Polovtsian Dances” of Act II. 2. The musical devices include melodic undulations tied over the beat, a chromatic pass from the sixth scale degree to the fifth, a throbbing drumbeat in the bass, and an English horn.

IV. Gounod’s Opéra Lyrique A. Another trend in opera in the mid-century was French opéra lyrique—a genre of opera that was more restrained than grand opéra.

B. The chief practitioner of this style was Gounod. C. The music is pared down to an almost domestic-appropriate scale. D. In his Faust, Gounod focused more on the love story between the characters than the metaphysical interests of Goethe. 1. It was a deliberate comment on German pretension. 2. Faust became one of the most performed works of the nineteenth century. E. Wagner and others criticized Gounod for trivializing great literature. 1. Other French composers also used “great literature” for opéra lyrique. F. Gounod’s successor in this regard is Massenet, whose Manon approaches Italian verismo in its frankness in dealing with illicit love.

V. Offenbach and Opera about Opera A. In reaction to the ever-growing grandeur of opera, composers reached back to an earlier idea that operatic behavior should pursue human or personal truth. 1. Verdi suggested moving in this direction with Falstaff. B. Offenbach succeeded in writing a lighter style of opera that has come to be called “operetta.” 1. A special type of buffoonery exists in these works. 2. The silliness extends to mimicking animal noises and nonsense sounds. 3. Sometimes well-known (serious) opera melodies appear in them. C. Among Offenbach’s successes are Orpheus in the Underworld and The Tales of Hoffmann. 1. His Orpheus is based on the same basic tale as Monteverdi’s Orfeo, but Offenbach’s is slapstick comedy. 2. It ends with his most famous music, known as the music for the “cancan.”

VI. Johann Strauss—The Waltz King and Viennese Operetta A. Operetta moved next to Vienna, where Johann Strauss II followed in the steps of von Suppé. B. His Die Fledermaus (1874) established him as a rival to Offenbach. 1. He makes sophisticated use of serious operas by lampooning them. 2. Dance is a major feature. (Strauss was, after all, the waltz king.) a. The Viennese waltz usually consisted of several different waltzes played in a medley. b. The opening is slow before reaching the “waltz tempo.” c. The harmonic treatment of the sixth is a feature of Strauss’s waltzes.

VII. England’s Gilbert and Sullivan A. Gilbert and Sullivan wrote operetta in England during the long reign of Victoria I. B. They were so successful that they built a venue so that their works could be shown continually. C. As with Offenbach, they made fun of serious opera. D. They eventually began to make fun of their own works. 1. The “patter song” is a representative example. a. An extremely fast song with a lot of words, a patter song is usually sung by a baritone who is a pompous buffoon character. Perhaps the best-known example is from The Pirates of Penzance, “I am the very model of a modern major general.” 2. In Ruddigore, they made fun of their own patter songs by writing an entire patter ensemble piece.

VIII. Italian Verismo A. Originally a literary movement, Italian verismo was the result of making opera more immediate and something to which the audience could relate. B. The idea was to forego vocal virtuosity in favor of (forceful) emotional simplicity. C. Noteworthy examples are Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (1890) and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892). 1. These two one-act operas are often paired together for performance. 2. Both deal with crimes of passion (in each, murder by a jealous husband). 3. The point is to thrill the bourgeois audience, not to render judgment or justifiability. 4. Both operas feature the tenore di forza in which the voice’s highest register features. D. Arias in this style deviate from previous ones: 1. Melodic repetition is not mandatory. 2. The form is dynamic. 3. Operatic convention takes the place of form so that the work is identifiably an aria. 4. The entire feeling of the aria is free. E. There were questions raised as to the art in such composition.

IX. Innovation and Popularity—“Repetoire” versus. “Canon” versus “Repertory” A. The relationship between the composer (artist) and listener was an issue at the end of the nineteenth century. B. Puccini’s operas fall into this question. 1. Some saw him as the heir to Verdi; others didn’t take him seriously. 2. These debates continue, even today when his operas are the staple of most companies. C. The divergence of concert repertory (music performed for audiences) and canon (those considered worthy of academic study) took place over the twentieth century. 1. Often the most performed works are the least discussed in academic literature. D. Puccini wrote for the concert repertory.

X. Puccini’s Ascent A. Puccini’s first success was Manon Lescaut (1893). B. Like Verdi, he had three major operatic successes at the midpoint of his career. All three were done with the same librettists (Illica and Giacosa). C. One is La bohéme (1896), based on a popular French novel. 1. The story is a simple one of love, set against a lively Paris backdrop. 2. The story is likely enough, but giving the main female character tuberculosis (“that most romantic of diseases”) plants the seeds of inevitable doom. D. Another of the trio was Tosca (1900), based on a play created for Sarah Bernhardt. 1. Puccini’s use of a currently popular play recurred three more times in his work. 2. The opera includes several elements popular in the early twentieth century: onstage murder, offstage torture, execution, and suicide. 3. Puccini used motifs similar to the way Wagner used leitmotivs. E. The third was Madama Butterfly, which saw four versions between 1904 and 1906. 1. Madama Butterfly relies on its exotic setting, Orientalism. Puccini used pentatonic Japanese folk songs. 2. The “Star-Spangled Banner” signifies Americanism.

F. The aria “Un bel dí” from Madama Butterfly is one of the most popular in all Puccini. It reflects her faith in Pinkerton’s return. 1. Like other Puccini arias, it is brief and to the point. 2. The same eight measures open and close the aria. The first time is soft, the second is much larger and makes it more emotional. 3. The other music in the aria is more recitative-like. 4. The melody belongs more to the orchestra than the singer, who follows it rhythmically. 5. The opening phrase becomes a motif in the opera that heightens the listener’s awareness of tragedy. G. The idea of watching such tragedy—and enjoying it (after all, the viewers do pay to go to the opera)—can be seen as voyeurism, and a type of catharsis. 1. The tragedy is made even more emotional in Madama Butterfly (and other Puccini operas) because the tender young woman bears the brunt of it. 2. The question arises as to whether or not Puccini deliberately manipulated “sadistic gratification” in his operas. H. Puccini’s next opera, La fanciulla del West, premiered at the Met (New York City), and three one-act operas were written for that venue in 1918. I. His final opera, Turandot, also deals with Orientalism and feminine humiliation: Liu dies from torture, and Turandot submits to her Calaf. 1. It was the last Italian opera to become a mainstay of the repertory.