Opera in the Late Seventeenth Century

1
Opera in the Late Seventeenth Century
2
Venice

• main center for Italian opera
• Singers became the main attraction
• Composers began to write arias expressly for
  specific singers
• The favorite aria form was

3
Naples - Recitative

• Recitativo semplice speechlike, conveying
  dialogue or monologue with only basso continuo
  accompaniment
• Secco Recitative
• Recitativo obbligato or recitativo accompagnato
  accompanied by the orchestra, which portrayed and
  reinforced the emotions
• Recitativo arioso was a blend of recitative and
  aria

4
Alessandro Scarlatti (16601725)

• Favored the da capo aria
• Da capo means "to the head,"
• Example NAWM 66, Mi rivedi from La Griselda
  (1721)
• Optional

5
French national traditions

• Ballet had flourished since Ballet comique de la
  reine (1581)
• Court ballet was a substantial musical work

6
Jean-Baptiste Lully

• 1st important composer of French Opera
• NAWM 67, Ballet des nations from Le bourgeois
  gentilhomme (1670)
• Optional

7
Armide Ouverture, NAWM 68a

• two-part movement before ballets
• The first section is slow and stately, with a
  homophonic texture, and marked by dotted rhythms
• The second section is faster, with some fugal
  imitation but with a serious character
• Each section is repeated

8
England

• Henry Purcell (16591695)
• Dido and Aeneas (1689)
• composed for a girls' boarding school
• Vergil's Aeneid

9
Dido and Aeneas

• Thy Hand, Belinda
• Recitatives
• NAWM 69, When I am laid in earth
• aria/lament
• ground bass

10
V. Germany

• Hamburg opera
• Singspiel ("sing-play"), the German version of
  opera, using spoken dialogue instead of
  recitative
• Reinhard Keiser (16741739) wrote more than a
  hundred operas for Hamburg

11
Secular Vocal Music in Italy

• Alessandro Scarlatti composed over six hundred
  cantatas.
• Leading Italian

12
France

• Marc-Antoine Charpentier (16341704) composed
  both secular cantatas and sacred, Latin,
  oratorios

13
Lutheran Church Music, 16501750

• The orthodox view was that all available
  resources should be used
• The Pietists preferred simpler music for personal
  devotion
• Erdmann Neumeister devised the Lutheran Church
  Cantata
• Passions the suffering and death of Christ
  according to Gospel accounts

14
Test over Chapter 10