#opera overture

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1686-1764) - Ouverture from “Platée.” Performed by Christophe Rousset/Les Talens Lyriques on period instruments.

I keep coming back to Richard Strauss' less 'popular' operas. During his lifetime many of them were somewhat dismissed for their 'conservative' writing. It seems that Strauss was going into a more jarring and angst ridden Modernism with his operas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1908), but then betrayed that direction with the very gushy romantic Rosenkavalier (1910). I think this lower opinion of Strauss has more to do with the time he lived in rather than the music itself. Not to mention that this 'heavy/lighthearted' florid style continued through both World Wars. It's hard for me not to love his music because of it's unusual mix of being hyper-romantic and also clear and easy to follow. What Strauss did was the seemingly impossible task of synthesizing Wagner (free floating harmonies, thick orchestral textures, and long scale structure) with Mozart (clarity, grace, lyricism, and more grounded functioning tonality). This is the opening of Strauss' comic opera Ariadne auf Naxos. The confusing title for this post is due to the opera's structure; It is an opera within an opera. The opera is in two parts, first part is the prologue which gives us the backstory where a composer has been hired to stage one of his operas at some very super rich Viennese man's house. He is deeply offended to learn that the patron has also hired a burlesque dance troop to perform after his opera. Offended because (and I'm pretty sure Strauss is satirizing the Romantic-minded young artist who takes his own work too seriously) his opera, Ariadne of Naxos, is supposed to be a super serious tragedy and having a burlesque dance afterward shows how the patron and audience don't care that much for 'serious' art, and may even look forward to the half naked women more than the Grecian music-drama. The opera company and dance company argue over who gets to play first. The situation gets worse when the patron's butler informs everyone that his dinner party ended up going later than expected, and since he's paid for both acts already and wants them to perform, he decided he wants the opera and the burlesque to happen at the same time. The composer is angry but his teacher encourages him to comply. And the lead of the burlesque show, a risqué comedian named Zerbinetta, charms him into changing the opera to include scenes for her. The second part is the opera Ariadne of Naxos, where Ariadne has been abandoned on the isle of Naxos by her former lover and hero Theseus. Zerbinetta and other nymphs (the burlesque dancers) try to sing and cheer Ariadne up but they can't get her out of her depression. Zerbinetta tells her the best way to get over one man is to find another, and encourages her to flirt with a clown Harlequin. But then a stranger comes to the island, who turns out to be Bacchus the god of wine, chaos, and 'hedonism'. Ariadne and Bacchus fall in love, the end. Despite how this opera is somewhat minuscule (in comparison to all opera ever, let alone Strauss'), it is the genius combination of Wagner (a 'super-serious' philosophical music-drama based on classical antiquity where love transfigures the soul), Mozart (lighthearted comedy, flirting between men and women who don't understand each other, and an optimistic idealization of a classical pastorale) and Strauss (a metafictional story about an opera within the opera where characters discuss the nature of opera and relationship between artist and audience, the kinds of themes that would be best exemplified in Capriccio). But really the only reason I'm sharing this is because the main melody is stuck in my head, the perfect Straussian melody; optimistic and upbeat, goofy-sounding accidentals, very sentimental writing based on subtle diatonic dissonances, and coming back again and again in different waves of great orchestral writing.

- Nick O.

JMW Turner - Peace - Burial at Sea (1842)

13 Pieces for Halloween, no.7. The name “Marschner” isn’t well known today. He was an important figure in German opera during the 19th century, and he was admired by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and became an influence to Wagner. His opera Der Vampyr is based off of the book “The Vampyre” by John William Polidori, a Romantic writer who is considered to be the father of Vampire fiction. Before Count Dracula, there was Lord Ruthven. Polidori worked with Lord Byron, and while in Switzerland they hung out with another major poet, Percy Shelley, his fiancee Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and her step sister Claire Clairmont. Famously, the group were stuck in a lodge because of a thunderstorm, and after reading ghost stories, Lord Byron suggested they all make up scary stories to tell to each other. The most iconic work to be born out of this evening would be Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. The other was Polidori’s The Vampyre. If this doesn’t fit for Halloween, I don’t know what does. Like most Gothic novels, the work follows a young woman who has been seduced by a mysterious figure, and she grows suspicious of him. The more time she spends with him, the slowly she starts to uncover the dark secrets he’s been hiding. Spoiler alert: he’s a vampire. Shocking I know. Marschner’s setting of the work keeps the novelty drama that comes with the new retelling of old legends, and the overture opens with a very dramatic, chromatic, and unstable theme [no surprise that Wagner would be inspired], before switching to a more noble and lighthearted theme. The two contrasting ideas wrestle with each other through grand orchestral writing until the rocking climax that then begins the story.

Stay tuned this week for more famous opera overtures, here on Musica in Extenso! - Nick O.

Hungarian State Orchestra

Filharmonie Brno/Jan Štych