Opera was born in Italy during the Renaissance, beginning with Verdi's "Eurydice". By the 19th century, Italy's prosperous operas were born at the same time, and dance dramas developed in the 20th century.
. Oratorio, the first oratorio in China is Huang Zi's "Song of Everlasting Sorrow". It was produced in the Baroque period and added the element of "drama". The most famous one is Handel's "Messiah". The classic libretto is "Halley". Opera (opera) ) is a comprehensive art that integrates music (vocal and instrumental music), drama (scripts and performances), literature (poetry), dance (folk dance and ballet), stage art, etc. It usually consists of arias, recitatives, duets, etc. , chorus, overture, intermezzo, dance scenes, etc. (sometimes also used to speak and recite). As early as ancient Greek dramas, there were chorus accompaniments, and some recitations even appeared in the form of singing. In the Middle Ages, miracle plays based on religious stories and promoting religious views were also popular and continued. But modern Western opera, which can truly be called "musical drama", came into being with the secularization of music culture during the Renaissance in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The Origin of Opera
It is generally believed that European opera originated at the end of the 16th century. The first opera recognized in the West is "Daphne" (also translated as "Daphne"), which was produced under the influence of humanism in an attempt to restore the spirit of ancient Greek drama. It was written by O. Rinuccini and composed by J. Perry. With J. Corsi, it was performed in the court of Count G. Bardi in Florence in 1597 (some say it was completed in 1594). Due to the loss of the original manuscript of the play, some people also believe that it was performed in 1600 to celebrate the wedding of Henry IV. He wrote "Euridice" as the earliest Western opera. Due to the public's popularity with opera, the world's first opera house was built in Venice in 1637.
The development of opera
At the end of the 17th century, the Neapolitan opera school represented by Asia Scarlatti had the greatest influence in Rome. This music school did not use chorus and ballet scenes in the play, but highly developed the solo singing technique known as "Bel Canto" in later generations. When this "singing-work-first" approach goes to extremes, the opera's original dramatic expressiveness and ideological connotation are almost lost. As a result, in the 1720s, the comic opera genre, which was based on daily life, had humorous plots and simple music, emerged. The first example of Italian comic opera is Pagolesi's "The Housewife" (premiered in 1733). The play was originally an interlude of a serious opera. When it was performed in Paris in 1752, it was He was slandered by conservatives, thus setting off the famous "Comic Opera Controversy" in the history of opera. The first comic opera in France, "The Soothsayer" written by Rousseau, was born under the inspiration of this debate and this opera.
Italian opera was the first to be transformed in France and combined with French national culture. Lully was the founder of French opera ("lyrical tragedy"). In addition to creating solo melodies that were closely integrated with French, he was also the first to use ballet scenes in opera. In England, Purcell created Britain's first national opera, Didon and Aeneas, based on the country's masquerade tradition. In Germany and Austria, folk singing dramas were developed into German and Austrian national operas by Haydn, Dietersdorf, Mozart and others. Representative works include Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and so on. By the 18th century, Gluck, aiming at the mediocrity and superficiality of operas in Naples at that time, insisted that operas must have profound content, music and drama must be unified, and the performance should be simple and natural. His ideas and works such as "Orfeo and Eurydice" and "Iphigenes in Olyd" had a great influence on the development of opera in later generations.
After the 19th century, Italy’s G. Rossini, G. Verdi, G. Puccini, Germany’s R. Wagner, France’s G. Bizet, Russia’s M.I. Glinka, Opera masters such as M.P. Mussorgsky and P.N. Tchaikovsky have made important contributions to the development of opera. "Opera" (operettta, meaning: little opera), which was formed in the 18th century, has evolved and developed into an independent genre. Its characteristics are: short structure, popular music, in addition to solo, duet, chorus, and dance, it also uses spoken language. The Austrian composer Sobey and the French composer Offen Bach, originally from Germany, are the founders of this genre.
Among the opera composers of the 20th century, the early representative figure was Richard Strauss ("Salome", "Den Rosenkavalier") who was influenced by Wagner; Berg ("Wozzeck") who applied the principle of atonality in opera creation; since the 1940s, there are: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Milhaud, Manotti, Barbier, Orff, Janastella, Henze, More and the famous British composer Britten, etc.
Vocal music
The vocal part in an opera includes solo, duet and chorus. The lyrics are the lines of the characters in the play (depending on the style, they may also be spoken); the instrumental part is usually in the whole song. There is an overture or prelude at the opening of the play, and early operas also occasionally had prologues (including vocal music) with dedications. In each scene, instrumental music not only serves as accompaniment to singing, but also plays a connecting role. Interludes are often used to connect acts, or each act has its own prelude. Dances may also be inserted into the progression of the play. The musical structure of an opera can be composed of relatively independent pieces of music connected, or it can be a unified structure that continuously develops.
The important vocal styles in opera include recitative, aria, aria, recitative, duet, chorus, etc.; its genre styles include serious opera, comic opera, grand opera, operetta, operetta, Musical comedy, chamber opera, soundtrack drama, etc.
Aria
Arias are the main arias in operas where the protagonists express their emotions. Their music is beautiful, the structure is complete, and they can express the singer's vocal skills. Therefore, we often also Hear them in concert, such as the aria "On a Clear Day" from Madama Butterfly, the aria "Why does my heart so beat" from La Traviata, and the aria "There is a voice in my heart" from Rosina, among others .
Recitative
Recitative is a paragraph that unfolds the plot. The story often proceeds in the recitative. At this time, the characters have more dialogues. This kind of paragraph is not suitable for singing. The sex was too strong, so I used a half-speaking and half-singing method called recitative, which is very similar to the rhyme in Peking Opera. In Peking Opera, Qingyi, Xiaosheng or Laosheng all have a kind of recitative with exaggerated pronunciation tone. Although it is not very melodic, it can make the narration easy to connect with the singing before and after. Its function is very similar to the recitative in Western operas. . The early recitatives of European operas were very non-singing and were called "dry recitatives". They often used a harpsichord to play a chord to a key, and the singer used many homophonic repetitions to narrate in this key. The repeated translation of this same sound into Chinese is very unpleasant, because the Chinese language has four tones in ups and downs, and we Chinese cannot sing in a flat tone: Have you eaten today? It sure sounds funny. So when we encountered this kind of "dry recitative", we simply removed the rap and replaced it with dialogue. But by the 19th century, with the gradual melodicization of opera recitatives, for example, when we sang operas such as "La Traviata" and "Carmen", the recitatives were also translated into Chinese. You can follow the pitch of the melody to find the four appropriate Chinese tones.
Duet singing
Double singing is when several different characters sing at the same time according to their specific emotions and dramatic plots. When two people sing at the same time, it is called a duet. Sometimes they hold opinions for and against role, organized in a work; it may be a trio, quartet, or quintet. There is a sextet in Rossini's "The Barber of Sevinia" and even a sextet in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." In a septet, more than a dozen people sing together, sometimes in groups of three or five people, each with his own opinions. Some sympathize with Figaro, some sympathize with the count, and some laugh at the joke. The composer's outstanding skill is It is manifested in the ability to organize so many different dramatic and musical images into one musical passage with harmonious sound and expressiveness, which is very different from our opera.
Another form is the chorus in mass scenes. As mentioned before, it can be male, female, mixed, or children's according to the requirements of the plot.
Opera has a storyline and singing has lyrics. Its lyrics are inseparable from the development of music and drama. Therefore, when introducing Western operas in China, is it better to use translation, or to sing the original text to maintain its "original flavor"? There have always been two opinions with their own merits.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese opera workers made great efforts in translation when introducing Western operas. Here, there is an important issue, that is, the literary language must not only be translated well, but also when it is set to music. Only when it conforms to the rules of music can the audience feel comfortable and be accepted. This is a science and a very arduous job. It requires a translator with high musical accomplishment, or the cooperation of a translator and a musician. good. My personal point of view is: since the audience comes to the theater to watch a play, people must understand it. When introducing Western operas in China, it is best to translate them into Chinese so that people can more easily understand the drama of the plot and opera music at any time, and enjoy performances that are both singing and acting. It can at least make us Chinese audiences feel that our musicians are I really hope they understand the charm of Western opera. In recent years, the social fashion is to use the original text with Chinese subtitles to sing. Although it can show the level of our actors singing the original text, and it may be favored by foreign agents and be invited to perform abroad, but As far as I know, for the audience, the acceptance of Western operas is further away, and the audience is narrower. People will think that forget it, you don’t want us to understand it anyway, not to mention that the original language level of some actors is not high. , in fact, no one can understand it, which is not conducive to promoting the spread of Western opera in China.
A form of drama. It consists of dramatic text (lyrics) set to music, usually with musical accompaniment when sung. In addition to soloists, duets, chorus and orchestra members, from its earliest days, opera performances often included dancers. This complex, expensive form of musical theater entertainment has been popular with audiences for five centuries. Its obvious difference from other drama forms is that its lines are sung rather than expressed in words; its difference from musical drama-style dramas, such as operettas and musical comedies, lies in the solemnity of its works, the tight structure and the seriousness of the accompanying sounds. .
In ancient times, there were works that combined poetry, drama and music. Ancient Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides already used choruses in their plays. Medieval religious dramas based on the Bible, such as miracle plays and miracle plays, generally also had some kind of musical accompaniment. These and other forms of musical theater can be considered the forerunners of opera. Opera originated in Florence, Italy, at the end of the 16th century. The first opera was "Dafne" co-written by Renaissance pastoral poet Ottavio Rinuccini and composer Jacopo Peri, which has been lost; the earliest extant opera libretto is "Dafne" Euridice is also their work. However, the works of these two fathers of opera were exploratory in both genre and structure. About 10 years later, Claudio Monteverdi's opera masterpiece "La favola d'Orfeo" came out. Among them, instrumental accompaniment became a dramatic factor; the themes of operas at that time were mostly Greek and Roman myths, legends and fictional historical stories.
Opera House
The world's first opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637 and opened to the general audience, thus ending It marked an era when opera was monopolized by the royal family and aristocrats, and greatly promoted the development of opera. Francesco Cavalli, a student of Monteverdi, was the most famous opera composer of this era. He composed about 40 operas for the Venice Opera House from 1639 to 1669, among which the most famous For "Jason" (Giasone). Italian opera writer Pietro Antonio Cesti, who was at the same time as Cavari, also wrote many operas, the most famous of which is "Il pomo d'oro" (The Golden Apple). After the mid-17th century, the Venetian opera genre began to decline, although several talented composers still appeared at this time, such as Baldassare Galuppi, who is often called the "father of comic opera."
Other Italian cities, such as Rome, soon developed their own local styles of opera.
Roman opera is different from Venetian opera. It does not place much emphasis on the grandeur of the stage. Instead, it likes to use interesting interludes to lighten the tragic atmosphere of the whole play, focusing on the instrumental overture and overture-style interlude movements. Rome also has many famous opera writers, such as Virgilio Mazzocchi and Marco Marrazzoli, who created the first complete comic opera "Chi soffe speri" (Chi soffe speri).
In the 18th century, the Italian opera center moved to Naples, and various opera genres emerged one after another, thus influencing Italian and many foreign opera activity centers. The focus is to make the music obey the lyrics so that people can understand them. Lyricists Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio contributed to this. Opera arias, especially tripartite arias, dominate. Neapolitan opera has simple harmonies, is more melodic and airy, and has the majestic tones of the Rococo style. Representative writers include Alessandro Scarlatti, Nicola Antonio Porpora, Leonardo Vinci and Leonardo Leo.
In 1720, the Venetian Benedetto Marcello wrote "Il teatro alla moda,o sia metodo sicuro e facile per ben" (Il teatro alla moda,o sia metodo sicuro e facile per ben) comporre ed eseguire opere italiane in musica), which satirized the growing stereotypes in opera that diluted drama, thus leading to experiments in opera reform, but with little success.
In the 17th century, satirical comic opera with an independent form developed. At the beginning, it was often interspersed between the acts of the main opera. In the process of maturation, it has regained some of the emotional and serious characteristics of formal opera, thus giving many comic operas a mixed nature. "The Barber of Serbia", "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Secret Marriage" (Il matrimonio segreto) are representative works of this period.
Opera was introduced to France before 1650. The first French opera "Pomone" premiered in 1671 at the opening ceremony of the Royal Academy of Music (now the Paris Opera House). But opera did not become a truly French art until the time of Jean-Baptiste Lully's life. The Italian Lully went to Paris and created a French-style opera by borrowing the characteristics of French drama and ballet. He disliked Italian arias and advocated the use of short, lively songs instead. He reformed the recitative according to the recitation method of the Comédie Fran?aise and developed a French-style overture. Lully's style reached its peak in the operas of Jean-phlippe Rameau, whose major works include Hippolyte et Aricie.
After opera was introduced to Germany and Austria in 1627, "folk opera" emerged, and a number of opera writers emerged, such as Mozart, Handel, Beethoven, etc. The main works include "The Magic Flute", "The Magic Flute" and "The Magic Flute". Orlando", "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Juan", "Fidelio" (Fidelio), "Il mondo della luna" (Il mondo della luna), etc. In 1769, Ranieri de'Calzabigi and Gluck published an important document on opera innovation: the preface to the opera "Alceste". He believed that redundant and fancy three-part arias should be abolished and replaced with simple expressions and true feelings. The duty of music is to "serve poetry." Gluck's representative works include "Iphigenie en Aulide" (Iphigenie en Aulide) and "Iphigenie en Tauride" (Iphigenie en Tauride). His reform ideas had a major impact.
After opera was introduced to the UK, it took a long time for it to take root in the UK.
The first English opera was Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas; it broke the boundaries between recitative and song. The performance of "The Beggar's Opera" finally made the British audience accustomed to listening to a stage play sung in their own language.
From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, French comic opera developed greatly. In 1752, Rousseau's one-act comedy opera "Guerre des Bouffons" (Guerre des Bouffons) was staged. He wrote the score in the form of a medley, combining tunes that reflected very popular romantic love and vaudeville performances. It was very popular. French style. Since then, this new medley-style comic opera has dominated the opera stage in Paris and other regions. Famous playwrights include Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, Andre Gretry, Etienne-Nicolas Mehul and Francois-Adrien Boieldieu. French comic opera became more Italian after Bois-Eldieu, reflecting the influence of Rossini. During this period, Italian opera was in decline. Talented opera composers such as Johann Simon Mayr, Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini created a number of operas. Opera works with world-wide reputation, such as "The Barber of Serbia", "Anna Bolena" (Anna Bolena), "Il pirata" (Il pirata), "I puritani" (I puritani), etc., have become popular again.
"Grand opera" originated in Paris in the 19th century. It is a large-scale opera with an international style. It uses historical or fictional historical stories as its themes, and the stage is full of spectacular scenery, gorgeous costumes, ballet, etc. and various walk-on phalanx formations. It all but dispenses with the subtleties of bel canto and greatly expands the orchestra itself and its role in the drama. The first recognized grand opera was Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable. After Meyerbeer and Fromental Halevy, grand opera began to reflect new musical trends and developed into a variety of hybrid forms. French opera writers of this period also included Berlioz and Offen Bach, whose main works include "Orphee aux enfers" (Orphee aux enfers), "The Trojans", and "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" (Les Contes d'Hoffmann). Hoffmann) et al.
German romantic operas include Der Freischutz (Der Freischutz) and other works, which are the forerunners of German romantic music. During this period, operettas also emerged, such as John. Strauss's masterpiece "Bat" brought it to its peak.
Famous opera composers after the 19th century include: Verdi, Puccini, Busoni, etc. from Italy; Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Hans Pfitzner from Germany and Austria ), Schombek, Berg, etc.; France's Gounod, Bizet, Thomas, Jules Massenet, Debussy, Ravel.
After opera was introduced to Russia, most foreign works were performed at first. Later, a number of outstanding opera composers such as Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, the father of Russian opera, emerged, such as Rimsky-Kosa Kov, Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev, etc.
By the middle of the 20th century, opera had almost become a museum art, mostly re-performances of old works and very few new works. The future of opera lies, some writers see it, in opera-like stage plays and other hybrid operatic forms that surprise and surprise audiences; others see it in small operas written for factory and school performances.