Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a GenreEllen Rosand shows how opera, born of courtly entertainment, took root in the special social and economic environment of seventeenth-century Venice and there developed the stylistic and aesthetic characteristics we recognize as opera today. With ninety-one music examples, most of them complete pieces nowhere else in print, and enlivened by twenty-eight illustrations, this landmark study will be essential for all students of opera, amateur and professional, and for students of European cultural history in general. Because opera was new in the seventeenth century, the composers (most notably Monteverdi and Cavalli), librettists, impresarios, singers, and designers were especially aware of dealing with aesthetic issues as they worked. Rosand examines critically for the first time the voluminous literary and musical documentation left by the Venetian makers of opera. She determines how these pioneers viewed their art and explains the mechanics of the proliferation of opera, within only four decades, to stages across Europe. Rosand isolates two features of particular importance to this proliferation: the emergence of conventions—musical, dramatic, practical—that facilitated replication; and the acute self-consciousness of the creators who, in their scores, librettos, letters, and other documents, have left us a running commentary on the origins of a genre. |
Contents
Gran dicerie e canzonette Recitative and Aria | 245 |
Venetian Conservatism | 248 |
Monteverdi and His Collaborators | 250 |
Busenello and Cavalli | 256 |
Cavalli and Faustini | 260 |
Cavalli and Cicognini | 267 |
Cicogninis Legacy | 275 |
Il diletto Aria Drama and the Emergence of Formal Conventions | 281 |
The Unities | 45 |
Division into Acts | 52 |
Chorus | 54 |
Modern Taste and Ethics | 56 |
Subject Matter | 59 |
Da rappresentare in musica The Rise of Commercial Opera | 66 |
The Beginning of Competition | 77 |
The Scenario and the Libretto | 81 |
The Teatro Novissimo | 88 |
La finta pazza Mirror of an Audience | 110 |
Allimmortalita del nome di Venetia The Serenissima on Stage | 125 |
The Myth of Venice | 126 |
The Reality of Venice | 143 |
La nausea di chi ascolta The Consequences of Success | 154 |
Making Histories | 155 |
Giovanni Faustini Librettist | 169 |
Faustinis Heirs | 175 |
Marco Faustini Impresario | 181 |
Marcos Guerra dei teatri | 184 |
I compositori scenici Librettist and Composer | 198 |
Collaborative Talents | 199 |
Librettists Tribulations | 204 |
Composers Obligations | 209 |
I piu canori cigni e le suavissime sirene The Singers | 221 |
The Wages of Singing | 222 |
The Prima Donna | 227 |
Primi uomini ed altre | 237 |
Singing andor Acting | 243 |
The Bipartite Aria | 285 |
Tripartite Forms | 295 |
Le convenienze teatrali The Conventions of Dramma per musica | 322 |
The Comic Aria | 325 |
The Trumpet Aria | 329 |
The Music Scene | 333 |
The Love Duet | 335 |
Sleep | 338 |
Invocation | 342 |
Madness | 346 |
Il lamento The Fusion of Music and Drama | 361 |
The Recitative Model | 362 |
The Strophic Lament | 367 |
An Emblem of Lament | 369 |
Variations on a Theme | 377 |
Il ritorno dOrfeo The Decline of a Tradition | 387 |
Il volgo tumultuario | 391 |
In Defense of Decorum | 395 |
Ivanovichs History and Criticism | 399 |
Tradition and Revival | 401 |
Librettos | 407 |
Treatises Critical and Historical Accounts | 428 |
Correspondence and Documents | 435 |
Bibliography | 447 |
Musical Examples | 461 |
673 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Alessandro Amor anco Anna Renzi Antonio Antonio Cesti Appendix aria audience Aureli Aureli's Bellerofonte Benedetto Ferrari Bianconi and Walker Bologna Busenello capo Cassiano Cavalli's century Cesti ch'io characters Città Claudio Monteverdi comic composer continued conventions d'Amore Damira Deidamia Doriclea drama Egisto Erismena example fatto Ferrari finta pazza Florence Francesco Cavalli genre Giacomo Torelli Giasone Giovanni e Paolo Giovanni Faustini Giulio Strozzi Grimani I-Vnm Incogniti Ivanovich L'incoronazione di Poppea lament letter librettists libretto lyrical mad scene Marco meter Minato Moisè Novissimo nozze ogni opera opera in Venice Orfeo Ormindo performed Pirrotta poetry preface prologue può quale recitative refrain Ritornello ritorno d'Ulisse Rodope Rome Rosand Sacrati Sartorio scena scenario score season seicento sempre Signor singers singing stage strophes strophic structure style Teatro tempo tetrachord theater Torelli Ulisse Venetian Venetian opera Venezia Venice verisimilitude versi virtù Ziani
Popular passages
Page 9 - This night, having with my Lord Bruce taken our places before we went to the Opera, where comedies and other plays are represented in recitative music, by the most excellent musicians, vocal and instrumental, with variety of scenes painted and contrived with no less art of perspective, and machines for flying in the air, and other wonderful notions; taken together, it is one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent.
Page xxi - I have also been greatly assisted by grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Page 9 - ... variety of scenes painted and contrived with no less art of perspective, and machines for flying in the air, and other wonderful motions ; taken together, it is one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent. The history was, Hercules in Lydia; the scenes changed thirteen times.