In the modern American imagination, opera is separate from popular culture. Dominated by a repertory of works in foreign languages (especially French, Italian, and German), limited by expensive ticket prices, and often presenting historic works, opera seems elitist and rarified. However, for a lengthy period—at least 1810 to 1900—opera played an important role in Western popular culture.
Opera’s popularity was caused by several factors. (1) An international standard repertoire developed, driven by the repertoire in Paris and Italy, and spread by Italian émigré musicians. (Italy did not become a nation-state until 1859, so musicians often left Italy to pursue the opportunities only found in an imperial capital such as Vienna, Paris, or London). (2) Opera increasingly turned away from conventional middle-class topics and instead focused on melodramatic and shocking plots which appealed to general audiences. (3) Opera became fully integrated into a global music industry that relied on the sale of printed arrangements of songs. (4) Opera was increasingly governed by a set of generic conventions that lent all its music a readily identifiable character.
Cultural elements
Composers of successful operas enjoyed significant profits and celebrity status. Rossini, for example, practically retired from composition by the age of forty, as he had become rich enough to support a comfortable lifestyle. Meyerbeer, whose operas dominated the Parisian stage from the 1830s to the early 1910s, cultivated relationships with members of the press and may have been the first musician to give press conferences. Verdi, who was one of the best known composers of Italian opera in the later nineteenth century, invested heavily in land and joined the Italian parliament.
Musicians in government might seem strange, especially since musicians were working-class people on the whole, but opera and politics had long been intertwined. European governments often supported opera theaters: opera entertained the public. Many civic governments actively censored the texts of the operas for fear of inciting public unrest.[1]
Opera composers faced a basic problem: how could one create music that had a real level of popular appeal, one that would create profits for the theaters, the composers, and performers? And what type of music would achieve that goal?
Nineteenth-century opera composers gradually turned toward serious topics. This trend loosely corresponds to the Romantic Movement, particularly as found in the works of popular novelists such as Victor Hugo. Vincenzo Bellini summed up something of the artistic moment in a letter to an inexperienced poet:
Carve into your head…[an opera] must draw tears, terrify people, make them die, through song…Musical artifice kills the effect of the situations, still worse is poetic artifice in a drama for music; poetry and music, in order to make an effect, require naturalness and nothing more…if the heart is moved, one will always be right, even in the face of many, many worthless words.[2]
Sometimes the plots of these operas rely on intentionally upsetting scenarios, such as mother who burns her own child in a fireplace, a woman who has had children with a soldier from an occupying army, or a woman who is forced into an arranged marriage and murders her husband.[3]
The best known of these operas never have left the modern repertory. Yet they were long denied entry into the scholarly canon of music history. Unlike abstract symphonic music, these operas have tear-jerking plots combined with catchy tunes and vocal acrobatics. They’re simultaneously disturbing and exhilarating, realistic and campy, and their plots constantly return to sex, violence, and the suffering of women. They are, in other words, deeply embedded in their cultural and economic contexts.
Opera’s formal principles: the lyric prototype, double aria, and duet form
As the nineteenth century continued, vocal music was increasingly written out in more detail, and singers were expected to improvise less. Like modern pop music, Italian opera relied on a similar set of standard forms.
The first of these is usually called the lyric prototype in English. Melodies from Italian opera are usually structured in four phrases, all of the same length—usually four or eight measures per phrase—with at least one repeated phrase. In other words, patterns such as AABB (two unique phrases, each repeated), AABC (three unique phrases, the first repeated), or AABA (two unique phrases, with the third contrasting with the rest) were common.
Here is a basic example from the popular opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (the Barber of Seville) by Gioachino Rossini (1813). This aria depicts Rosina (music and score here, text and translation here), reflecting on her love for the mysterious Lindoro (really a nobleman in disguise). The vocal melody appears from 0:45–1:42, and is divided into four phrases of four measures long, in the pattern AA’BB’ (A’ and B’ refer to variations). There is a brief section that is sung on repeated pitches—this is called parlato or speech-like style—and then part of the original tune comes back. Note that the singer doesn’t sing the music exactly as written, but adds a variety of ornaments—some of them certainly rehearsed, others perhaps created on the spur of the moment. (This type of elaborate, heavily ornamented singing is called coloratura).
The second half of the track is faster, and has a new tune—the tune we’ve just heard won’t come back. Linking two songs for the same character together like this is another convention: the “double aria.” The following table illustrates this larger form, while the bottom row shows the words that reflect the start of each section in our example.
| Scena OPTIONAL | Cantabile | Tempo di mezzo OPTIONAL | Cabaletta |
| *Dialogue or solo reflection to set up the scene *Does NOT use the lyric prototype | *Slow song *Lyric prototype used *Can have an instrumental intro | *Transition, sometimes in dialogue with another character *Can be in recitative | *Fast(er) song *Lyric prototype used *Can have an instrumental intro |
| N/A | Una voce poco fa, etc. | N/A | Io sono docile, etc. |
The basic concept—a slow cantabile followed by a faster cabaletta—serves musical and dramatic purposes: it allows the character on stage to reflect on an issue (the slow section) and reach a decision (in the fast section), and it allows the singer opportunities for all kinds of vocal effects, especially in the fast section.
The second half of “Una voce poco fa” presents a new melody based on the lyric prototype starting at 3:05. This second melody, beginning on the words “Io sono docile” (I am well-behaved), is anything but predictable. It opens with an AA’B pattern (the lines beginning Io sono docile/sono obediente/mi lascio regere), but then what would be the last phrase (ma se mi toccano) sparks a long extended section as Rosina describes all the tricks she will play if she doesn’t get what she wants. The music, in other words, doesn’t follow the expected form, just as Rosina herself doesn’t follow the rules.
A similar form is used for duets between characters: as can be seen through Verdi’s opera La traviata (1853) (link here). As duets are the dramatic core of an opera, it’s important to be able to put the musical form in its dramatic context.
This opera tells the story of Violetta, a sex worker who falls in love with one of her customers, Alfredo.[4] They elope together but family obligations and pride lead them to break up. The lovers reconcile just before Violetta dies of tuberculosis, literally gasping for breath on stage in a heartbreaking scene. (Tuberculosis was widely considered to be a sexually transmitted disease in the nineteenth century).[5]
This affecting story is naturally told through long, extended duets which function somewhat like the double aria form: there is a slow aria for the two singers (a largo) and a fast aria (a stretta). I’ve put in timings for the reconciliation duet from Act III of La traviata in the bottom line. These are separated by dialogue sections, as follows:
| Scena OPTIONAL | Tempo d’attacco | Largo | Tempo di mezzo | Stretta |
| Recitative | *Rapid exchange of dialogue *modulates | *Slow aria *Stable key *Lyric prototype | *Rapid exchange of dialogue *Usually interrupts the mood of the Largo | *Fast aria *Stable key *Lyric prototype |
| An unexpected visitor | The lovers reunite | Violetta feels ill | They realize her death is inevitable | |
| NA | 1:38:00 | 1:39:31 | 1:43:00 | 1:44:46 – 1:46:21 |
Notice that in both the largo and stretta, each singer gets a verse of the melody, and then the two singers sing in harmony. This little convention allows each singer to display their skill and each character to express their perspective. Also note the dramatic use of the low brass in the tempo di mezzo around 1:43:50-1:44:20—trombones were associated with funerals in this period, and this is the moment at which Violetta realizes she will not recover.
Verdi did not invent duet form, although he refined it. The whole thing was so common that it’s become known by the Italian phrase solita forma, meaning “standard form.” Essentially, forms like this allowed composers to integrate melodic-centered writing (the largo and stretta) into a drama without making the plot stand still. Solita forma thus furthered both the drama and the music, gave the singers plenty of opportunities to show their skills, and provided the type of emotional spectacle that kept audiences coming back for more.
[1] For example, the opera La muette de Portici helped inspire revolutionary unrest in Belgium (1830).
[2] Bellini to Carlo Pepoli, quoted in Pierlugi Petrobelli, Music in the Theater: Essays on Verdi and Other Composers, p. 168.
[3] Il trovatore (1853); Norma (1831); Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).
[4] Violetta is a “courtesan,” meaning that she had middle- and upper-class clients, and did not work for a pimp.
[5] Verdi wanted the opera staged in contemporary costumes, but agreed to stage it in 17th-century dress to get past the censors.
Matthew Franke's Music History Course Notes 