Venetian Opera

The first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637.  The most important feature of Venetian opera was the fact that it completely depended on making money from the public.  Florentine and Roman operas were paid for by the ruling class.  

Musical style traits for opera in seventeenth century Venice were

(a) separation of recitative and aria,

(b) use of instrumental ritornelli,

(c) very little chorus or ballet to control expenses,

(d) bel canto singing, "Beautiful singing," smooth melodic arias in triple meter over simplified harmonies, separated from recitative, dominated opera oratorio and cantata.

(e) elaborate stage machinery necessary for the miraculous plot conclusions, "deus ex machine." 

 

(f)  women in the cast, and

 

(g)  no separation of comedy and trajedy.

The bel canto aria was fully established in Didone (1641) by Francesco Cavalli (1602-76), also Giasone (1649), La Calisto (1651) and Ercole Amante (1662).





 
Early examples of this school were the final operas of Monteverdi: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (1641) and La Incoronazione di Poppea (1642).  These two operas will appear in modern day productions.

For me a famous modern production of a Venetian style opera is Francesco Cavalli's La Calisto, a work from 1651.

I very much recommend the René Jacobs version of this opera available on the film below.  It is available on YouTube in audio only, but you may buy it on Amazon with full staging.

These people are up to no good. I have a very deep feeling that this production will tell you more about Venetian opera than anything I could possibly write, or anything you will read in textbooks. Gods and goddesses come and go on bizarre stage machinery. Many claims of chastity are proclaimed, but none are actually maintained. Giove starts out as a baritone, and then makes a fabulous change over to falsetto in his disguise as Diana. There is wonderful coloratura throughout and a complete utter lack of pomposity.

Here is a different production with more famous singers and rather bad video.  

 

Viva Italia.

Monteverdi's Poppea

This film from Glyndebourne in 2008 with Danielle de Niese is my favorite.

Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea comes at the beginning of commercial opera in Venice. If we have no royalty footing the bill, we must turn to operas which might interest the masses: namely operas about sex and violence, the same things that interest us.

The sexual ambiguity of the casting is probably also authentic to the original.

The incredible Alice Coote is Nerone, originally a castrato, putting the role back into the treble where it belongs. Women definitely appeared on stage in Venice, and one of them sang Poppea.

Everything is up to date with 2008, including the staging. The prologue takes place in the audience. The first scene is a bed. Then we have a few books scattered around the floor for Seneca’s house; then a bathtub, first for Nero to kill Lucano in, then for Ottavia; then a scene at the beach created with a large drape and a picnic basket; lots of black men’s suits; in short, modern minimalism.

Of course the star of the show is actually Emmanuelle Haïm and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In the extras it is explained that the two extant scores for this work consist of the voice parts and a figured bass. For any modern performance what the orchestra plays is completely invented in the modern era. The orchestration for this performance conforms to current standards for original instrument orchestras. For my ears the recorders and tambourines sound almost medieval. 

The playing is passionate and expressive. We are still in the period of opera where most of the music is Florentine Camerata recitative. There are outbursts of incredible coloratura and instrumental interludes for variety, but the endless recitative can get occasionally a bit tedious. Try to imagine you’re Italian.

All of Monteverdi is pre-tonal, but he clearly has a personal style for how the chords progress from one to the other that is quite beautiful. He is a very great master.

Yes, there’s plenty of sex, actually surprisingly a lot. Also violence. If sex and/or violence can be going on while this dialog is being sung, it pretty much is. Both men and women are in drag. There is talk about virtue and a character who dies for it. That alone has to be unique. On top of all of that we have the gorgeous Danielle de Niese.  Danielle and Alice's voices are well paired.

Here is a film of a different version 

    

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