Opera buffa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opera buffa (a form of comic opera), also known as Commedia in musica or Commedia per musica, is a genre of opera. It developed in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, and from there its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy.
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[edit] History
In the history of operatic development, Opera buffa formed as a response to the stylistic characteristics (and wanton excesses) of the opera seria style. Opera buffa was, in part, intended to transform opera into a genre that the common man could relate to more easily. Whereas opera seria was a lavish entertainment that was both made for and depicted kings and nobility, opera buffa was made for and depicted common people with more common problems.
Comic characters and situations, usually involving servants, had been a part of opera seria until the early 18th century, when comic opera, or "opera buffa", began to emerge as a separate genre. At first, comic operas were composed as short, one-act interludes that were performed in between acts of opera seria. Such an interlude was known as an intermezzo, and formed the precursor to the full-fledged comic opera that would develop later in the 18th century. La serva padrona by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), is the one intermezzo still performed with any regularity today, and provides an excellent example of the style.
Apart from Pergolesi, the first major composers of opera buffa were Nicola Logroscino, Baldassare Galuppi and Alessandro Scarlatti, all of them based in Naples or Venice.
[edit] Popularity as a goal
Popularity was the writers' intention, so these "experiments" (as they were called by resisting formalist musicians) also had intelligible vocal content. This is in contrast with traditional music that, after Gregorian Chant, had passed to rigid formal schemes extended in Latin or in German, never comprehensible for the general public. Abandoning these languages for the more friendly Italian and French, recitative instead broke that habit (which also rendered music an exclusive interest for certain cultural communities, and not even all of them). The public was finally able to decipher the words that singers pronounced, the story beyond the music was intelligible. It was a relevant movement toward laïcal themes "de-sacralised" music, allowing acceptance of a concept of "music for mere entertainment".
Most of these facts regard opera in general, but opera buffa in particular. It is indeed very difficult to adopt a formalist scheme for a classification of opera buffa, since no one would ever deny the serious content and value of some among the best known works that are usually ascribed to its kind, even when they declaratively are a "Dramma giocoso" rather than expressedly an "opera buffa", and we generally include them all in "opera". Any distinctive element has therefore to be considered in a relative proportion, in comparison with the many singularities that each work showed.
Certainly, while opera seria dealt with mythical subjects such as gods and ancient heroes, and only episodically contained comic scenes, Opera buffa had those scenes as its most important part, and sometimes the reason for the opera itself. Music was going in the direction of public, so what could be more appropriated than themes and stories that common people could have enjoyed? Comic stories in opera were the final translation (for the times) of music for entertainment.
Other important details and characteristics are used to differentiate opera buffa from opera seria. The traditional model for opera seria had three acts, dealt with serious subjects in mythical settings as stated above and only used high voices. This meant that there were no basses or baritones used anywhere in the opera. Most opera seria was written to include the "castrati" meaning men who were castrated before going through puberty so as to retain their high voices from boyhood. In contrast, the model that generally held for opera buffa was having four acts, dealing with comic scenes and situations as earlier stated and using the full range of voices. This led to the creation of the "basso buffo" which became a staple character in opera buffa. The basso buffo was a low-voiced male who was the center of most of the comic action. Many of his arias and solos are very fast-paced and have numerous leaps between notes to add comic effect. A well-known basso buffo part is Leporello from Mozart's Don Giovanni.
In some of the opere buffa, a language was used that the lower class would relate to, often in the local dialect, and used caricatures that were often found in Italian commedia dell'arte.
It is sometimes affirmed that in opera buffa musical content is often simpler, maybe poorer, limited in length and in fantasy, and these would be sufficient reasons not to include it in the higher genres. Nevertheless, the now discussed genius of Mozart didn't miss the chance of giving us a masterpiece Le nozze di Figaro, or perhaps two with Don Giovanni, and was followed by pretty much all the major composers. And it must not be forgotten that instruments and voices were developed within this musical area and later accepted for other compositions too, as the Puccini's basso buffo in Tosca.
The type of comedy could vary, and the range was great: from Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 1816 which was purely comedic, to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in 1786 which added drama and pathos. The genre declined in the late 19th century, and it is often considered that Verdi's Falstaff, in 1893 was the last of the Opera buffa.
Some authors have advanced the idea that one of the important aspects of opera buffa would be that it imposed the attention on the audience, rather than "on conservatories", and this helped the greater opera too to milden its melodies in order to be more easily and widely accepted. Also, it is said that opera buffa was a sort of demonstration of the concrete possibility of breaking rigid rules, yet consolidated, that before were considered unchangeable. Moreover, some critics usually recall the famous insertions of popular themes (i.e. choruses and voices in Bizet's Carmen, as well as the tarantella in Tchaikovsky's all-musical Capriccio Italiano) as different examples on different fields of the constant need for musicians to get out of formalism, to let everyday life enter music, after the essential lesson of opera buffa.
On an external side, French Encyclopédistes considered opera buffa "à l'Italienne" a positive response to the imperative schemes then used, and made it become a sort of symbol of compositive freedom.
[edit] Sources
Opera buffa by Piero Weiss and Julian Budden, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
[edit] See also
| Opera Genres |
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Ballad opera • Dramma giocoso • Género chico • Grand Opera • Opéra-ballet • Opera buffa • Opéra bouffe • Opéra bouffon • Opéra comique • Opéra féerie • Opera semiseria • Opera seria • Operetta • Pastorale héroïque • Savoy opera • Semi-opera • Singspiel • Tragédie en musique • Verismo • Zarzuela |
