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Opera seria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A caricature of a performance of Handels , featuring three of the best-known opera seria singers of their day: on the left, diva in the centre, and art-loving castrato on the right.

Opera seria (plural: opere serie ; usually called or serio ) is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and serious style of that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only became common usage once opera seria was becoming unfashionable, and beginning to be viewed as a historical genre. The popular rival to opera seria was , the comic opera that took its cue from the improvisatory .

Italian opera seria (invariably to Italian ) was produced not only in but also in , , and other , even in , and other countries. Opera seria was less popular in France, where the national genre of was preferred. Popular composers of opera seria included , , , , , and in the second half of the 18th century , , and .

Opera seria built upon the conventions of the High Baroque era by developing and exploiting the da capo aria, with its A-B-A form. The first section presented a theme, the second a complementary one, and the third a repeat of the first with ornamentation and elaboration of the music by the singer. As the genre developed and arias grew longer, a typical opera seria would contain not more than thirty musical movements.

A typical opera would start with an instrumental overture of three movements (fast-slow-fast) and then a series of recitatives containing dialogue interspersed with arias expressing the emotions of the character, this pattern only broken by the occasional duet for the leading amatory couple. The recitative was typically secco : that is, accompanied only by continuo (harpsichord or cello). At moments of especially violent passion secco was replaced by stromentato recitative, where the singer was accompanied by the entire body of strings. After an aria was sung, accompanied by strings and oboe (and sometimes with horns or flutes), the character usually exited the stage, encouraging the audience to applaud. This continued for three acts before concluding with an upbeat chorus, to celebrate the jubilant climax. The leading singers each expected their fair share of arias of varied mood, be they sad, angry, heroic or meditative.

The dramaturgy of opera seria largely developed as a response to French criticism of what were often viewed as impure and corrupting librettos. As response, the Rome-based sought to return Italian opera to what they viewed as neoclassical principles, obeying the dramatic Unities of Aristotle and replacing immoral plots, such as s for , with highly moral narratives that aimed to instruct, as well as entertain. However, the often tragic endings of classical drama were rejected out of a sense of decorum: early writers of opera seria librettos such as felt that virtue should be rewarded and shown triumphant. The spectacle and ballet so common in French opera were banished.

The age of opera seria corresponded with the rise to prominence of the , often prodigiously gifted male singers who had undergone castration before puberty in order to retain a high, powerful or voice backed by decades of rigorous musical training. They were cast in heroic male roles, alongside another new breed of operatic creature, the . The rise of these star singers with formidable technical skills spurred composers to write increasingly complex vocal music, and many operas of the time were written as vehicles for specific singers. Of these the most famous is perhaps , whose debut in 1722 was guided by . Though Farinelli did not sing for Handel, his main rival, , did.

Opera seria acquired definitive form early during the 1720s. While and had paved the way, the genre only truly came to fruition due to and later composers. Metastasios career began with the Gli Orti Esperidi (The Gardens of the ). , (much later to be s master), set the work to music, and the success was so great that the famed Roman prima donna , , La Romanina, sought out Metastasio, and took him on as her protégé. Under her wing, Metastasio produced libretto after libretto, and they were rapidly set by the greatest composers in Italy and Austria, establishing the transnational tone of opera seria : , , , , , and . After 1730 he was settled in Vienna and turned out more librettos for the imperial theater, until the mid 1740s: Adriano , , , , , , , , and what he regarded as his finest libretto, . For the librettos, Metastasio and his imitators customarily drew on dramas featuring classical characters from antiquity bestowed with princely values and morality, struggling with conflicts between love, honour and duty, in elegant and ornate language that could be performed equally well as both opera and non-musical drama. On the other hand, Handel, working far outside the mainstream genre, set only a few Metastasio libretti for his London audience, preferring a greater diversity of texts.

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