It is impossible to understand eighteenth-century opera without considering the work and legacy of Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782). The history of melodrama would have been fundamentally different if this extraordinary poet had not realized the enormous potential of the genre and had not made it a sophisticated venue for the circulation of contemporary cultural ideas and themes throughout Europe. In the course of the eighteenth century, Metastasio's libretti were seen as an unequaled model of style, technique, dramatic tension, and psychological insight. They provided, moreover, philosophical inquiries coupled to a unique command of drama. Metastasio's libretti were set to music by innumerable composers, attracted by the prestige and the literary elegance of his verses, which were regarded as gifted with an innate lyricism. Georg Frideric Handel, Domenico Sarro, Leonardo Vinci, Nicholò Jommelli, Nicholò Piccinni, Johann Adolph Hasse, and, of course, Mozart (whose La clemenza di Tito is among the most powerful settings of Metastasian works testifying how they were still popular in the last decades of the century) are only a small number of the composers among the legions that set Metastasio's libretti. Indeed, in the whole eighteenth century, setting a libretto by Metastasio was the first and ultimate test of distinction and ability for musicians throughout Europe. Even in the nineteenth century his works continued to be valued by artists of the caliber of Beethoven and Schubert and, of course, Rossini, who even set multiple versions of the aria “Mi lagnerò tacendo.”

Instruments and voices

Before the eighteenth century the orchestra rarely accompanied singers in Italian opera. Solo singing in seventeenth-century operas was characteristically accompanied by the continuo group of harpsichord, plucked instruments and bass. The orchestra of bowed strings usually played only when no one was singing: for entrances and exits, between vocal numbers, for dancing and other stage business. Arias accompanied by the continuo group (“continuo arias”) were often followed by a short orchestral ritornello, confirming the final cadence of each stanza and giving the singer a chance to leave the stage at the end. Continuo accompaniment was the “neutral” scoring, whereas accompaniment by the larger orchestra marked an aria or a recitative as special. Sometimes it indicated heightened emotion; sometimes it signified a stereotypical dramatic situation – a royal entrance, a boast or a challenge, a lover's plea, a lament. Around the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, composers began to give orchestral accompaniments to more and more arias, and by the 1720s continuo arias had become rather rare.

The new, more orchestral style of accompaniment was characteristic of operas by composers like Sarri, Vinci, Pergolesi, Leo, and Hasse. Arias by these composers typically begin with an orchestral ritornello; when the voice enters, the orchestra goes on playing along with the continuo. Accompaniment by an orchestra of strings has become the neutral scoring. Now it took something more to mark an aria as special – wind instruments, an instrumental solo, pizzicato, or some other special effect. Recitative was accompanied, as before, primarily by the continuo group, with orchestral accompaniment reserved for special moments.

On the evening of October 6, 1752, a Leipzig theater audience witnessed a momentous occasion in the history of German opera: a performance of Johann Georg Standfuss's newly composed Der Teufel ist los, which was greeted with riotous applause and loud shouting from the crowds. This tumultuous reaction both affirmed the work's success and served to disprove and defy theater critic Johann Christoph Gottsched, who had attempted to remove the work from the stage, primarily with allegations of indecency. Unable to accept public defeat, Gottsched subsequently sparked The Comic War, a lively pamphlet exchange debating the merits and shortfalls of comic opera. The popular acclaim of Der Teufel ist los, however, ensured its presence on German stages well into the 1760s, and by 1770, composer Johann Adam Hiller retrospectively honored Standfuss as the first composer of German comic opera. The aforementioned 1752 Leipzig audience thus witnessed both the inauguration of a German operatic tradition and the very performance that sparked a lengthy document concerning the genre. Although Standfuss's opera certainly stands at the center of the debate, The Comic War is a fascinating document that reveals a wide variety of contemporary theatrical traditions performed across the German territories. In short, Der Teufel ist los is discussed not only as a distinctly German opera, but also as it relates to the Italian, French, and English operatic traditions. For example, The Comic War alleges that the star soprano, Madame Steinbrecher, sang in the Italian bel canto style in a manner similar to the trained singers of the Locatelli travelling troupe.

The primacy of aria

In eighteenth-century opera, the aria was supreme. Although in practice the distinction was less hidebound than the usual later descriptions would imply, most operas were constructed on the principle of strict alternation between passages of action and dialogue in versi sciolti (free verse, usually in a combination of seven- and eleven-syllable lines), set musically as recitative; and passages of reaction for single characters in closed poetic forms, set musically as fully composed, semantically and expressively significant movements with orchestral accompaniment – that is, as arias. Indeed, almost all the concerted vocal numbers were arias (plus the occasional duet and the very occasional trio); although the gradually increasing proportion and importance of ensembles late in the century (especially in comic operas) qualified this high status, it did not abrogate it. (As in most respects, the tragédie lyrique in France was somewhat different; it was characterized by a more nearly fluid alternation among recitative, arioso, and air, with the air shorter and more nearly integrated into the flow, as well as by an emphasis on chorus and ballet that by and large was foreign to opera in Italian.) However, the primacy of the aria was not merely dramaturgical and statistical, but aesthetic as well. It was reflected in historical tradition and strength of conventions, prestige among theorists and aestheticians, care lavished by composers, identification with star performers and the culture of performativity, and interest on the part of audiences.

The central truth of English opera in the eighteenth century – as opposed to opera in England during the same period – is that the genre is not recognizable to those contemporary scholars and aficionados who believe that only all-sung dramatic works can be thus described. “Operas” in London could be long or short, high or low, have as few or as many characters as the playwright or librettist chose, could contain (or not, as fashion dictated) dancing, transformations, and pageants. However, unless an audience was told otherwise – by a particular work being described as “an English opera after the Italian manner,” for example – they would expect spoken dialogue between numbers, not sung recitative, an expectation which would continue well into the nineteenth century. This situation is distressing to those scholars who believe that all operas should aspire to the condition of Figaro or Tristan. It is a delight, however, to others, in particular to those who revel in the flexible nature of the genres that were present on the eighteenth-century London stage, and who do not object to dirtying their hands with this mass of related, often ephemeral, forms which such a scene produced. The dirtying of hands is of course the result of handling the genres; by definition, they are messy round the edges, with their origins not above suspicion, and their substance most frequently established as the result of the commercial concerns of the management.

Opera had a richly textured history in eighteenth-century Spain and its empire, though a relatively small number of fully sung operas in Spanish were produced in the period. In the peninsular capitals, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Cádiz, and in the administrative centers of its colonies, Naples, Palermo, Lima, and Mexico City, operas and musical plays were performed in a variety of situations, public and private, and sponsored by both aristocratic patrons and eager entrepreneurs. The history of opera in this period is intertwined with the history of musical theater, given that opera coexisted with several types of partly sung entertainment (zarzuela, tonadilla escénica, and sainete) and embraced a number of musical styles. The classic Spanish comedia – a three-act, tragicomedic genre that usually included songs in verisimilar situations – was still widely performed in the early 1700s. Indeed, scholars now recognize that its conventions were extremely influential well into the eighteenth century. In part, this influence remained vigorous because the traditional mechanisms for theatrical administration and financing were so well engrained. Public theaters, known as corrales, continued to present spoken theater with almost daily performances for an eager audience, much as they had almost continuously since the opening of the first purpose-built public theaters in Madrid and elsewhere just before 1600.

Introduction

Opera in France was a function of the power of the royal court at Versailles, for as long as the court held power. The right to perform a drama sung all the way through, with recitative, was licensed to one single directeur at a time. He, with any business associates, thereby ran the Paris Opéra on behalf of the monarch and to his own material profit. Thus, from 1700 to about 1755, the main strands of French opera remained courtly, whether they were in genres of tragedy, pastoral, or comedy. As the court waned in general influence and respect, alternative forms of opera waxed stronger: opéra comique with new music instead of popular tunes was developed, and in turn institutionalized. Italian opera was, legally, kept at bay. It was forbidden to import its performance, at least without court assent. But by the 1770s the old mold was cracking. Non-French composers brought new styles to French-language opera with recitative (see Tables 9.1–9.3 below). Then the Revolution broke in 1789 and the monarchy was abolished in 1792. All types of opera became freely performable, and several new theaters showed opera and opéra comique alongside performances in the traditional ex-royal institutions. Yet the traditions of French genres remained intact, even an expression of national pride, ensuring their survival and continuing international circulation into the nineteenth century.

Colliding worlds: the revolutionary impulse

On 28 May 1849, a political refugee named Richard Wagner crossed Lake Constance on a steamer to Switzerland. He had spent most of the previous month in flight or hiding because of his role in an uprising in Dresden that had begun on 3 May and was crushed within four days. Before then, for seven years, he served as Kapellmeister in the Saxon capital; he was now a wanted man. His closest comrades in the revolt, including his musical colleague and friend, August Röckel, were captured and soon condemned to death. (The sentences were not carried out, though these others did serve extended prison sentences.) The revolutionary provisional government had quit Dresden before advancing Prussian and Saxon troops. Most of its leaders, aiming to regroup, made their way to Chemnitz, to the west. The Kapellmeister – who had backed but was not a member of the government – went too, but stopped at a different hotel. Consequently, he did not fall into the trap that awaited the other insurrectionists.

Wagner scurried away, arriving eventually in Weimar where Franz Liszt, who was then rehearsing Tannhäuser, sheltered him. “I found it difficult to tell my friend that I had not left Dresden as Royal Kapellmeister in an entirely regular way,” Wagner recalled. “To tell the truth,” he added, “I had an extremely hazy conception of my relationship to the laws of what was, in the narrower sense, my native country. Had I committed a criminal act according to these laws or not? I couldn't come to any real conclusion about it” (ML 412).

There is a long tradition of identifying Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with Germany and Germany with Die Meistersinger, regarding the work as more than just an opera (or even music drama), but rather the very emblem of a nation. The connection of nation and art is intertwined throughout the history of Die Meistersinger. Three very different examples can serve to illustrate the point. In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche described the Act 1 Prelude as “a truly genuine token of the German soul … This kind of music expresses best what I think of the Germans: they belong to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow – as yet they have no today.” A popular turn-of-the-century operatic guide called Die Meistersinger “the most beautiful, the most German of all operas.” And Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, in a radio address before a 1933 broadcast of the opening Bayreuth festival production of Meistersinger commented that: “Of all [Wagner's] music dramas Die Meistersinger stands out as the most German. It is simply the incarnation of our national identity.” The perennial “German question” (“what is Germany?”) underlies this work, as it does most of Wagner's works, not simply by virtue of the proximity of German unification (1871) to its premiere (1868), but also through the resonance of this event in Wagner's contemporary writings, in the genesis of the work, and especially in its reception.