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79
CHAPTERfi22 Performing Grief: Purcell and Early Opera
2. from palace to public, widespread entertainment
3. first public opera house, Venice
4. accompanying orchestra ensemble became
standard
5. Italian- style opera spread throughout Eu rope
6. turn of 18th century, popu lar in Western
Eu rope
a. rejected in France; national style, court ballet
and classical tragedy traditions
III. Opera in England
A. Masque: stage plays
1. vocal and instrumental music with poetry and
dance
2. popu lar among aristocracy
3. Commonwealth (1649–60): stage plays forbidden
by Puritans
a. plays set to music presented as “concerts”
B. Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
1. En glish court musician: composer, organist, and
singer
2. style: assimilated Italian, French, and En glish
styles
3. output: masques and operas, sacred and secular
vocal music, instrumental music
C. Dido and Aeneas
1. presented in girls’ school in London
2. based on episode in Virgil’s Aeneid, ancient
Roman epic
a. compressed plot, audience familiar with story
3. Dido’s Lament: power ful model for female
grief
4. main characters:
a. Aeneas: adventuring hero
b. Dido: queen of Carthage
c. Belinda: Dido’s serving maid
OUTLINE
I. The Components of Opera
A. Opera: most impor tant new genre of the Baroque era
1. large- scale sung drama
2. vocal and instrumental music, poetry, acting,
scenery, costumes
3. strong emotions through music, “hyper- reality”
B. Principal components:
1. recitative: declamatory vocal style
a. imitates, emphasizes natu ral inections of speech
b. accumulates tension in the action
c. moves plot and action of opera forward
2. aria: lyrical song
a. highly emotional, character dwells on intense
emotion
b. action is frozen, release of tension in the action
c. often sung out of opera context
3. ensemble numbers: duets, trios, quartets
4. chorus: backs up solo voice, comments on action
5. orchestra: sets mood
a. overture: orchestral introduction
b. sinfonias: interludes between scenes
6. libretto: text or script of the opera
a. earliest librettos: my thol ogy, epic poetry,
ancient history
b. librettist and composer: reections on human
character, interactions
II. Early Opera in Italy
A. Outgrowth of Re nais sance theatrical traditions
1. royal weddings, ceremonial occasions
2. lavish spectacles, scenic displays
B. Spread of opera
1. Claudio Monteverdi: early Italian opera composer
a. Orfeo (1607), The Coronation of Poppea (1642)
sections of sinfonias, arias, choruses, and ballets. Review
with students the stop- time and clock- time functions of
these diverse components. Here are some representative
examples:
Sinfonia (overture): opening toccata
Recitative: “In questo lieto fortunato giorno,” Act I
Aria: “Vi ricorda o boschi ombrosi,” Act II
Chorus and ballet: “Lasciate i monti, lasciate i fonte,”
Act I
2. After reviewing the definitions of aria and ground
bass, play the opening instrumental introduction of
Dido’s Lament and ask the class— even though they
know, so far, only that this piece is a lament—if they
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. The final scene (Dido’s Lament) from Purcell’s Dido and
three or four per for mances. Which do you find most
effective and compatible with the emotions of Queen
Dido at this par tic u lar moment of the story?
2. Despite the popularity of Italian opera during the
Baroque era, some critics found it distasteful and uncon-
Saint- Évremond:
“Another thing in opera so contrary to nature, that I
cannot be reconciled to it . . . is the singing of the whole
tant affairs of life.”
How do you respond to Saint- Évremond’s attack on opera?
Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
5. plot summary:
a. Aeneas is shipwrecked at Carthage
b. Aeneas and Dido fall in love
c. gods command Aeneas to found Rome
d. grief- stricken, Dido takes her own life
e. ames from funeral pyre light way for
Aeneas’s sh ip
D. LG 12: Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Act III, Opening
and Lament (1689)
1. Act III, Opening
a. style of a hornpipe, Scotch snap (short- long
rhythm)
b. sung responsorially, solo voice and men’s
b. accompanied by continuo only
3. aria: “When I am laid in earth,” Dido’s Lament
a. lyrical aria in two sections (A- A- B- B)
b. slow triple meter
c. sung over eleven statements of ground bass
i. descending bass line: symbolic of grief in
OVERVIEW
Chapter22 introduces early opera, its musical and textual
components, and the beginnings of this art form in
seventeenth- century Italy. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is the
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
2. To understand the birth of opera in Italy and its subse-
tional depth of Baroque opera in general
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Introduce the musical components of Baroque opera by
Performing Grief: Purcell and Early Opera | 81
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
conveyed? What role does music play in making the emotions
more intense than “ordinary”? How does the music reinforce
(Spoiler alert!) This dramatic scene from HBO’s Game of
Thrones, Season 5, features Daenerys’s escape from the Great
Pit of Meereen on the back of her dragon Drogon. The musi-
cal cues are most effective in the way that they appear after
long periods of silence, during which the Sons of the Harpy
sometimes difficult to detect (e.g., the arioso style). Reinforce
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fanelli, Jean Grundy. Opera for Every one: A Historical, Social,
Artistic, Literary, and Musical Study. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
