Italian Opera Conventions

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The history of opera is the history of compromises evolved at different periods in different countries. It is not a matter of one set of conventions being superior to another, though every opera- lover has a right to his preferences. Most opera lovers will adjust himself according to whether he is attending a performance of L’incoronazione di poppea or Fidelio. The world of opera has many mansions, and the listener who enters all of them enhances their opera experience. The essential prerequisite of course is that the composer and his collaborators should achieve the highest possible standard within the convention they are employing. It is found that the greatest artist expand this convention to the upmost. Examples of such great artists would …show more content…
The traditions of opera seria included one character dominating the stage at a time, holding a fixed gesture while declaiming a speech or aria. C.W. Gluck and the poet R. Calzabigi collaborated in an effort to change the old traditions of Italian opera by shifting the focus from the singer. Gluck aimed to confine music to its true function of serving the poetry by expressing the natural tones of the human affections and passions. In Act II Scene 2 of Gluck and Calzabigi’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck unifies diverse elements of chorus, dance, and solo in one musical structure. The first ballet of the furies begins with emphatic unisons on E-flat major which quickly modulates through chromaticism to the key of aggression, C minor. A brief harp passage in C minor (m. 21) signals Orfeo’s entrance into the underworld as he plays his lyre. The furies sing angrily as they block Orfeo’s path to Euridice, expressing menace in a brief chorus (m.24) followed by another ballet (m.34) also in C minor. There is then another extended chorus (m.51) and a reprise of the opening ballet in E-flat major (m.91) as the furies circle around Orfeo and try to scare him off. Gluck’s use of suddenly loud dynamics, tremolos and tirades in the strings, and chromatic motion make the Furies seem threatening. However, the use of the major key give the Furies a certain nobility with their firm unisons and sweeping arpeggios leading up to and during Orfeo’s first air. Gluck prided himself on the simplicity of his melodies, sparseness of embellishments, and economy of melodic and textual repetition, all of which enhance the central action of the drama. The choral interruptions during Orfeo’s air express the argument between him and the Furies. Its appearance in the beginning of the act establishes the nature of the opposition around the key of C minor. Their gradual submission to the power of Orfeo’s pleading is established in
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