Origin of Opera—Melody in music—The first opera, Dafne—Monteverde's advances—Early opera orchestration—Gluck's reformed style in Orfeo and Alceste—A complete structure—Verdi's starting point—Wagner's methods—Verdi's early operas—Don Carlos and an altered style—Its reception—A Third, or matured period method—Its characteristics—Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff—Verdi's disciples—Opera as a social need past and present—Its reasonable decline—Verdi's ultimate position—His lasting works.
To perfectly understand Verdi it is necessary to know something of the origin and development of opera, both as a form and an institution.
The Italian school of music had been a power since 1480-1520, when Pope Julian II. invited Belgian, or Netherlands school, musicians to Italy to take charge of its musical affairs. The first distinguished Italian master was Festa (d. 1545), remarkable for that grace and melody which have ever characterised the Italian school. Palestrina (1514-1594), Magister puerorum at St. Peter's, Rome, followed, and then came the awakening of opera. It was natural that this life should spring from Italy. The sky above, and the earth beneath, constituted a rare cradle of art. Melody in music is paramount; technically it forms the wings that give flight to every movement; without it, music would be a helpless mass, unendurable to consider. Once present, melody carries all before it. This was a perfectly natural growth in Italy, more so than it has ever been found to be in any other country, for the national life, habits, language, and physical conditions all favoured an expression of the mind in the melodically beautiful. In opera, melody was ever the great essential feature in the eyes of the Italians, and although there have been struggles to dislodge, or depose it, the evening of Verdi's career—the culminating point in the history of Italian Opera—furnishes the convincing proof that tune still remains the predominant factor in successful dramatic construction and realisation; for what would be the value of Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, if they had not melody?
Musical authorities accept Dafne, produced in 1594, as the first actual opera. It was the work of a few Florentine literati, who had banded together as a society, with the aim to revive the ancient Greek dramatic style—in fact to restore the theatre of Æschylus and Sophocles. It had words by Rinuccini and music by Peri. The feature of this dramatic-musical novelty was its musica-parlante—a species of monody, or declamation, claimed to be à la Grec. Out of this grew "recitative"—so important an element in vocal music that it is difficult to imagine how the art could exist without it. Song, tune, or melody, whichever name we apply to it, might be, and probably would have been, dispensed with, if all the notions and novelties of the Wagner cult had taken effect; but, recitative must always stand as a connecting link between the chorus and other concerted pieces in the opera.
The orchestral accompaniments to Dafne consisted of a harpsichord, chittarone—which was a sort of guitar—a lyre, and a lute. This meant a scanty orchestra compared with the vast instrumental resources adopted by Meyerbeer, Wagner, and by Verdi himself. When the second opera, Euridice, was produced—this was at Florence in 1600—it contained, for the first time, all the constituents wanting in opera, viz. recitative, air, chorus, and a hidden orchestra.
Opera proper was, therefore, purely an Italian product, which, with all its defects and inadmissibilities, has held its ground for three centuries. If, too, during this long period it has seemed as little more than a luxurious form of amusement for quality people in England, it must be remembered that the great middle class here have tasted it, while the student and amateur have considered and digested the musical stage-play, and found it invested with a noble influence and character that could scarcely fail to elevate, where the ordinary drama might lower the public taste and morals. In Italy the opera is as much the necessary food of the common people as of the aristocracy.
Monteverde (1566-1650) stamped a second period in opera. He invested recitative with greater strength and freedom, and astonished contemporary purists with his audacious orchestral designs. In his Orfeo, produced in 1603, Monteverde incorporated every known instrument, viz. two harpsichords, two lyres, ten violas, three bass violas, two violins, flute, clarions, trombones, guitars or chittaroni, and the organ.
It is easy to realise the almost boundless possibilities of music when it comes to be recognised and manipulated as a medium of expression or impression; while many readers will be familiar with the almost superhuman achievements of the great tone-poets in handling the resources of music to this end—the end and aim of all music worthy the name. It was that prince of Italian harmonists, Monteverde, who took opera to the borders of that almost limitless field, where the great melodists and colourists took it up, making a permanent life art-form and a speaking body from the otherwise lifeless art materials.
Scarlatti (1659-1725) impressed the aria or principal song, from which time melody began to receive that attention which led finally to its being the principal constituent in Italian opera. Lotti, Caldara, Gasparini, Jommelli, Porporo, and Buononcini, who followed, all gave prominence to the soloists at the cost of the chorus and other concerted pieces, thus leading steadily up to the great scenas which Verdi created.