OPERA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

I.

PON the musical side, and in one instance upon the dramatic side as well, there were three great forces in opera during this century. The first of these in order of time was Karl Heinrich Graun (1701-1759). A native of Dresden, he was educated there, and having early a beautiful voice became treble singer to the town council—a curious name for a position in the leading church. He profited by the instruction of the official directors of the choir and the church, Petzold and Schmidt, and very early he was an enthusiastic student of the compositions of the Hamburg director, Keiser, whose style influenced his own in his later work. Lotti, the Italian composer, who conducted a series of performances in Dresden with a picked company of Italian singers, was another force operative in his development. He early commenced to write cantatas and motettes for the seminary, of which he was a member, all of which show traces of the Italian influences. In particular his biographer speaks of a Passion cantata, in which an opening chorus, "Lasset uns aufsehen auf Jesum," is singularly forcible for the work of a boy of fifteen. His first entrance upon operatic work was as tenor, when he was scarcely twenty-four years of age. Being dissatisfied with the music of his part (written by one Schurmann, a local director), he substituted other airs of his own composition, which were so popular that he was commissioned to write an opera, and was appointed assistant director. His first opera, "Polliodoro," was successful, and he was commissioned to write five others, some in Italian, some in German. Besides these he composed several cantatas for church use, and several instrumental pieces. In 1735 he was invited to the residence of the crown prince of Prussia, afterward Frederick the Great. This powerful potentate remained Graun's friend and patron until his death. Here, among other works, he composed fifty Italian cantatas, usually consisting of two airs with recitative. In 1740 Frederick came to the throne, and gave Graun the post of musical director, with a salary of $2,000. Selecting his singers in Italy, where his singing was very highly appreciated, he returned to Berlin and assumed the duties of his position. Here he composed no less than twenty-seven operas, the last being in 1756, all in the Italian style, in so far as a German might master it, and all making the singer the prime person of consideration, and the listener next. The poet took whatever of opportunity these two might not have needed. His best talent both as singer and as composer lay in his power of expressing emotion in adagios. In this respect he had, no doubt, more influence upon the development of the lyric slow movement than he has generally been credited with. Later in his life he turned once more to church music, and in his cantatas, and especially in his oratorio, "Der Tod Jesu" ("The Death of Jesus"), a Passion oratorio, he made a distinct impression upon the practices of his successors. In Germany this work is held in nearly the same affection as the "Messiah," of Händel, in England. Graun's influence upon the later course of opera, besides the adagio aria already mentioned, lay principally in his accompaniments, which were often strong and highly dramatic.

Fig. 60.

The great operatic mind of this century, and one of the greatest of all time, was that of Christopher Willibald von Gluck (1714-1785). By the middle of the eighteenth century the influence of the Italian composers, helped out by the superficial German composers, such as Graun and Hasse, had reduced the Italian opera to a collection of mere showpieces of singing, the arias having indeed an excuse in the story, but the action of the drama had been lost entirely, owing to the long stretches of time needed for these elaborate arias and the recalls to which they inevitably gave rise. During these pauses the action ceased entirely, as we see at the present day in many Italian operas still current—as in the "mad scene" from "Lucia," for instance. In that scene where everything ought to be wild excitement, the chorus singers, representing the relatives and friends of poor Lucia, stand around while she sings long cadenzas with the flute, in such trying relationships as would test the vocal technique of a sane person. In the time of Gluck this abuse had reached about the same height, and to make the matter less bearable, the Italian composers had not yet attained the art of expressing sentiment simply and directly, but were intent upon sweet-sounding trivialities calculated to please the groundlings, but of little or no relation to the drama. Gluck sought to restore the ideal of the original inventors of opera, with such unconscious modification as had been made meanwhile. But before undertaking this he had to undergo the usual long and severe apprenticeship of reformers. In his time the rules for a composer had become well settled, every personage must have his or her aria immediately upon their first entrance. The character of the arias had been well settled. There was the aria cantabile, a flowing melody, very lightly accompanied, affording opportunity for embellishments; the aria di portamento, introducing long swelling notes, affording the singer opportunity for illustrating his length of breath and sustaining power. And so on with several other forms of aria. The part of hero, whether male or female, was assigned to a man, an artificial soprano, although it might be a hero—like Hercules, for example. The subject had to be classical, and the dénouement happy. There were invariably six principal characters, three men and three women. The first woman was always a high soprano; the second or third a contralto; the first man, always the hero of the piece, an artificial soprano. The second man might be an artificial soprano or a contralto. The third man might be a bass or tenor. But it was not at all unusual to confide all the male parts to artificial sopranos. Each principal character claimed the right to sing an aria in each of the three acts of the drama. Each scene ended with an aria of some one of the classes already mentioned, but no two arias of the same class were permitted to follow each other. Gluck was the reformer destined by the fates to rectify some of these artificial traditions. He was educated at the Jesuit seminary in Komotow, and later in Prague. He was engaged in the musical forces of Prince Melzi, who took him to Italy, where he became a pupil of the famous Italian composer and teacher, Sammartini. To this fact, no doubt, is due his early attachment to the Italian opera.

Here he wrote several operas, all more or less in the Italian style as he had been taught it, and as he heard it upon every hand. His first work, "Artaserse," the book by Metastasio, was produced with such success in Milan, in 1741, that he presently wrote several others for other Italian theaters. For Venice in 1741, "Demetrio," and "Ipermestra"; for Cremona, "Artamene" (1743); for Turin, "Alessandro nelle Indie" (1745); for Milan, "Demofoonte," "Siface" and "Fedra" (1742-1744); in all, eight operas in five years. None of these works in their complete form are now in existence; fragments alone have been preserved. If any inference is justified from these extracts the style throughout was that of the Italian opera of the day.

The fame of Gluck had now extended to England, and in 1745 he was invited to London to compose operas for the Haymarket theater. He came and wrote the year following (1746) "La Caduta de Giganti," after which he produced the Cremona opera. Händel assisted at the production of these two operas, and is reported to have said that the author knew no more of counterpoint than a pig. Naumann thinks that Gluck learned much from hearing Händel's oratorios in England, and that his subsequent deeper and nobler dramatic style was formed upon these great models. The two operas produced in London made but a moderate success, and Gluck was commissioned to write a "pasticcio" or medley of styles. He did so, imitating all styles according to the best of his ability, but it made no better effect than the works before it. This was the turning point in his career. The failure mortified him deeply, and led him to reflect concerning the nature of dramatic music. On his way back to Vienna he passed through Paris, where he heard certain operas of Rameau, which also influenced his style later. The declamation and the dramatic treatment of the recitative were the points upon which his attention principally dwelt. Upon reaching Vienna he wrote a number of instrumental pieces, bearing the name of symphonies, pieces which in no way differed from the conventional music of the day. The Haydn symphony had not yet been invented, and the form was wholly indeterminate. There was an opera in this year; also a love affair. Gluck was deeply in love with the beautiful and charming daughter of a rich merchant, who upon no account would consent to her marriage with a musician. So Gluck went back to Italy, and there he wrote another opera, rather better in quality than his previous ones. Early in 1750 the inexorable parent died, and late in the year Gluck married the woman of his choice, who made him a model wife, being educated above the average of her times, and entering into his ideals and aspirations with ever ready sympathy. Her wealth also placed the composer in an easy position as regarded the world, and permitted him to devote himself to study. For nearly ten years following Gluck produced occasionally an opera, but as yet the man had not arrived; all these were early and apprentice works. At length in 1762 was produced his first master work, "Orpheus and Eurydice," the libretto having been written by the imperial councillor Calzabigi. The novelty of this great work was not above the appreciation of the Viennese public of the day. "Orpheus" made a decided success. Its principal innovations consisted in its more powerful instrumentation, the introduction of a chorus having an integral part in the movement of the piece, and in the highly dramatic treatment of the second act, where Orpheus descends into the lower world to seek his lost love. Nevertheless, the composer had not reached true self-consciousness. A retrogression followed. He went back to Metastasio, and in conjunction with him produced three or four small operas, all in his earlier style. But in 1767 he returned to Calzabigi, and upon a libretto of his wrote "Alceste" which was produced at the Vienna opera house in 1767 with vastly more success than "Orpheus." The story is that of the tragedy of Euripides, and the music is exclusively severe and tragic. The public was divided concerning the merit of the new work. Already the notion of a music of the future had been conceived, and the notion suggested that only in a more self-forgetful future would a work of such severity and of such lofty aim find acceptance.