The Art of Bel Canto
and the Romantic Generation
The bel canto period showcased the power, range and possibilities of the human voice and the idea of "beautiful singing" more than any other style of opera. Historically, the bel canto period of opera lies between the years 1800-1850 and is most often characterized by the works of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. These composers provide a fundamental bridge between operas of the Classical period, namely those by contemporaries of Mozart, and the operas by the giants of the late Romantic period ? Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Richard Strauss. The bel canto period is defined stylistically by the effortless and expressive delivery of tone, a mastery of appropriate musical style and the natural beauty of the voice. These qualities can be attributed not only to performance of bel canto repertoire but lie at the core of the successful interpretation of any opera, no matter the period.
Opera is a magnificent and dazzling explosion of the senses, a daring blend of the aural and the visual. It is that unique and mysterious combination of words and music with the heightened expression of the human voice that has inspired opera composers and librettists of the past four hundred years to create a body of work that ranks among the greatest accomplishments of humanity. The Minnesota Opera is dedicated to the principle that opera is a living and evolving art form.
? Dale Johnson, Artistic Director |
The concept of bel canto or, literally translated from Italian, "beautiful singing," goes back to the very rudiments of opera, beginning at the very end of the 16th century with the Florentine Camerata. This group of philosophers, poets and musicians sought to bring more meaning to their respective art forms with a marriage of music and dramatic text, believing music was capable of giving a much deeper understanding of the nuances of language. The concept of bel canto requires a complete mastery of tasteful phrasing coupled with balancing the sound of the voice with the dramatic meaning of the word. The works of Monteverdi are among the first to reflect this principle.
As opera approached the Baroque period of the early 18th century, the voice began to flex its muscles a bit. In accordance with the instrumental tendencies of the period, the singing line became embellished with ornaments, such as trills, turns and scales, used for dramatic effect rather than the simple enunciation of the text. In Handel's music, "effortless and expressive" was the result of agility ? the two were intimately connected. Singers were trained to exploit their vocal dexterity and the practice of bravura singing became predominant, often with stunning results.
The subsequent Classical composers rejected many of the Baroque's superfluous ornaments in search of a clearer, more rational approach consistent with the philosophies of the 18th-century Enlightenment. Gluck's reform principals, later to be heard in the operas of Mozart, brought the art form away from Handel's flash and sparkle back to a focus on the dramatic essence of the piece.
During the 18th century Italy reigned as the music capital of the world. Though Handel, Gluck and Mozart were of Germanic descent, all were versed in the Italian style. It was generally the custom to employ Italian-born composers in the royal courts of Europe. As a result, by the end of the century, Italy had been depleted of many of its best composers ? Spontini, Cherubini and eventually Paer settled abroad. In Paer's music, we start to see a transition ? inherent is the simplicity of the Classical period, yet it is indicative of the more complex embellishments Rossini would soon exploit.
By 1800 Italy had reached a point of operatic crisis, but was saved by the emergence of Gioachino Rossini, a musician of great ability and achievement. At the precocious age of 21 he had achieved fame and fortune with successful works in both comic and serious veins, L'italiana in Algeri and Tancredi . Rossini is best remembered for his comic works, but he made significant advances in the realm of the lyric tragedy, which would become the preferred form of expression by Verdi's day.
Rossini was a remarkable clinician, exploring the technical extremes of the vocal instrument, the "Stradivarius," as he called it. Ornamentation returned, not solely for virtuosic effect but to be used for a truer expression of ideas. Execution changed as well. In Baroque music, the singer finds the ornamentation, or "coloratura," more musically challenging ? in other words there are more twists and turns over a rapidly changing harmony, and the ornaments are executed in a more tightly controlled environment. Coloratura of the bel canto period tends to be more demanding vocally , especially as the range of the voice by that time had expanded. Accompaniment is less complex harmonically, allowing the performer greater flexibility to explore around the melody notes and the freedom to improvise. Like the Baroque singer, the performers of bel canto repertoire were trained technically to achieve these expressive elements. Crucial to the concept of beautiful singing is this effortless delivery ? the idea that effortless delivery is a means to an end, and that end is beautiful expression.
[The principles of bel canto are] (1) The instrument ... the voice, (2) Technique, that is to say, the manner of using it, (3) Style, the ingredients of which are taste and feeling.
? Gioachino Rossini |
The structure of the aria had also changed. During the Baroque, the aria was frequently cast in the da capo form ? a first section is followed by a contrasting section and the piece is concluded by a reprise of the first section, embellished to show off the virtuosity of the performer and as an affirmation of the character's commitment to the issue at hand. An aria from the bel canto period is generally preceded by an introductory recitative ? part lyric, part declamatory ? known as a "scena" followed by a slow, cantabile section showing off the singer's ability to produce a beautiful tone with long sustained notes. This can be followed by a short bridge section of a slightly faster tempo, perhaps an interruption by another performer or chorus, and the piece is concluded by a spirited cabaletta intended to show off the singer's splendid technique. Dramatically, the scena sets up a specific issue, and the cantabile section is generally devoted to the character's introspection and deliberation over the problem. The transition, or "tempo di mezzo," is a disruption of this thought, usually by external news or a decision made, leading to the rousing cabaletta as an affirmation of that decision. Duets and ensembles can follow the same formula.
Rossini also began to tamper with the established dramatic tenets as well. As early as Tancredi , he considered maintaining Voltaire's tragic ending, a taboo in the eyes of 18th-century opera seria, where the outcome was nearly always a happy one.
The overall line of thought, however, was becoming increasingly more emotional and less intellectual. Heroines began to evolve from the strong, smart and "liberated" women of the Classical period to helpless victims on the edge of madness and self-destruction of the Romantic period. The male hero emerges from the youthful, idealistic lover of the Baroque, to the more dangerous and seductive cavalier, very elegant and ardent, yet tragically flawed. By 1816, Rossini and his lifelong friend and colleague, Michele Carafa, both shocked audiences with violent onstage deaths: in Rossini's Otello , Desdemona is stabbed by her jealous husband; in Carafa's Gabriella di Vergi , the heroine is cruelly presented the heart of her dead lover and dies from the gruesome surprise.
During the first years of the 19th century, after the failure of the French Revolution and the advent of Napoleon, the spirit of the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism fell by the wayside. A new intellectual force was in vogue, one that is harder to define yet deeper in sensitivity. Romanticism looks away from the rational brain and to the liberation of the imagination. Perhaps no other movement yielded such varying results: the return to the natural and painters Constable and Turner, the symbolic and quasi-religious subject matter of the Germans Runge and Friedrich, or the heroic and dramatic canvases of French artists Géricault and Delacroix. Individual sensibility was the only criteria for aesthetic judgment ? the only law the artist had to follow was what his or her feelings dictated.
On the literary side, subjects were equally vast and ambiguous. The tragedies of Shakespeare, where protagonists became victims of their own emotions, were powerful models for Romantic writers and painters, as was the playwright's occasional use of the supernatural and tempestuous forces of nature. The archetypal relationship of the Romantic period frequently involved two people in a love affair that is somehow forbidden by reasons beyond their control ? this would become the raison d'être of bel canto opera. Plots became simpler, and characters were made of flesh and blood ? less intellectual and more emotional ? acting on base instinct.
Musicians were naturally drawn to the trends of the day. Rossini was among the first to throw off the shackles of tradition, first with a setting of Shakespeare's Otello and then proceeding to the Romantic novels and plays of Sir Walter Scott, Madame de Staël and Friedrich Schiller. Bellini and Donizetti dove into English and Scottish history as interpreted by Scott and his imitators and adapted current plays by such French dramatists as Alexandre Soumet and Victor Hugo as well as Byron's sublime prose. As the scion of Romantic opera, Verdi passionately embraced the works of Byron, Hugo, Shakespeare and Schiller wholeheartedly.
In the age of aerobics and the Stair-Master, the steady, propulsive groove of Rossini's music suddenly makes sense to singers and audiences.
? Steven Blier
Opera News, January 25, 1997 |
By the time Rossini moved to Paris and retired at the age of 37 his influence had become widespread as one hears in the early works of one of his successors, Vincenzo Bellini. Bellini was from the south of Italy far removed from Rossini's "Germanic" tendencies for vibrant orchestral textures and "um-pah" accompaniment. Born in Sicily, Bellini studied in Naples with composer Niccolò Zingarelli, who abhorred Rossini's style and who emphasized to his students the importance of melody above all else. As a result, Bellini began to experiment with the lyric aspects of the human voice, which developed into a very personal style characterized by long, meandering melodies over simple, arpeggiated accompaniment and the use of arioso, a style of accompanied recitative that is both declamatory and melodic, a hybrid of speech and song. His trademark approach is best demonstrated in one of his signature pieces, Norma , in an aria that epitomizes the individual spirit of Romantic bel canto opera, "Casta diva." This role truly is done justice by a performer with beautiful tone and secure technique as she sings the long, spun-out melodic line.
As mentioned above Rossini was influenced by Germanic orchestration which at that time was significantly more developed than the Italian style. Gaetano Donizetti would also reap the benefits from the north through his Bavarian-born teacher, Giovanni Simone Mayr, who eventually settled in Bergamo. An early work by Donizetti, Alfredo il grande , shows Mayr's influence in a number of ways. In choosing the same subject as Mayr's acclaimed opera by the same name, Donizetti probably hoped to share some of the same success as his master. It was the first of Donizetti's many forays into British history, the finest of which are represented by three operas known as the Tudor Trilogy: Anna Bolena , Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux .
With the premature death of Bellini in 1835, Donizetti was left to inherit the position of being Italy's preeminent composer. His contribution cannot be underestimated ? Donizetti became the embodiment of the Romantic generation. Attracted to strong themes with violent outcomes, he set the stage for his most famous successor, Verdi. One of the hallmarks of Romantic sensibility is Lucia di Lammermoor, drawn from the Sir Walter Scott novel. For the Romantics, foreign, uncivilized lands, as Scotland was then considered, held a mystique that was rich with bloody feuds, superstition and poetic imagination. The noble heroine of opera seria has become a crazed fury, driven mad by impossible circumstance and capable of monstrous acts.
Donizetti's taste for the hyper-romantic melodrama hit its peak three years later with Maria de Rudenz . The final scene is perhaps his most bloodthirsty to date. Drawn from a popular French boulevard drama, Maria de Rudenz involves a jilted heroine bent on vengeance. As in Lucia, Salvadore Cammarano served as librettist, as he would later do for Verdi in Alzira , La battaglia di Legnano , Luisa Miller and Il trovatore.
Toward the end of the bel canto period we begin to see changes in vocal casting as well. Eighteenth-century opera seria glorified the castrato, but by the turn of the century contraltos were assuming more of the heroic parts in "pants roles." Contraltos began to lose ground during Donizetti's mature period and were delegated to the background in subsidiary roles. The leading male was now being taken by tenors, who were found to be more expressive in their higher range. Basses moved up in tessitura and more often than not took over the role of the villain. The soprano became the star.
High notes were increasingly used for dramatic effect ? one tenor, Gilbert Duprez, mustered a full chest tone high "c," frightening his colleagues, especially Adolphe Nourrit, veteran star at the Paris Opera. His own career in crisis, Nourrit tried to stage a comeback in Italy and looked to Donizetti to provide an opera as a vehicle to spotlight his talents. Poliuto was created under this pretext but was banned in Naples, sending Nourrit into a downward spiral, resulting in his eventual suicide. The opera waited two years to be staged in Paris, slightly altered, as Les martyrs and, with cruel irony, Duprez sang the title role. Poliuto employs a triumvirate that Verdi would so often use: a tenor and soprano as the protagonists under the menacing threat of the baritone, in this case the soprano's past love. We begin to see the disappearance of delicate ornamentation for the sake of vocal power and beauty of tone. Bigger voices were required to sing over larger and increasingly more complex orchestras.
Donizetti had the unique ability to cover a full range of emotions, even surpassing the master Rossini, who also switched between opera buffa and opera seria with relative ease. Together with Rossini's The Barber of Seville, two of Donizetti's comedies, Don Pasquale and L'elisir d'amore would endure the test of time during an era overwhelmed by heroic and tragic themes ? after 1843 no comic opera of lasting significance emerged until Verdi's Falstaff . To the effervescent style of Rossini's rapidly paced farces, Donizetti, in his L'elisir d'amore, added the Romantic qualities of pathos and sentimentality to comedy ? instead of outwitting a bumbling old fool as in Barber, a young man must undergo the pain of his unrequited love before we reach the inevitable happy ending.
... a necessity of bel canto is a full, sustained tone and good legato. So sing Mozart as though he were Verdi ? there is no difference in the approach.
? Maria Callas |
Although non-serious opera libretti were set in the early 18th century, Italian comic opera evolved from opera seria, first employed as an intermezzo, or "comic relief" between the acts of a serious work. The situations in part were drawn from the Italian commedia dell'arte and its use of stock characters and improvisatory scenes. In their own efforts toward operatic reform, Metastasio and Zeno jettisoned the intermezzo, which then began to thrive as an art form of its own. Large-scale ensembles, not normally employed in opera seria, were used to close the acts. The bass, rarely seen in serious opera of the era, assumed a prominent buffo role, a tradition that endured by way of Rossini's doddering Dr. Bartolo and Donizetti's suave Dr. Dulcamara. A distinctive patter is characteristic of their arias.
Two other composers deserve mention in this survey of the Bel Canto period. After Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante was a prolific composer who enjoyed success early in his career. Unlike his contemporaries, Mercadante was not especially drawn to Romantic literature. His operas tended to be modeled on Classical themes such as those of 18th-century opera seria. Still, he made significant advances in the unfolding of operatic drama and the development of the orchestra as a powerful mode of expression, frequently employing long instrumental introductions to his scenas. His influence on the young Verdi, who as a student was very familiar with his works, cannot be underestimated.
Number five of the top composers of the era would have to be Giovanni Pacini. Nicknamed the "master of the cabaletta," Pacini shamelessly admitted to being an imitator of Rossini, as it became necessary for the survival of any composer during the "Rossini fever." Even though he maintained his supremacy over the cabaletta, by 1843 Pacini adopted the general trend turning away from floridity and moving toward a simpler, more direct treatment of dramatic situations through music.
And there is Verdi. Absorbing what he could from the earlier masters, Verdi would bring Italian opera to new dramatic heights with fast-paced plots coupled with forceful music. Nabucco , his third opera and first big hit, premiered in 1842.
Formally speaking he maintained the familiar Italian structure of scena-cantabile-cabaletta in his early operas, but we begin to see the future in the dramatic intensity of both the vocal line and the orchestra, attributes that make Verdi perhaps the single most beloved composer of the operatic genre.
The bel canto era includes and yet concludes with Verdi. The tendency toward the elimination of set numbers and a more continuous, linear musical progression leads us to Verdi's later style and to the operas of Wagner, Puccini and Richard Strauss. At the source of all of these composers' great works is the thrill of the singing voice and the principles of the bel canto as we have just learned ? in fact the concept of beautiful singing is at the core of every work produced by The Minnesota Opera. Our philosophy places the expressive beauty of the human voice at the center of our work, with every other aspect of production serving to support its expression. The larger goal is to produce operas where every element consistently supports the singer and to continue to create the high-quality work our audiences have come to expect. This kind of aesthetic focus is rare among opera companies and its significance for The Minnesota Opera and our community is the potential to become a center for bel canto ? for great singing, exquisite and innovative productions, and home to an opera company of international reputation and regard.
