Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T20:48:05.949Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Aria in Opera Seria, 1725–1780

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1961

M. F. Robinson
Get access

Extract

Of the two types of Italian opera, ‘opera seria’ and ‘opera buffa’, that existed in the eighteenth century, opera seria is the one which has received more adverse comments from modern historians. The artificial division of its text and music into arias and recitative, its stereotyped plots, its concert-like and undramatic character, are easily recognised weaknesses. Musicians, moreover, have not only admired Gluck but sympathised with the sentiments expressed in his preface to Alceste and have therefore concluded that the conditions and standards he rebelled against promoted a decidedly inferior art. Perhaps for this reason a comprehensive study of the aria in opera seria has rarely been undertaken.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 88 , 1961 , pp. 31 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 cf. J. de Villeneuve, Lettre sur le mechanisms de l'opera italien, Naples, 1756, PP. 43–4.Google Scholar

2 Letters from Italy describing the customs and manners of that country in the years 1765 and 1766, London, 1766, p. 81.Google Scholar

3 cf. C. Burney, The present state of music in France and Italy, London, 1st edn., 1771, p. 82.Google Scholar

4 C. de Brosses, Lettres familières écrites d'Italie en 1739 et 1740, Paris, 1858, i. 385.Google Scholar

5 cf. R. Gerber, Der Operntypus Johann Adolf Hasses und seine textlichen Grundlagen, Leipzig, 1925, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

6 Goldoni, C., Memoirs, English edn., London, 1814, i. 185–6. Stendhal, The life of Haydn, the life of Mozart, with observations on Metastasio, London, 1817, pp. 445–7.Google Scholar

7 Burney, op. cit., pp. 292 and 305.Google Scholar

8 Algarotti, F., An essay on the opera (Saggio sopra l'opera in musica), English edn., Glasgow, 1768, p. 49.Google Scholar

9 Tosi, P. F., Observations on the florid song, London, 1743, pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

10 Gerber, op. cit, p. 36.Google Scholar

11 Gerber, op. cit., pp. 45–88.Google Scholar

12 Musical quotations from this opera will be found in N. D'Arienzo, ‘Origini dell'cpera comica’, Rivisti musicale italiana, vi (1899), 473–88. Unfortunately they contain a number of transcribing errors.Google Scholar

13 Tosi, op. cit., pp. 38–9.Google Scholar

14 de Brosses, op. cit., ii. 380.Google Scholar

15 Abert, H., Niccolo Jommelli als Opernkomponist, Halle, 1908, p. 215.Google Scholar

16 Abert, op. cit, pp. 146 and 215.Google Scholar

17 H. C. Robbins-Landon, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, London, 1955, p. 244.Google Scholar

18 Mattheson, J., Der vollkommnene Capellmeister, Hamburg, 1739, ii. 212.Google Scholar

19 Arteaga, S., Le rivoluzioni del teatro musicale ιtaliano, 1st edn., Bologna, 1783–85, ii. 62.Google Scholar

20 Mattei, S., ‘La filosofia della musica o sia la riforma del teatro’, Opere del Signor Abate Pietro Metastasio, Naples, de Bonis, 1781, vol. 111, pp. xxxii-iv.Google Scholar

21 Mattei, S., op. cit., p. xxxv.Google Scholar

22 Burney, C., Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, London, 1796, iii. 43.Google Scholar