What are some representative foreign operas?

It is generally believed that European opera arose in the late 16th century. The first opera recognized in the West is Daphne (also translated as Daphne), which was produced under the influence of humanism in an attempt to revive the spirit of ancient Greek drama, with librettist O. Rinuccini and composers J. Perry and J. Corsi, and was performed at the court of Count G. Baldi of Florence in 1597 (said to have been completed in 1594), and due to the fact that the original manuscript of the opera has been lost, some people also regard Eurydice, written to celebrate the wedding ceremony of Henry IV, as the earliest opera. Due to the loss of the original manuscript, some people regard Eurydice, written in 1600 to celebrate the marriage of Henry IV, as the earliest Western opera. The popularity of opera led to the creation of the world's first opera house in Venice in 1637.

Development of Opera

The most influential in Rome at the end of the 17th century was the Neapolitan operatic school represented by Y?6?1 Scarlatti. This school did not use choral and ballet scenes in their operas, but highly developed the solo technique which was later called "beautiful voice". When this style of "singers only" went to the extreme, the original dramatic expression and ideological connotation of the opera was almost lost. Thus, in the 18th century and 20s, there was the rise of the genre of comic opera, which was based on everyday life, with witty plots and simple music. The first model of Italian comic opera is Pagolesi's "The Maid as Housewife" (premiered in 1733), which was originally an opera interlude, and when it was staged in Paris in 1752, it was denigrated by the conservatives, thus setting off the famous "Comedy and Opera Polemics" in the history of opera. Out of Rousseau's handwriting, France's first comedy opera, "The Village Soothsayer" was born under the inspiration of this debate and this opera.

Italian opera was the first to be adapted in France and to be integrated into the French national culture. Lully, the founder of French opera ("lyrical tragedy"), pioneered the use of ballet scenes in opera, in addition to creating solo melodies that were closely tied to the French language. In England, Purcell created the first English national opera, Didon and Aeneas, based on his country's masque tradition. In Germany and Austria, it was Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart and others who developed folk singing opera into German and Austrian national opera, represented by Mozart's The Magic Flute. To the 18th century, Gluck, in response to the mediocrity and superficiality of the Neapolitan opera at that time, argued that the opera must have profound content, music and drama must be unified, and the performance should be pure and natural. His ideas and works such as Orfeo and Eurydice and Iphigenia in Oleander had a great influence on the development of later operas.

After the 19th century, Italian masters such as G. Rossini, G. Verdi, G. Puccini, German R. Wagner, French G. Bizet, Russian M.I. Glinka, M.P. Mussorgsky, P.N. Tchaikovsky and so on made important contributions to the development of the opera. The "light opera" (operettta, meaning "small opera"), which took shape in the 18th century, has evolved and developed into an independent genre. It is characterized by a short structure, popular music, and the use of narration in addition to solos, repetitions, choruses, and dances. The Austrian composer Sobey and the French composer Offenbach, who was originally from Germany, were the founders of this genre.

Among the 20th-century opera composers, the early representatives were the Wagnerian-influenced Richard? Strauss ("Salome", "Knight of the Roses"); after the First World War is the principle of atonality applied to the composition of the opera Berg ("Wojciech"); in the 40s so far there are: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Miyo, Manotti, Barbier, Orff, Giannas Dell'Arte, Henze, Moore, as well as the famous British composers such as Buridon.

Vocal

The vocal part of the opera includes soloists, re-singers and chorus, and the libretto is the lines of the characters (depending on the style, there may also be a speech); the instrumental part is usually an overture or prelude at the opening of the whole opera, and in early operas there was a prologue of a dedicatory nature (including the vocal music). In each act, the instrumental music serves as an accompaniment to the singing, but also as a link. Acts were often connected by interludes, or each act had its own prelude. Dance may also be inserted as the play progresses. The musical structure of an opera can be made up of relatively independent musical fragments, or it can be a continuous development of a unified structure.

The important vocal styles in opera are recitative, aria, aria, aria, aria, repetition, chorus, etc.; its genre styles are opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, opera, musical comedy, chamber opera, opera, etc..

Arias

Arias are the main part of the opera in which the protagonists express their feelings, and their music is very good, the structure is more complete, and it can show the singer's vocal skills, and thus we often hear them in concerts, such as "Madame Butterfly's" aria, "A Sunny Day", and the aria of "The Lady of the Camellias", "The Lady of the Camellias", "The Lady of the Camellias", "The Lady of the Camellias", and "The Lady of the Camellias", and "The Lady of the Camellias". and Rosina's aria "There's a voice in my heart".

The declamatory tone

The declamatory tone is the passage that develops the plot, the story is often carried out in the declamatory tone, when the characters have more dialogues, this kind of passage is not suitable for singing too much, so it is used in the way of half-talking, half-singing, called declamatory tone, which is very similar to the rhyming of the Peking Opera. In Peking Opera, Qingyi, Xiao Sheng or Lao Sheng have a kind of recitation with exaggerated voice tone, it is not very melodious, but it can make the speech easy to connect with the singing before and after, and its function is very similar to that of the Xuanxiao in Western Opera. Early European opera declamatory tone is very not singing, called "dry declamatory tone", often with the ancient piano to play a chord to a key, the singer in this key with many homophonic repetitions to narrate, this homophonic repetitions translated into Chinese is very difficult to listen to, because the Chinese language is the four tones of the iambic pentameter, we can not Chinese people with a We Chinese cannot sing in a flat tone: Have you eaten today? It sounds funny. So when we encountered this kind of "dry declamation", we simply took out the rap and replaced it with dialog. But in the 19th century, with the gradual melodization of the opera declamation, such as when we sing "The Lady of the Camellias" and "Carmen" and other operas, the declamation is also translated into Chinese, a little melodic, with the melody, can be found with the melodic high and low, the four appropriate Chinese.

Repertoire

Repertoire is the simultaneous singing of several different characters in accordance with the characters' respective specific moods and dramatic plots; two people singing at the same time is called a duet, and sometimes the characters holding the pro and con views are organized in a single work; then it may be a trio, a quartet, or a quintet, and there is a sextet in Rossini's The Barber of Cervinia, and even in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. In Rossini's "The Barber of Cervinia" there is a sextet, in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" there is even a septet, a dozen or so people singing together, sometimes in groups of three or five, each with their own opinions, some sympathizing with Figaro, some sympathizing with the Count, and others looking at the jokes, the composer's remarkable ability is shown in the fact that he is able to organize so many different theatrical musical images into a single acoustically coordinated and expressive musical passage at the same time, which is very different from our operas!

Another form is the chorus of a mass scene, which, as already mentioned, can be male, female, mixed, or children's voices, depending on the requirements of the plot.

Opera has a storyline, and the singing has a libretto, which is inextricably linked to the development of music and drama. Therefore, when introducing Western opera in China, is it better to use a translation or to sing the original text to keep its "original flavor"? Historically, there have been two different approaches. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese opera workers in the introduction of Western opera, in the translation of the great efforts, here, there is an important issue, that is, the literary language should not only be translated well, in the music, but also in line with the laws of music, the listener will feel comfortable to be accepted, this is a discipline, is a very difficult work, there must be a high degree of musicianship in the translation or the cooperation between the translator and the musician in order to be able to use the original. the cooperation of an interpreter and a musician to do a good job. My personal view is that since the audience comes to the theater to watch the opera, people demand to be able to understand it. When Western opera is introduced in China, it is best to translate it into Chinese, so that people can understand the plot and the drama of the opera music more conveniently at any time, and enjoy the performance of the opera as well as the singing, which can at least make our Chinese audience feel that our musicians want them to understand the charm of Western opera. The social fashion in these years is to sing in the original language with Chinese subtitles. Although it can show the level of our actors' singing in the original language, and there is a chance that they may be spotted by foreign agents and invited to perform abroad, as far as I know, the acceptance of western operas is farther away from the audience, and the audience's surface is narrower, and people would think forget about it, you don't want us to understand it anyway. Some of the performers are not good enough in their original language to be understood by anyone, which is not conducive to promoting the spread of Western opera in China.

A form of theater. It consists of a dramatic text (libretto) with music, which is usually accompanied by music when it is sung. In addition to soloists, re-singers, chorus and orchestra members, from its inception, opera performances often included dancers. This complex and costly form of music-drama entertainment has been enjoyed by audiences for five centuries. It is clearly distinguished from other forms of theater by the fact that its lines are sung rather than expressed in words; and from music-drama-style plays, such as light opera and musical comedy, by the solemnity of the work, the rigor of its structure, and the seriousness of its accompanying sound.

In ancient times, there have been works combining poetic drama and music. Ancient Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides used choral singing in their plays. Medieval religious plays based on the Bible, such as miracle plays and miracle plays, also generally had some kind of musical accompaniment. These and other forms of musical theater can be considered precursors to opera. Opera arose in Florence, Italy, in the late 16th century. The first opera, now lost, was Dafne, written by the Renaissance idyllist Ottavio Rinuccini and the composer Jacopo Peri; the earliest surviving opera libretto, Euridice, is also their work. However, the works of these two fathers of opera were exploratory in genre and structure. About 10 years later, Claudio Monteverdi's masterpiece La favola d'Orfeo was produced. In it, instrumental accompaniment became a dramatic factor; at that time, the subject matter of the opera was mostly Greek and Roman myths, legends and fictionalized historical stories.

Opera Houses

The world's first opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, was inaugurated in Venice in 1637 and opened to the general public, thus ending the era when opera was monopolized by royalty and nobility, and giving a great impetus to opera's development. The opera's development was greatly boosted by the opening of the opera house in Venice in 1637. Monteverdi's student Cavalli (Francesco Cavalli) is the most famous opera composer of this era, he from 1639 to 1669 for the Venice Opera House composed *** about 40 operas, the most famous for the "Iason" (Giasone). At the same time with the Cavalli Italian opera writer Cesti (Pietro Antonio Cesti), also wrote a number of operas, the most famous as the Golden Apple (Il pomo d'oro). 17th century after the middle of the Venetian opera genre began to decline, although at this time there are still several talented composers, such as the often called " father of the comic opera "," the father of the opera. Baldassare Galuppi, who is often referred to as the "father of comic opera".

Other Italian cities, such as Rome, soon developed their own local styles of opera. Rome's opera is different from Venice, it is not too much emphasis on the stage opulence, and like to use the funny interludes to alleviate the tragic atmosphere of the whole drama, focusing on the instrumental prelude and prelude-type interlude movement. Rome also has a number of famous opera writers, such as the creation of the first complete comedy opera, "the sufferer that is the hope of the people" (Chi soffe speri) Mazzocchi (Virgilio Mazzocchi) and Marrazzoli (Marco Marrazzoli).

In the 18th century, the center of Italian opera moved to Naples, and a variety of operatic genres emerged, thus influencing Italy as well as many foreign centers of operatic activity. The emphasis was on making the music subservient to the libretto and making it intelligible. Lyricists Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio contributed to this. The arias of the opera, especially the three-part arias, predominate. The harmonies of Neapolitan opera are pure and simple, more melodic and lighter, with a rococo style of magnificent tones. Representative writers include Alessandro Scarlatti, Nicola Antonio Porpora, Leonardo Vinci and Leonardo Leo.

In 1720 the Venetian Benedetto Marcello wrote Il teatro alla moda,o sia metodo sicuro e facile per ben comporre ed eseguire opere italiane in musica), satirized the growing stereotypes in positive opera that diluted the drama, thus giving rise to experiments in operatic reform with little success.

In the 17th century a formally independent satirical comic opera developed. At first it was often interspersed between acts of the main opera. In the process of maturation it recovered some of the emotionally serious character of the main operas, which in turn gave a mixed character to many of the comic operas. The Serbian Barber, The Marriage of Figaro, and Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) are representative of this period.

Opera was introduced to France before 1650, and the first French opera, Pomone, premiered in 1671 at the inauguration of the Royal Conservatory of Music (today's Paris Opera House). But opera did not become a truly French art until the era in which Jean-Baptiste Lully lived. Lully, an Italian, traveled to Paris to create a French-style opera, borrowing features from French drama and ballet. He disliked Italianate arias and favored short, lively songs instead. He reformed the declamation according to the recitatives of the Comédie-Fran?aise and developed a French overture. Lully's style culminated in the operas of Jean-phlippe Rameau, whose major works include Hippolyte et Aricie.

After the introduction of opera to Germany and Austria in 1627, "folk opera" was produced, and a number of opera writers emerged, such as Mozart, Handel, Beethoven, etc., and their main works include The Magic Flute, Orlando, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Fidelio, The World on the Moon (Iliad), and The World on the Moon (Iliad). In 1769, Ranieri de'Calzabigi and Gluck published an important document on the innovation of opera: the dedication of the preface to the opera Alceste. He argued that the superfluous and flowery three-part arias should be abolished and replaced by simple expression and true feeling. The duty of music was "to serve poetry". Gluck's masterpieces include Iphigenie en Aulide and Iphigenie en Tauride. His reformist ideas had a major impact.

It took a long time for opera to take root in England. The first opera in England was Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell; it broke down the boundaries between declamation and song. The staging of The Beggar's Opera enabled English audiences to become accustomed at last to hearing a stage play sung in their own language.

The late 18th century to the early 19th century, the French comedy opera has been greatly developed. 1752 Rousseau's one-act comedy opera "country diviner" (Guerre des Bouffons) was staged, and he used a medley of songs to write the general score, reflecting the very popular romantic love and vaudeville show tunes are combined together, very French style. This new medley of comedies then ruled the opera stage in Paris and elsewhere. Famous playwrights included Monsigny (Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny), Gretry (Andre Gretry), Mehul (Etienne-Nicolas Mehul) and Boieldieu (Francois-Adrien Boieldieu). French comic opera became more Italianized since Boieldieu, reflecting the influence of Rossini. During this period, Italian opera declined for a time, and then talented opera composers such as Mayr (Johann Simon Mayr), Rossini, Donizetti (Gaetano Donizetti) and Bellini (Vincenzo Bellini) created a number of operatic works of world-wide reputation, such as The Serbian Barber, Anna.... Anna Bolena" (Anna Bolena), "pirates" (Il pirata), "Puritans" (I puritani) and other renewed popularity.

The "Grand Opera" was created in 19th century Paris, a large-scale opera in the international style, using historical or fictional historical stories as the theme, and the stage is full of spectacle and colorful costumes, ballet, and all kinds of runners in the square line. It virtually eschewed the subtle nuances of American singing and greatly expanded the orchestra itself and its role in the drama. The first recognized grand opera was Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil). After Meyerbeer and Fromental Halevy, grand opera began to reflect new musical trends, developing into a variety of hybrid forms. This period of the French opera writers and White Liaozhi and Offenbach, the two main works of heaven and hell (Orphee aux enfers), the Trojans, the story of Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann) and so on.

The operas of German Romanticism were works such as Der Freischutz (The Magic Bullet Shooter), which were the forerunners of German Romantic music, and the light operas that emerged during this period, such as Johann Strauss's masterpiece Der Freischutz (The Magic Bullet Shooter). Strauss's masterpiece, "The Bat," brought it to its peak.

After the 19th century, the famous opera composers are: Italy's Verdi, Puccini, Busoni, etc.; Germany and Austria's Wagner, Richard Strauss, Fetzner. Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Schoenbeck, Berg, etc.; France's Gounod, Bizet, Thomas, Massenet (Jules Massenet), Debussy, Ravel.

After the introduction of opera to Russia, initially more foreign works, and then produced the father of Russian opera Glinka (Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka) and a number of outstanding opera composers, such as Rimsky Gorshakov, Borodin, Mussorgsky (Modest Mussorgsky), Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Pro Takafeev, among others.

By the middle of the 20th century opera had become almost a museum piece, with many revivals of old works and very few new ones. The future of opera was seen by some writers as lying in opera-like stage plays and other hybrid forms of opera that surprised and surprised audiences, and by others in small operas written for factory and school productions.