The Musical Diplomacy of Metternich

That festivities are woven into the historical image of the Austrian diplomat, foreign minister, and state chancellor Clemens von Metternich (1773–1859) is in part the byproduct of his investment in music. As an amateur performer, passionate connoisseur, attentive patron, and frequent host, Metternich cultivated an international soundworld that presented opportunities for cooperative performances. Ensemble music and collective listening provided experiences of international concert that gained significance in the context of multilateral congresses and meetings. Musical exchanges, sustained through the activity of women and professional musicians, contributed to fostering diplomatic relations and international presence. In the context of the Restoration’s competing soundworlds, Metternich deployed a patronage of Rossini’s work and Italian opera music, with increasing intensity but mixed effect. This history speaks to the function of music in the presentation of self in international encounters and the resources to be found in the plurality of roles diplomats perform.

'Italian Opera' in 'Central Europe', 1600–1780: Research Trends and the Geographic Imagination

This brief survey of literature, provided with a bibliography, proposes to critically inform about research carried out over the last 30 years, and to identify research trends regarding subject definition, methodology and epistemology of the apparent duality, 'Italian Opera' and 'Central Europe'. A main question is how researchers have imagined their subject as a geographical space, and what their changing priorities had to do with developing regional concepts in music history. It is shown how, in the 1960s and 70s, the reception of Italian Opera in Europe was conceptualised as a national and European, not a regional question; how specialisation on mechanisms of production and consumption in the 1980s instigated more socially-oriented research, and how in this context both a nationalist and a universalist direction were being undermined. A renewed focus in the 1990s on small-scale production units such as individual cities, opera companies and travelling indivduals enabled researchers to recategorise Italian opera as a regional and diverse phenomenon. The contribution of such projects as the Storia dell'Opera Italiana (ed. Bianconi), the various Hofkultur researches in Germany, and the ESF programme Music in Europe, 1600-1900, with its study group on Italian Opera in Central Europe (Dubowy et al.) have now become influential. International collaboration also beyond 'central' Europe has seemed the most appropriate means of achieving good research results. Central Europe was, at least in opera, typified by its interest for the music of 'non-central' Italy. The concept of Central Europe in music (as in other matters) is a concept without borders.

Heartfelt Love: Singing Maiden Characters in Romantic Vocal Music, 1800-1850

<p>The images of maidens in Italian opera and German lieder from the period 1800-1850 are vivid. In the plots of the operas and the scenes and stories of the lieder almost invariably these characters focus enthusiastically on heartfelt love. This exegesis explores the relationship between the expression of love by unmarried women in selected lieder and opera of the first half of the nineteenth century and performance of these works by the young soprano in the twenty-first century. In the period when these songs and operas were written, performers of lieder would often have been of a similar age to the maiden characters portrayed in the songs, and in the case of Italian opera at the time, the singers who created such roles were usually in their twenties or early thirties. As a young soprano myself, in my study I consider some questions which are relevant for twenty-first century female singers who choose to perform these nineteenth-century portrayals of virgin characters. The figures in the works I have selected to study display a wide variety of personalities, moods and emotions, from the tenacious wild rose in Schubert’s ‘Heidenröslein’, to his passionate Gretchen and the melancholic Amina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula. I consider how the soprano may express the different emotions involved and approach performing young maiden characters such as these, whose experiences of life and status in society may be substantially removed from twenty-first century experiences. In order to address these questions, I examine the selected song and aria texts in terms of the relationship between the content of the stories and the characters, as well as analyzing the vocal skills that can be used and vocal effects that may be applied when shaping these roles according to the music as written. In addition, I combine the background to the story and the plot with the musical markings in selected phrases to explore the emotional variety of the characters so as to interpret the deeper significance in the compositions. Through learning and performing these particular pieces I have explored the vocal techniques which are required in singing them from a practical perspective and this enables me to contribute insights I have gained to the general understanding of the skills required for this particular area of the repertoire. Having chosen repertoire for this study which combines Italian opera arias and lieder, and I also consider how the differences I have found in the vocal works may reflect their respective genres and distinguish the skills required for each. Through writing about my own research into the performance of these works, I provide new insights and ideas about these maiden characters which may be applicable to any young sopranos who sing repertoire from this period, and useful for their own vocal perfo</p>

Heartfelt Love: Singing Maiden Characters in Romantic Vocal Music, 1800-1850

<p>The images of maidens in Italian opera and German lieder from the period 1800-1850 are vivid. In the plots of the operas and the scenes and stories of the lieder almost invariably these characters focus enthusiastically on heartfelt love. This exegesis explores the relationship between the expression of love by unmarried women in selected lieder and opera of the first half of the nineteenth century and performance of these works by the young soprano in the twenty-first century. In the period when these songs and operas were written, performers of lieder would often have been of a similar age to the maiden characters portrayed in the songs, and in the case of Italian opera at the time, the singers who created such roles were usually in their twenties or early thirties. As a young soprano myself, in my study I consider some questions which are relevant for twenty-first century female singers who choose to perform these nineteenth-century portrayals of virgin characters. The figures in the works I have selected to study display a wide variety of personalities, moods and emotions, from the tenacious wild rose in Schubert’s ‘Heidenröslein’, to his passionate Gretchen and the melancholic Amina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula. I consider how the soprano may express the different emotions involved and approach performing young maiden characters such as these, whose experiences of life and status in society may be substantially removed from twenty-first century experiences. In order to address these questions, I examine the selected song and aria texts in terms of the relationship between the content of the stories and the characters, as well as analyzing the vocal skills that can be used and vocal effects that may be applied when shaping these roles according to the music as written. In addition, I combine the background to the story and the plot with the musical markings in selected phrases to explore the emotional variety of the characters so as to interpret the deeper significance in the compositions. Through learning and performing these particular pieces I have explored the vocal techniques which are required in singing them from a practical perspective and this enables me to contribute insights I have gained to the general understanding of the skills required for this particular area of the repertoire. Having chosen repertoire for this study which combines Italian opera arias and lieder, and I also consider how the differences I have found in the vocal works may reflect their respective genres and distinguish the skills required for each. Through writing about my own research into the performance of these works, I provide new insights and ideas about these maiden characters which may be applicable to any young sopranos who sing repertoire from this period, and useful for their own vocal perfo</p>

Entwicklung des Air mit Da capo von Lully bis Rameau und seinen französischen Zeitgenossen

The starting-point is the rudimentary Italian aria with da capo, respectively with a frame, which surrounds a much longer central part. This type widely spread in the 17th century gets the main form of Quinault’s and Lully’s monologue (the other one is through-composed). It remains present in the Italian opera in a small quantity when the classical aria da capo has already been the main type of aria, whereas in France its number decreases much slower and gets rare in the 1750th. The French cantata imported from Italy blazes the trail for the classical da capo aria firstly in the opera-ballet, then in the divertissements of the tragédie lyrique in Italian, soon also in French and slowly also in arias with dramatic content and expression in all types of French music theatre. The aria with da capo and the classical da capo aria are examined in detail in operas of Rameau and his contemporaries, especially their individual solutions of text, musical forms and expression. Finally J.-J. Rousseau’s typology of the da capo aria is examined, verified and criticized. (Autor)

The influence of the Italian vocal school on the professional formation of Ukrainian singers (the end of the XVIII – the beginning of the XIX century)

The purpose of the article is to study the influences of the Italian vocal school, the traditions of Italian opera performance on the professional development of Ukrainian singers in this period. Methodology. Analysis was carried out on the basis of such methods as historical and chronological to study trends and patterns of Ukrainian music at the end of the 17th – the beginning of the 19th century, analytical – for a comprehensive consideration of the influence of Italian culture on the emergence of opera in East Slavic areas, source – for elaboration and analysis of sources, bio-bibliographic – for studying creative biographies of artists, the method of systematization – for the reduction of all found facts to a logical unity. Scientific novelty. By studying the creative biographies of prominent Ukrainian musicians (M.Berezovsky, D.Bortnyansky, M.Ivanov, S.Gulak-Artemovsky) for the first time the Italian pages of their creative biography were systematized, new facts were introduced into scientific circulation, which allow to clarify the contribution of Italian vocal culture in the development of the Ukrainian opera school at the initial stage of its formation. Conclusions. The interest of the Russian Empire in Western European, especially Italian, opera led to the rapid development of a new era in the history of musical theater in the East Slavic territories. Internships of Ukrainian musicians in Italy, invitations of Italian artists, composers, vocal teachers to the Russian Empire, joint performances on stage with foreign singers give grounds to assert the influence of the Italian vocal school on the skills of Ukrainian opera singers of the end of the 18th – the beginning of the 19th century and laying of the fundamental foundations for the development of the Ukrainian vocal school.

The Birth of ‘Modern’ Vocalism: The Paradigmatic Case of Enrico Caruso

In the decades spanning the turn of the twentieth century Italian opera singing underwent a profound transformation and became ‘modern’. I explore the formative elements of this modernity and its long-term effects on the way we sing today through the paradigmatic case of the tenor Enrico Caruso. I frame Caruso’s vocal evolution within the rise of verismo opera, comparing selected recordings, reviews and the rules and aesthetic prescriptions contained in vocal treatises to show how his new vocalism differed from that of the old bel canto. To set Caruso’s achievement in context I also analyse recordings of two other tenors of the era: Giovanni Zenatello and Alessandro Bonci.

Verdi and the End of Italian Coloratura

Verdi’s compositional influence and emphatic involvement in promoting his operas in Paris make him an important force, with an operatic oeuvre that includes works that can be labeled “French” because of his use of French literary sources and musical forms. During his career, Verdi’s use of coloratura changed greatly, but key examples are still found in his middle-period operas, in Rigoletto, La traviata, and Les Vêpres siciliennes. This chapter examines how these moments of coloratura signify much more than their apparently straightforward melismatic text treatment might suggest. Arias such as “Caro nome” employ coloratura to suggest a dramatic subtext, uncovering the inner psychological voice of the character. Close readings of these arias suggest that Verdi’s use of coloratura serves as an omen, foreshadowing tragedy for the character singing. With these mid-century examples, we see that Verdi as a modern composer in a sense writes coloratura out of Italian opera.

The Invention of an Opera House: The 1844 Teatro Victoria in Valparaiso, Chile

The 1844 Teatro Victoria in Valparaiso, Chile, can be considered the first purpose-built opera house in the Andean region of the Americas. Managed by impresario Pietro Alessandri, it became the centre of an early operatic scene in the South Pacific and a model for theatres built during the following decades. In this article, I discuss the Teatro Victoria as an opera house and the way in which it functioned on the borders of what was then a new global operatic scene. Latin American research on opera has focused mostly on singers and performances, rather than on the workings of the opera houses and the operatic scene. This article discusses the rationale behind the development of the Teatro Victoria project, some of the strategies underpinning its success and the notion of this particular opera house as a projection of certain ideas of ‘Italian culture’ and networks. The article shows, first, that the successful reception and appropriation of Italian opera in this period was not necessarily guaranteed, and it differed across the Americas. Second, that local brokers and host communities had key roles in shaping that reception, which can easily be perceived as a passive one when looked at only from the perspective of the singers or the music itself.