CRONOLOGÍA y RESUMEN de toda la HISTORIA de la ÓPERA — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hello everyone, welcome to Il Bacio di Tosca. I'm Gastón Efficace, and
2. 0:03today I'm bringing you a video I've been wanting to make for a while: a concise,
3. 0:07brief, and superfluous history of opera.
4. 0:16The history of opera
5. 0:17spans more than 400 years, and the number of works is enormous.
6. 0:23That's why I'll only mention a few composers, their
7. 0:26most important works, and some general characteristics.
8. 0:29The idea is to establish an order so we can place ourselves in time.
9. 0:32That way, we understand what era we're in and what aesthetic prevails.
10. 0:35That's why I've lovingly designed this beautiful timeline.
11. 0:41Don't judge me. I did my best.
12. 0:42Let's begin. The history of opera begins at the end of the
13. 0:45Renaissance, around the year 1580,
14. 0:48during that transition to a new artistic era called the Baroque.
15. 0:53The Baroque is a very long period, so let's divide it into three parts:
16. 0:57early, middle, and late Baroque.
17. 1:00It all began in Italy when a group of intellectuals known
18. 1:03as the Camerata Fiorentina wanted to revive ancient Greek theater
19. 1:07and combine two inevitable passions: making music and telling stories.
20. 1:12Well, it went wrong,
21. 1:13and let's just say they invented opera.
22. 1:14The word opera comes from the Latin opus, which means work, and opera
23. 1:19would be the plural: works.
24. 1:21And it's not that there weren't works that were precursors to sung performances before,
25. 1:25but none had managed to so organically bring together music,
26. 1:29theater, poetry, and stagecraft into a single, autonomous artistic genre.
27. 1:35Peri's Dafne is considered the first opera.
28. 1:39But the music is lost.
29. 1:40The first opera to survive, then, is
30. 1:42Eurydice, by the same composer.
31. 1:45There were many experiments, but as in every era or discipline,
32. 1:48there is always someone who stands out more than others.
33. 1:51This is the case of Claudio Monteverdi, who was the first to compose
34. 1:55a masterpiece and what is considered the first modern opera, Orpheus.
35. 2:08In this early Baroque, harmony was pre-tonal
36. 2:10, and composers focused more on the union between word
37. 2:14and music than on form. "Reciting while singing," they said.
38. 2:28And that's where the recitative emerges,
39. 2:30a song halfway between speaking and singing to highlight the text;
40. 2:34and the basso continuo, the harmonic skeleton over which the recitation is performed.
41. 2:39In other words, a low instrument plays the bass line.
42. 2:47And another harmonic instrument
43. 2:49improvised the corresponding chords.
44. 3:05Well, the entire Baroque has an overdose of that.
45. 3:08There is a primacy of the text over the music, and the themes are mythological
46. 3:12or historical.
47. 3:13Another notable opera by Monteverdi is L'incoronazione di Poppea.
48. 3:24Monteverdi is a great composer.
49. 3:26He has some little songs called madrigals that are beautiful.
50. 3:29Other composers of the period include Giulio Caccini or his daughter Francesca.
51. 3:34Middle Baroque.
52. 3:35In the middle Baroque, opera begins to expand and becomes a good business.
53. 3:39There's already a distinction between aria and recitative,
54. 3:43which are the basic elements that structure opera.
55. 3:45The recitative serves to advance the characters' action.
56. 3:59Meanwhile,
57. 4:00the arias, which are the solo songs, constitute
58. 4:04static moments of reflection and reaction to what happened in the recitative.
59. 4:16Notable among these are
60. 4:17Francesco Cavalli in Venice, who would be Monteverdi's successor
61. 4:21, and whose great success was Giasone, an opera about Jason and the Argonauts.
62. 4:25Another famous opera is Dido and Aeneas, by the Englishman Henry Purcell.
63. 4:40Opera also reached France, where
64. 4:42Jean Baptiste Lully's grumpy dancer and choreographer was.
65. 4:46He doesn't call them operas... He's going to call them
66. 4:48commedia-ballets or lyric tragedies because he didn't want them called operas.
67. 4:52It seems Wagner wasn't the first to break the mold with that.
68. 4:54A commedia-ballet, for example,
69. 4:56is The Bourgeois Gentleman, written by the famous writer Molière.
70. 5:00These works emphasize dance,
71. 5:02as ballet was very important in France.
72. 5:04We're moving into the late Baroque.
73. 5:06Here, everything is a bit more established.
74. 5:08There's room for virtuosos, plenty of counterpoint
75. 5:12, and we have the consecration of what we know as aria.
76. 5:15That is, the singers' solo.
77. 5:17This period marks the definitive consolidation of tonality
78. 5:21and the standardization
79. 5:22of a type of opera known as opera seria, an opera of elevated character.
80. 5:26Here we find our beloved Handel.
81. 5:30And be careful,
82. 5:31this hallelujah is not an opera; it's a distinct genre, the oratorio,
83. 5:35which is generally unstaged, with a sacred theme and structured
84. 5:38like an opera with an overture, recitative, arias, and choruses.
85. 5:41Handel was a composer of opera seria par excellence.
86. 5:45For example, Rinaldo.
87. 5:57He composed for the biggest stars of the time,
88. 6:00the castrati.
89. 6:22Male singers who were extremely popular
90. 6:25and had, or rather, didn't have...
91. 6:28I'll tell you more another day.
92. 6:29Another Baroque icon was Antonio Vivaldi, known for his
93. 6:33famous Four Seasons, but he also composed opera.
94. 6:36And it's not easy to sing them.
95. 6:46And in France, we have Jean-Philippe Rameau,
96. 6:48who experimented with harmony and composed operas like
97. 6:52Les Indes galantes.
98. 7:04In this high Baroque, counterpoint reaches its maximum expression, especially
99. 7:08thanks to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who unfortunately did not
100. 7:12compose operas, but composed oratorios of the highest quality
101. 7:16that could easily pass for opera.
102. 7:30And this is the Baroque period,
103. 7:31the age of the basso continuo, a period of ecstasy and exuberance.
104. 7:36Obviously, there were many schools:
105. 7:38Venetian, Neapolitan, English, French, etc.
106. 7:41But it is not the purpose of this video to discuss each of them.
107. 7:44We arrive at Classicism, the period that exported
108. 7:47the concept of classical music to the world.
109. 7:49Opera continues to be popular, and music aspires to beauty
110. 7:53and symmetry.
111. 7:54A rival to opera seria is established: opera buffa, that
112. 7:58is, a comic opera.
113. 7:59The inaugurator of these is Pergolesi's La serva padrona,
114. 8:03which is a very short opera, as it was conceived as an intermezzo,
115. 8:07those mini-operas performed between the acts of serious operas.
116. 8:17But someone very important
117. 8:18in the history of opera was Christoph Willibald Gluck.
118. 8:22Why?
119. 8:23Because he was responsible for an operatic reform
120. 8:26in which he basically cleansed opera of all Baroque excesses
121. 8:30and gave greater importance to drama and musical unity.
122. 8:34A prelude to what Wagner would do 100 years later.
123. 8:36The result of this reform was his version of Orpheus,
124. 8:39which he called Orpheus and Eurydice, with a completely different touch.
125. 8:55Also in the Classical period, we have one of the greatest
126. 8:58composers in the history of music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
127. 9:02He also composed very good operas and managed to masterfully integrate
128. 9:06music, drama, and the psychological depth
129. 9:10of his characters.
130. 9:34He composed Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute,
131. 9:42and others, such as Così fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, and Idomeneo.
132. 9:45Another worth mentioning from this period is Cimarosa with his Il matrimonio segreto.
133. 9:49Romantic period.
134. 9:51Now we come to the juiciest period, and without a doubt
135. 9:54the best musical period in human history:
136. 9:58Romanticism. And come and argue with me!
137. 10:01The tenor is established as the successor of the castrato
138. 10:03, and opera, just as the other arts, reach their highest expression.
139. 10:08The reasons behind this may be very interesting,
140. 10:10but the word that best describes what happened is: freedom.
141. 10:14Composers are free, freed from the courts
142. 10:17, and compose whatever they want, however they want.
143. 10:20The first to successfully consolidate this emancipation was the great
144. 10:24Ludwig van Beethoven, who barely composed a single opera:
145. 10:28Fidelio, a type of rescue opera
146. 10:31influenced by this period of revolutions and political upheaval.
147. 10:35Let's remember that we are in the era of the French Revolution.
148. 10:44From this transitional period,
149. 10:45we can also mention Cherubini and his opera Medea.
150. 10:49In Italy, in this first period known as the primo ottocento,
151. 10:53Gioachino Rossini stands out, whose specialty was comic opera,
152. 10:57opera buffa, and we remember him mainly for The Barber of Seville.
153. 11:07Although he also composed
154. 11:08serious operas and even composed a French grand opera:
155. 11:12William Tell.
156. 11:20In Germany,
157. 11:20we have Carl Maria von Weber, who you might ask: who's that?
158. 11:24But he's a composer who established a school of German opera
159. 11:27and has some interesting achievements,
160. 11:28among them, he designed the prototype of the leitmotif that Wagner would later adopt.
161. 11:33His most famous opera: The Poacher.
162. 11:44Then we have Vincenzo Bellini
163. 11:46, who was a talent of Italian melody.
164. 11:49Sadly, he died
165. 11:50very young, but we still have his masterpieces like Norma and I puritani.
166. 12:07There's also Gaetano Donizetti, a prolific composer who moves us with his furtive
167. 12:12tears and manages to combine melody with sentimentality.
168. 12:31He also knew how to create scenes of madness.
169. 12:40And let's not forget Giacomo Meyerbeer,
170. 12:43the colossal composer of French grand opera, which were operas with
171. 12:48lavish displays, thunderous noises, and effects without cause. They were very expensive.
172. 12:53The money the French spent on these operas...
173. 13:07Ah! And I want to tell you
174. 13:08that if you like my channel and want me to upload videos more often,
175. 13:11you can support me financially through Patreon, join me on YouTube
176. 13:15, or by clicking the Thank You button on YouTube for one-time donations.
177. 13:18You can also book a private lesson with me on Patreon.
178. 13:22All links are below in the description.
179. 13:25Thank you.
180. 13:25And we come to the giants, who coincidentally were born in the same year:
181. 13:29Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. They are the greatest
182. 13:32operatic exponents of the entire century... and of all time, why not?
183. 13:36Let's start with Verdi: Verdi took
184. 13:37the style of the Italian 19th century to its maximum expression.
185. 13:41Little by little, he refined it and made it more realistic and personal.
186. 14:01He has many masterpieces, but from his early period, Rigoletto and La Traviata stand out
187. 14:04, which are among the best operas
188. 14:07in history.
189. 14:17And from his more mature period, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff.
190. 14:21Here you can find my complete analysis of La Traviata.
191. 14:24And representing the Germanic spirit is Richard Wagner, whose level of revolution
192. 14:29this man caused is unprecedented. From his early period we have:
193. 14:34The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, but he revolutionized
194. 14:38everything with Tristan und Isolde
195. 14:45and his famous tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung:
196. 14:49a saga of four operas.
197. 14:51Crazy.
198. 14:59He revolutionized the way of composing, harmony,
199. 15:02the orchestra, systematized the use of leitmotifs
200. 15:05with immense mastery . A genius.
201. 15:07By the way, here's an analysis to introduce you to his tetralogy.
202. 15:10Let's go back to France.
203. 15:11The composers who stood out in this second half were Gounod with his Faust
204. 15:15and Romeo and Juliet ;
205. 15:16Massenet with his Manon Lescaut and Werther ;
206. 15:19but the most important was Georges Bizet with his opera Carmen ,
207. 15:26in which he already incorporated realistic elements.
208. 15:29By this time we already have opera in Russia and all of Europe;
209. 15:32Tchaikovsky with his Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades
210. 15:35; Mussorgsky with his Boris Godunov
211. 15:37; and the rest...
212. 15:39Post-Romanticism/Impressionism.
213. 15:41Well, we reach the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th,
214. 15:45where we find, on the one hand, a Romanticism that expanded on
215. 15:48everything that came before, and on the other, new aesthetic proposals.
216. 15:53The greatest of all, probably the most popular opera composer:
217. 15:56Giacomo Puccini, with his Bohème, Tosca,
218. 15:59Madame Butterfly, and Turandot, many of which are analyzed on this channel.
219. 16:04Puccini knew how to adapt to new musical trends without sacrificing
220. 16:07the beauty of a good melody. Something that not many can say...
221. 16:19This is also the era of verismo,
222. 16:21another realistic literary and musical movement.
223. 16:25Pietro Mascagni, with his Cavalleria Rusticana, inaugurated the style in opera.
224. 16:38Leoncavallo followed with Pagliacci.
225. 17:02And later Umberto Giordano, with Andrea Genier and others...
226. 17:05You'll see that there are composers who stand out for a single work
227. 17:09, and the answer is very simple: and how could it not?! After the greats who came before,
228. 17:13who basically gave them the formula to create at least one masterpiece.
229. 17:18And so it was.
230. 17:19Except for Puccini, who was more talented and wrote several.
231. 17:21On the other hand, I have to mention another very strange and avant-garde opera
232. 17:24, Debussy's Pelleas et Melissande, already in an Impressionist style.
233. 17:47Now, a brief digression
234. 17:48into a genre related to opera: the operetta.
235. 17:51Offenbach, Johann Strauss Jr., and the most Puccinian of all:
236. 17:55Franz Lear, whose The Merry Widow I recommend.
237. 17:58We continue with Richard Strauss, Wagner's successor.
238. 18:02He took harmonic language to the extreme with his operas Salome and Elektra.
239. 18:18But he is also
240. 18:19remembered for lighter works like Der Rosenkavalier.
241. 18:22Other interesting composers of the period include Alban Berg with Wozzeck and Lulu,
242. 18:27from the Expressionist movement; George Gershwin with his Porgy and Bess,
243. 18:30a jazz opera. Very good, by the way; Bela Bartok with Bluebeard's Castle;
244. 18:35and Igor Stravinsky with The Rake's Progress.
245. 18:38Both Bartok and Stravinsky have a neoclassical style.
246. 18:41Erik Korngold with The Dead City;
247. 18:44Kurt Weill, who blends opera with cabaret music;
248. 18:47Menotti with The Consul and The Telephone; Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes, and Billy Budd
249. 18:52; Leonard Bernstein,
250. 18:53whom you probably know best from the musical West Side Story;
251. 18:56Alberto Ginastera;
252. 18:57and more modern, Luciano Berio with Un re in ascolto.
253. 19:00And here we are, well into the 20th century.
254. 19:03What did it leave us, apart from the destruction of the world and morality?
255. 19:07Well, the destruction of aesthetic values ​​in art, or
256. 19:10rather, new languages, new ways of making noise.
257. 19:15The truth is that opera was replaced by musicals.
258. 19:19And if you ask me, you'd be right.
259. 19:21What do you think? Why do you think opera went into decline?
260. 19:24Especially after Puccini left us...
261. 19:26Who's to blame?
262. 19:27And if we're talking about contemporary composers, the most notable is John Adams,
263. 19:32with his Nixon in China.
264. 19:39When I finally understand what
265. 19:40it's all about these days, I'll make a video about it.
266. 19:44In short, this is the history of opera.
267. 19:46A contest between drama and music, where the Italians
268. 19:50were on the side of melody and song,
269. 19:52the Germans on music linked to drama, and the French on... I don't know, dance?
270. 19:57Yes, you could say that
271. 19:58the best composers knew how to combine the best of both worlds.
272. 20:10Well, that's all.
273. 20:11I had to be very unfair and leave out many composers.
274. 20:14Please excuse me, and think of this as a general overview to introduce yourself
275. 20:18thanks to Patreons, where, by the way, you can download my beautiful timeline.
276. 20:22My plan in the future
277. 20:23is to talk about each period in a video, so I can expand a little more.
278. 20:28Thank you all for reading this far.
279. 20:29It's very important that you tell me which opera, which period, which composer,
280. 20:33whatever it is that most interested you, so I can make a video about it.
281. 20:37Don't forget to like and, above all, share,
282. 20:40so more people join our opera club.
283. 20:43I leave you a greeting and ADDIO!