Opera buffa

“ I consider that the very essence of opera buffa lies in this incursion of the Fanciful-Fantastic, the preposterous and absurd, into actual, everyday life, and the incongruities that result. And it is just the power of catching hold of this fanciful-fantastic element--which generally lies rather far off and out of the way--and bringing it, with vividness, into everyday life, which makes the acting of Italian buffo actors so inimitable. They catch the indications given by the author, and their acting clothes the skeleton which he has sketched with flesh and colour.'
"Ferdinand. ”

“ The distribution of parts in the Opera Buffa differed, in some important particulars, from that which so long prevailed in the Opera Seria; introducing fewer artificial Voices, and giving far greater prominence to the Basses. The Personaggi were grouped in two divisions. The chief, or Buffo group, consisted of two Female Performers, called the Prima and Seconda Buffa, and three Men, distinguished as the Primo Buffo, the Buffo caricato, and the Ultima parte, of whom the first was a Tenor, while the second was generally, and the third always, a Bass. ”

“ OPERA BUFFA. An Italian Opera, of light and playful character, in which the Dialogue is carried on in Recitativo secco, interposed between the Airs, Duets, and Choruses, which form the chief attraction of the piece. The subject of the Opera Bufia is always more or less comic, and not unfrequently extravagantly so. ”

“ Ludwig. 'On the contrary, I consider that it is just when it is in the costume of the day that not only is it at its best, but that it is the only genuine form of opera buffa in the sense in which the mobile, mercurial, excitable Italians have understood it and written it. In this case it is the Fantastic element which is paramount, proceeding partly from the quips of individual characters, partly from the bizarre play of chance. The Fantastic element comes pop into our everyday lives, and turns everything topsy-turvy. ”

“ An unhappy woman, of deep and delicate feelings, injured and deceived, is forced by adverse fate to dissimulate; the difficulties into which she is led by her disguise are not ludicrous, but painful, and excite only sympathy. It was common at the time to introduce persons and situations of a sentimental character into opera buffa, without any regard to the incongruity of different styles. 23 The principal scena given to Sandrina at the close of the second act quite oversteps the boundary of opera buffa. ”

“ Add to this the innate love of the Italians for beauty of form, and it will be easily comprehensible that in spite of many excrescences opera buffa should have blossomed into a musical art, which in creative genius and intellectual power soared far higher than its elder sister, whom it soon surpassed in the favour of the public. ”

“ Not many English Operas of note have been produced in London since Macfarren's later works; but within the last few years a taste has been developed for a lighter kind of Operetta, the success of which has surpassed anything that the most devoted admirers of playful Music could have anticipated. In nothing does a true Artist declare himself more unmistakeably, than in his power of adapting himself to circumstances. We all know that Opera buffa is a lower form of Art than Opera seria; yet Cimarosa and, Rossini achieved some success in it, to say nothing of Mozart. ”

“ This Italian adaptation of a French comedy set to music by a German differs from the accepted form of opera buffa, in the development of the plot and the delineation of character. The opera is at once dramatic, comic and musical, not merely a bundle of comic situations and gross caricature with incidental music. Rossini's "Barbiere," a masterpiece for all time, is undoubtedly the truer reflection of the spirit of Beaumarchais; for Mozart has idealized the intrigues and characters of the play. ”

“ There is an Italian opera buffa, in which a gentleman who wants to become a poet, and takes lessons as to the mechanism of verse from a poet, wishing to ask his master to dine with him, tries to convey his invitation in an hendecasyllable, and begins, Volete pranzare meco oggi? ”

“ An effort must be made to cure the count of his folly. His jealousy is first excited against the page. To accomplish this, the help of a great many other persons becomes necessary; and thus we get a whole series of exquisite scenes ending in the total bewilderment of the count. The second part—the opera buffa has generally only two parts, having been originally nothing more than an “intermezzo,” between the three acts of the grave opera, opera seria—finds Susanna at the count’s, arranging a secret rendezvous with him for the evening, in the garden. ”

“ But before the time of “Tancredi,” dialogue in recitative may be said to have formed the ground-work and substance of opera; and many an opera seria consisted almost entirely of recitative broken here and there by airs for a single voice. The opera buffa was richer in concerted music; and Rossini, speaking broadly, introduced the forms of opera buffa into opera seria. For much declamation he substituted singing; for endless monologues and duologues, ensembles connected and supported by a brilliant orchestra. The bass singer was still kept somewhat in the background. ”

“ Volubility of utterance, mimicry, and comic action were as necessary as a fine voice. The highly paid male soprano might therefore be dispensed with in opera buffa; the unnatural conventionality of the opera seria would have been insupportable in representations of daily life. By this means the voices were brought into their proper relations; the lover's part was allotted to the tenor, and the performance generally gained in variety and in the natural grouping of the parts. ”

“ The bass parts were decidedly comic; a blustering old man and a cunning or a stupid servant were seldom wanting. When the lover was a bass, he was either jovial or comical.
In spite of all this freedom, certain typical features were formed that recur in all the varieties of grouping and disguise. The opera buffa was far from adopting in dialect or costume the well-defined character, of the Italian popular comedy, but the resemblance in form is unmistakable. ”

“ Cimarosa, Paesiello and their contemporaries represent the perfection of the older Italian opera buffa, the classical Italian comic opera with secco-recitative, developed by Logroscino, Pergolesi, and Jommelli, a form which then reigned triumphant in all the large capitals of Europe. In the more artificial opera seria as well Cimarosa and Paesiello in particular achieved notable successes, and their works are the link which connects Italian opera with the most glorious period the lyric drama has known since the elevation of both Italian and German schools. ”

“ The tenor was obliged to be either a noble father, a traitor or tyrant. The basso was restricted to opera buffa, for it was thought that his voice was naturally too "grotesque" to be heard in opera seria. The castrate was the monarch of the scene. Singularly enough, he was called the primo uomo, and to him was given the lover's part. His very person was sacred on the stage. Others might slay and be slain; he was inviolable, and his head was always crowned with laurel. It was the rule in Italy, never to admit the murder of the chief singer, although the piece itself might reek with blood. ”

“ The purest Italian lyricism also flows in his andantino song, Se tu m’ami, se sospiri. Coming down to a later date we find the extremely popular song-writer and composer of opera buffa, Giovanni Paesiello (1741-1816) , whose arietta, Caro mio ben, is one of the purest examples of cantilena in all music. We may also notice the delicate gypsy song, Chi vuol la Zingarella. In Paesiello we find all the traditional Italian virtues in the highest degree—simplicity, grace, expressiveness—together with a sympathetic understanding of the voice which has rarely been surpassed in Italian song-writing. ”

“ Just as in an opera seria there must be a display of much learning and good sense, and very little playfulness, so in an opera buffa there must be very little display of learning and a great deal of playful merriment. It cannot be helped if people will have comic music in an opera seria ”

“ Mozart saw that Italian comic operas often succeeded in spite of miserable libretti, because the entire interest was concentrated upon the music, and all the rest was forgotten. The German Singspiel writers made the mistake of letting their music be, for the most part, purely incidental, and conducting all the dramatic part of their plots by dialogue. Mozart borrowed the underlying idea of the opera buffa, applied it to the form of the Singspiel, which he kept intact, and produced a work which succeeded in revolutionising the history of German opera. ”

“ Their artists, even their indifferent ones, have often more genius than many famous and generously endowed Northern artists; but this genius is squandered over mere nothings, or drowses, or goes astray; and when it is no longer at home the house is empty. ...
The salvation of the Italian music of the eighteenth century should have been found in a style of music which it had just created: the opera buffa, the intermezzo, which, at its point of departure, in Vinci and Pergolesi, is based on the humorous observation of the Italian character. ”

“ More especially has the rapid utterance, one of the principal devices of opera buffa, a totally different signification in Italian and German. It is not natural to the German, and appears either exaggerated or vulgar; it should therefore be seldom and carefully employed as a means of characterisation. For an Italian, on the contrary, rapid speech, for which his language is so well adapted, is the natural expression of excitement, and the only question for him is whether he shall give vent to his feelings or exercise control over them. ”

“ The masterly treatment of the orchestra, both in detail and in effects of grouping, would alone suffice to raise these two pieces far above similar movements of the then commonly received opera buffa type. More excellent even than the brilliant and characteristic sound effects is the independent and copious construction of the instrumental parts, which nevertheless are kept within their proper provinces as foils to the voices. ”

“ Hence, even if his work is somber or tragic in character he often finds it advisable to cast it into the lighter form for the sake of having it produced.
The Opéra Comique.—The Opéra Comique had its origin in the introduction of the Opéra Buffa in Paris by an Italian company about the middle of the 18th century, which led to the Gluck-Piccini controversy. Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona in particular awakened great admiration and brought about the creation of a similar type of French opera. It was at first hardly more than an elaboration of the already existing vaudeville, or play with songs. ”

“ It may well be wondered at that men like Rousseau 19 and Diderot, 20 who upheld simplicity and nature as the true canons of art, should have evinced a preference for Italian music. For though doubtless the Italian style was grounded originally on the nature of music, it had already become conventional, and far removed from what the philosophers called natural. At the same time it must be remembered that their partiality always turned in the direction of opera buffa, which sought from its commencement to free itself from the conventional restraint of opera seria (Vol. I., p. 203) . ”

“ As a matter of course, those songs which have most originality disregard such rules, and their form is rounder, THE FIRST OPERA IN VIENNA. [84] more self-contained and complete. In these, little opportunity is given for a display of execution; the melodies are simple, ornamental passages and runs few in number,29 and little beyond the cadenzas is left to the singers' discretion. The natural expression of feeling in the songs is never inconsistent with the style of an opera buffa; all is cheerful, light, and easy of apprehension. ”

“ Younger composers like Montemezzi and Zadonai are beginning to claim attention, but Wolf-Ferrari, combining Italian instinct with German training, seems on the way to attain a renascence of the opera buffa, provided that he is not again tempted by the sensational type represented by 'The Jewels of the Madonna.' Opera in England has remained an exotic, save for the operettas of Sullivan, despite the efforts of British composers to vitalize it. ”

“ While all other composers did not at once follow his lead, the superiority of operas containing only recitativo stromentato gradually became clear, and recitativo secco almost disappeared. It is written by composers of today only in very brief passages.
Rossini's "Barber of Seville" is a genuinely good example of opera buffa. It is full of melody and it sparkles with vivacity. When well performed it must always give pleasure to intelligent hearers. "William Tell" is a melodious, fluent, and in places really eloquent piece of dramatic composition. ”

“ The allegro which follows is more directly suggestive of opera buffa in its impulsive haste and in its dramatic characterisation; but the skill is worthy of note with which the elevated tone of the first movement is preserved and the bravura of the singer is placed in the most favourable light. 25 The second song, "No che non sei capace" (419 K.) , which is allotted to the same character, Clorinda, is a bravura song, in the very fullest acceptation of the term. ”

“ This honour was accorded to Pergolesi's 'La Serva Padrona,' in 1734, and the great success which it met with everywhere soon caused numberless imitations to spring up, so that in a few years opera buffa in Italy was launched upon a career of triumph.
Founded as it was in avowed imitation of the tragedy of the Greeks, opera had never deigned to touch modern life at any point. ”