The complete idiot's guide to classical music (61 page)

Donizetti’s comic masterpiece takes place in the Austrian Tyrol, which at the time is being occupied by Napoleon’s army. Marie, abandoned as a baby on the field of battle and rescued by Sergeant Sulpice, has grown up as the pet of the regiment, regarding each of the French soldiers as her father. Noting that Marie has grown up to marrying age, Sulpice urges her to choose any man in the regiment. She, however, has her eyes (and heart) set on Tonio, a young Tyrolean peasant who recently saved her from falling off a cliff.

Tonio, unfortunately, has been arrested as a spy, but even after that slight misunderstanding has been cleared up, he is informed by Sulpice that only a member the glorious 21st may aspire to the hand of this Daughter of the Regiment. Tonio isn’t the smartest peasant in the world, but he figures a way out of the dilemma; he’ll just enlist in the Regiment.

Enter the haughty Marquise de Birkenfeld, who identifies Marie as her nobly-born niece, and takes her home. Unhappily and tediously ensconced in the Birkenfeld castle, Marie is taught to dance the minuet, to sing dainty serenades instead of the rowdy camp songs she grew up with, and to learn other niceties appropriate to her lofty new status. Worse, Marie is told that she must marry a man of her own station, and the Marquise has picked out just the fellow for her, the Duke of Crakenthorpe.

Soon Tonio arrives, resplendent in his Regiment uniform, and the Marquise stuns the company by announcing that she is actually Marie’s mother. Swayed by Tonio and Marie’s obvious love for each other, and possibly goaded slightly by the dirty looks she’s been getting from the rest of the regimental soldiers, she relents, and the happy couple are reunited with the full blessings of Mama Marquise and Marie’s regimental retinue.

Less than three years after the
Daughter of the Regiment
found her true love, Donizetti unveiled his last great triumph, and a stagework that has lost none of its charm in the intervening century and a half. The plot is hardly of Shakespearian depth, but it does have a certain passing similarity to
The Taming of the Shrew
(or, if you prefer, its Cole Porterization as the Broadway hit
Kiss Me Kate
).

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Donizetti composed 67 operas and had them produced within the span of 30 years. “Writing music is nothing,” he confided to a friend. “It’s the damned rehearsals that are so difficult.”

In this case, however, the shrewishness is all part of a scheme worthy of Figaro himself. The plotter-in-chief is Doctor Malatesta, who helps foil the foolishness of Don Pasquale, and unite the young lovers, Ernesto and Norina, while allowing them to keep the inheritance Pasquale will bestow only if Ernesto agrees to marry somebody else. That’s an offer Ernesto can and does refuse, whereupon Dr. Malatesta suggests that Pasquale develop a new heir by taking a bride himself. He even volunteers his sister for the purpose, describing her in such angelic terms that Pasquale can’t wait to meet her.

One small difficulty here is that Malatesta doesn’t have a sister, so he enlists Norina in the cause, introducing her to Pasquale as Sofronia. The girl makes a big show of being modest and unassuming, assuring Pasquale that she can knit up a sweater as well as cook up a storm. When she removes her veil and the now-panting Pasquale sees that she’s beautiful into the bargain, he proposes on the spot. Naturally, Norina/Sofronia accepts him on the same spot, and Malatesta now plays his trump card, shlepping in a cousin who pretends to be a notary who can legalize the marriage vows.

The mock ceremony completed, Norina changes from a lovely Miss Jekyll into a horrendous Mistress Hyde. She bosses Pasquale around, makes impossible demands on him, slaps his face, and announcing that she won’t be seen in public with a such a decrepit old man, leaves to spend their wedding night at the theatre with a younger swain (Ernesto, natch). Don Pasquale, until recently so excited about his wedding, now can only think of ways to get rid of the horrible nag who has completely messed up his comfortable way of life.

A few more intrigues remain on the menu, but eventually everybody comes clean. For a while Don Pasquale is understandably put out at the way he’s been hoaxed, but at the end he forgives Dr. Malatesta (“You scoundrel,” he says, “how can I ever thank you?”), pronounces himself well content to be rid of the shrewish Sofronia, and bestows his blessing on the young lovers.

A disputed inheritance lies similarly at the heart of the comic opera that forms the last of three one act operas in Puccini’s
Il Trittico
, the others being
Il Tabarro
(The Cloak), a sordid tale of jealousy and murder, and
Suor Angelica
(Sister Angelica), a portrait of religious repentance and transfiguration.

Unlike so many tragic operas that end with a death, the comic opera
Gianni Schicchi
begins with one. It is Florence in the year 1299, and a gaggle of relatives are moaning over Buoso Donati, one of the richest men in the city, who expired only a few moments before. Their laments give way to serious concerns, however, when the rumor circulates that the deceased had left his large fortune to a monastery. Wildly they search for the will, that is found by one of the cousins, Rinuccio. To the dismay of everyone present, Rinuccio holds the document hostage, announcing he’ll only let it be read if his aunt will allow him to marry his beloved Lauretta. Permission had earlier been denied because Lauretta is the daughter of Gianni Schicchi, and Schicchi was beneath the family dignity, having had the ill judgement to be born a peasant.

Impatient and greedy to receive her share of the legacy, his aunt reluctantly agrees to the bargain, and sends one of the children to fetch Lauretta and her father, while everybody else crowds around to read the will. Remember that rumor about the bequest to the monastery? Turns out to be 100 percent true. The relatives are to get nothing, the monastery everything. What to do? Only the wily Schicchi can save them.

Since nobody outside the room knows that Donati is dead, Schicchi has the corpse removed to the next room, climbs into the bed himself, and imitating the old man’s voice, asks that a notary be called to prepare a new will. The cousins are delighted at this shift in the monetary winds, but when the notary arrives and Schicchi (alias the “dying” Donati) dictates the new testament, he leaves only small bits of property to the relatives, proclaiming that the bulk of his fortune should go to his dearly beloved friend . . . Gianni Schicchi! The relatives are hysterical, but unable to do anything about it without revealing their own part in the attempted fraud, and as Lauretta and Rinuccio fall into each other’s arms, Schicchi takes a big stick and chases the greedy relatives out of the house. After all, it’s his house now.

As its title indicates, Shakespeare was the source here,
The Merry Wives of Windsor
the primary wherewithall of Boito’s libretto, with occasional borrowings from
Henry IV
, where the grossly overweight braggart, coward, and bumbling lover also appears. At the moment, the aging knight is financially embarrassed, but he still fancies himself irresistible to women, so he writes identical letters to a pair of well-off married women, Alice Ford and Meg Page, hoping that their love and fortunes will improve his situation. Unfortunately for Falstaff, the two ladies meet, show each other the letters—word for word the same except for the names—and determine to give the lazy lover his proper comeuppance.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
When Verdi’s first comic opera failed, the young composer was stung so badly that he never composed another one. At least not until he was a revered old man of 77. He began work on it in some secrecy, not sure he would live to complete it, or that he would be content with the piece if he did. For the next two years, he spent two hours a day at his composing table (he had read that longer periods of work might be dangerous for men of his age), in 1893, several months ahead of his 80th birthday, Verdi attended the premiere of his final operatic masterpiece,
Falstaff.

Enlisting the aid of Mistress Quickly, Mistress Ford sends word to Falstaff that her husband is insanely jealous, but he’s invariably out of the house between two and three in the afternoon, so she could receive him then. Promptly at the appointed hour, the preening Falstaff arrives, only to have Meg Page rush in with the news that Ford has unexpectedly returned. The two women hide Falstaff in a laundry basket, then tip the basket and its contents (one portly baritone) into the Thames.

Being fat has its virtues. Falstaff floats on the water until he is pulled out, and returns, sadder and wiser (and wetter) to his stein of ale at the Garter Inn. There he receives another tantalizing offer from Mistress Ford, apologizing for the mishap and promising to meet him at midnight in the royal park. This time Ford himself is in on the game, but he develops a side scheme of his own. His daughter Nannetta is in love with a handsome young lad named Fenton, but Ford wants her to marry the elderly Dr. Cajus. With everybody coming to the midnight rendezvous in disguise, Ford figures he can use the confusion to wed Cajus to Nannetta before anybody is the wiser. Guess what? Mistress Quickly is the wiser, and reports the intrigue to the young lovers.

When midnight strikes, and Falstaff eagerly awaits his romantic interlude, Meg Page suddenly bursts in with a group of “witches” who descend on Falstaff and beat him with their broomsticks. Meanwhile, as a notary administers the vows and Ford blesses the couple he assumes to be his daughter and the old doctor, they throw off their disguises and reveal themselves as the newly married Nannetta and Fenton. Ford, Cajus, and Falstaff are all aghast to find that their best laid plans have been thwarted by the Merry Wives of Windsor, but even they, admitting that “all the world’s a jest,” eventually have to yield to the general merriment.

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship,” wrote Oscar Wilde, and the same is true for opera. It’s nice to leave the theatre having sipped the musical equivalent of sparkling wine, to have smiled at the foibles of the characters on stage (even if, or perhaps precisely because, we recognize some of those same flaws in our own makeup), and to have been serenaded by glorious music without shedding tears for the doomed heroine. In short, as Stephen Sondheim so eloquently proved en route to the Forum, sometimes you just want to have Comedy Tonight!

 

• Comic operas are fun and usually have a happy ending.
  
 

• It’s easy to tell the difference between a dramatic and comic opera—in a comic opera no one is murdered.
  
 

• An operetta is a lighter and more fun version of an opera.
  
 

• There are no murders in comic opera.
  

Chapter 23
 
Richard Wagner—En Route to Valhalla

 

• The leitmotif
  
 

• Orchestral Wagner
  
 

• Wagner as a librettist
  
 

• New style of opera
  
 

• Wagner’s operas
  

Wagner’s admirers and detractors pretty much agree that he secretly regarded himself as a god, though some might dispute that secretly part. As Wagner (1813–1833) proved with Wotan and with his other creations, gods are not perfect, but they do have the power to influence human destiny. In that respect at least, Wagner did indeed have a godlike influence on the destiny of opera, and the development of music in general.

The 12-year-old Richard Wagner (if one can imagine a 12-year-old Wagner) adored Weber’s
Der Freischutz,
and from it he began evolving a much more intensive use of the leitmotif (leading motive), the musical concept in which a phrase, repeated through the work, symbolizes a person, place, idea, or emotion. The leitmotif is one of those ideas that is brilliant in its simplicity, providing musical continuity even as it helps us follow the story. Starting with
Tristan and Isolde
, these leitmotifs don’t just crop up occasionally or to heighten a particular scene, they are actually the building blocks that construct the entire score.

Wagner himself described leitmotifs as “basic themes.” With just a few notes or a special rhythmic pattern or a harmonic phrase, the composer can evoke a specific image in the listener’s mind: the Rhine, Valhalla, religious purity, sensual love—you name it, Wagner themed it. In her hilarious satire of the Ring, Anna Russell compares the raucous cries of the Valkyrie Brunnhilde with the mortal Brunnhilde’s sedate love theme. “Well!” she declares. “Falling in love has certainly taken the ginger out of her!” The leitmotifs lead the listener into the heart of the drama, expressing subtle changes as well as radical transformations, probing the characters’ inner lives, displaying their secret desires, recounting their experiences, and tracing their destinies.

Verdi and most of the Italian opera composers were primarily concerned with the voice.

For Donizetti and Bellini, the orchestra was one big harpsichord, supporting, enhancing, but essentially accompanying the singers. Verdi expanded the orchestral equation, allotting it a more significant role in the operatic scheme of things, but it remained for Wagner to give the orchestra nearly equal voice in his music dramas.

Beyond the overtures, interludes, and ballet sequences, you’ll find very few symphonic recordings of Italian opera. Orchestral Wagner, on the other hand, takes up at least a counter or two at any large music store, and Wagnerian excerpts make frequent appearances at symphonic concerts. Tristan and Isolde declare their love and breathe their last breath against a passionate symphonic reflection that can perfectly well stand alone (and does in dozens of recordings). It’s also why you’ll recognize the
Ride of the Valkyries
without a single “Ho-Yo-to-ho!” Human voices and orchestral instruments take equal roles in the unfolding Wagnerian landscape, and their combination gives his music dramas unique intensity and scope.

The vivid orchestral writing also makes Wagner very difficult to sing, especially if one has to be on stage for the better part of five hours.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Many early listeners, as well as many composers, found Wagner’s operas very difficult to sit through. “Wagner is clearly mad,” wrote Berlioz, while Auber pronounced Wagner “Berlioz minus the melody.” Richard Strauss complained about “the hideous discords that would kill a cat,” Tchaikovsky grumbled that “the interminably long dialogues fatigues the nerves to the upmost degree,” and another famous Russian composer, Mili Balakirev, put it more simply in a letter: “after
Lohengrin
, I had a splitting headache.” Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, was a fan. “I like Wagner’s music better than anybody’s,” he wrote; “It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.”

Unlike most opera composers, Wagner was his own librettist, and a pretty darn good one, if he said so himself. Which he did. Often. He wanted his music “fertilized by poetry,” and he took inspiration from German literature, history, and mythology, seeking eternal truths in the legends of his own land.

The Germanic gods, creations of the cold North, are dark and somber compared to their carefree Greek counterparts, and therefore perfectly suited to the philosophical, political, social, and economic upheavals of the mid-19th century. Wagner not only studied these gods, but devoured the works of such German cultural icons as Hegel, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His operas don’t simply tell this story or that, they explore the most universal themes of human existence; as a result, it is not just in musical circles that their concepts, philosophical messages, and allegorical symbols have been debated for generations. George Bernard Shaw, for one, was convinced that the Ring expressed social criticism, with the gold representing the curse of capitalism. When Walther, the hero of
Die Meistersinger,
bursts into a passionate hymn to the spring, he’s not just picking flowers; the music symbolizes the rebirth of German national traditions. Wagner, in other words, did not so much exalt German legend as to transcend it, creating his own myths in the process.

Wagner’s early operas were minor events, as he imitated earlier composers and searched for his own musical way.
Rienzi,
in 1840, was still conceived in the French grand opera style, but here the distinctive Wagnerian sound is already felt. Thereafter, it was all hits, no misses. For 40 years, from
The Flying Dutchman
(1842) through
Parsifal
(1882), each succeeding work increased Wagner’s fame and heightened his influence. Each was a pivotal achievement, distinctive in form, musically and dramatically powerful, and an opera destined to remain firmly established on the stages of the world.

In 13th century Germany, troubadours used to gather for song contests (more on this when we get to the section,
“Die Meistersinger”
), and quite likely one of the competitors at the Wartburg Competition of 1210 was a minstrel called Tannhauser (some of whose verses, including a “Song of Repentance,” survived into modern times). Some 300 years later, a legend grew up in Germany about the Venusberg, a hill where Venus, the goddess of love, held court, enticing men by her beauty, then destroying their souls. Wagner combined fact and fantasy in his opera, set against a backdrop of courtly life in medieval times.

As the scene opens to a celebration of pagan sensuality, Tannhauser is lying with his head in Venus’ lap, trying to work up the nerve to tell her that he’s had enough of immortal lovemaking and wants to see how things are going on Earth. Venus tries in vain to dissuade him from this foolish enterprise, but Tannhauser prevails, and back in the real world, is reunited with the Landgrave (ruler) Hermann, his friend Wolfram von Eschenbach, and sundry other noblemen-minstrels who are gathered at the Wartburg castle. He also looks up an old flame, the Landgrave’s niece, Elizabeth, who still loves him, but with somewhat mixed feelings, since he hasn’t been around for quite a while.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
According to the Romans, Venus wore a magic girdle that enabled her to arouse love in others. This didn’t sit too well with her husband, Vulcan (the god of fire), who started throwing thunderbolts when he found out that Venus was having a thing with Mars (it was a boy). Venus also hung out with Adonis a lot, and had another child with Achises, while poor Vulcan wound up as the patron god of cuckolds. Calling Ann Landers.

Love, meanwhile, is the theme of the song contest, and if Elizabeth wonders where Tannhauser’s been, she finds out when he unleashes a hymn to sensual love in the name of Venus. Since everybody else has been singing the praises of love in its purest, most sacred form, the outraged nobles draw their swords and prepare to puncture the pagan. Suddenly Elizabeth intervenes; though she has been wounded in love, she begs Christian forgiveness for Tannhauser. Moved by her noble action, the Landgrave relents, allowing

Tannhauser to escape death only if he seeks absolution for his sins from the Pope. Since that’s an offer he can’t refuse, Tannhauser catches the next pilgrimage to Rome.

Months later, Tannhauser straggles back to the castle, exhausted and despairing, since his request has been denied, the Pope declaring that absolution would be as unlikely as his walking staff bursting into flower. Resigned to eternal damnation, Tannhauser calls out for Venus, until Wolfram reveals that Elizabeth has died after months of praying for Tannhauser’s soul. The repentant Tannhauser interrupts the funeral procession and dies, embracing Elizabeth’s body. The Pilgrims announce a miracle, the Pope’s staff has blossomed, and Tannhauser has indeed been redeemed by love and faith.

One of the many meanings of the word
chivalry
is “the spirit or character of the ideal knight.” One of Wagner’s many obsessions was to depict this idealistic spirit and character. He tried it first in
Tannhauser,
and continued the quest with
Lohengrin,
both in the medieval setting and the theme of sacrifice and redemption. Wagner, incidentally, reserved those chivalric instincts for his operatic characters. In his private life, among other things, he was a liar, a cheat, and generally a nasty piece of work.

Anyway, back to thoughts of nobler things, among them a batch of nobles in the dukedom of Brabant (near Antwerp, Belguium) in the first half of the 10th century. They include Count Telramund and his wife Ortrud, who among other things, are the villians in the drama. Telramund starts out by accusing Elsa, the daughter of the Duke of Brabant, of murdering her brother to gain access to the throne. Elsa recalls a dream wherein a champion will appear to defend her, and sure enough, a knight in shining armor arrives on a boat drawn by a white swan. He declares himself to be Elsa’s defender, on the condition that she never ask his name nor where he comes from.

The knight conquers Telramund in a duel, but spares his life. Mistake number one, since Telramund and Ortrud immediately slink off to plan their revenge. The next day is the wedding of Elsa and the Knight (they don’t believe in long engagements), but even as the bridal procession prepares to enter the church, Ortrud accuses the mysterious champion of having defeated her husband by sorcery, while Telramund himself demands that the knight reveal his identity. The knight refuses. Only to Elsa will he be obliged to reveal the truth, and then only if she breaks her promise and requests it. In the wedding chamber, Elsa is overcome with doubts, and cannot refrain from putting the fateful question to him. Telramund breaks in with four cronies to kill the Knight (his mistake number one) and the Knight dispatches him instead, announcing that he will yield to Elsa’s desire and reveal his secret, but only in the presence of the nobles, and at the same spot where he had first appeared.