Europe saw great artistic and cultural development throughout the Baroque Period, and opera emerged as a major musical genre (D’Orazio, 2020). Italian and French opera, whose evolution was significantly influenced by dramatic idioms and unique musicals, mirrored the ideals and cultures of these two nations.
The Baroque period, which traversed from the early 17th to the middle of the century, was a significant period for European cultural and artistic progress. During this era, France and Italy contributed substantially to the growth of opera, resulting in the opera’s emergence as a significant musical genre (Cancellieri et al., 2022). Melody and vocal virtuosity were heavily emphasized in Italian opera during the Baroque era. The vocal performances of the elaborately decorated arias were meant to display the singer’s technical prowess.
Opera began to emerge in France a little later than Italy, but it swiftly established itself as a vital aspect of French court culture. The French aristocracy’s courtly culture, which focused heavily on dance, spectacle, and grandeur, impacted French opera (D’Orazio & Nannini, 2019). In addition, French opera utilized more orchestration and a more subdued vocal approach than Italian opera, focusing more on harmony and instrumental colour. The French opera’s recitative was more rhythmic, shorter and delivered in a spoken-like style than Italian opera.
During the Baroque period, composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Francesco Cavalli and Claudio Monteverdi helped the development of Italian opera. French opera was shaped by the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. The operas by Lully, who pioneered a brand-new school of French opera that included dance and spectacle in the performances, were hugely popular.
Italian and French operas were two of Europe’s most well-known and different types of opera throughout the Baroque era. While both genres used music and had a dramatic emphasis, they also had numerous distinctive traits and traditions that made them distinct. Italian opera, with its complex vocal ornamentation and deeply felt melodies, was primarily concerned with the vocal virtuosity of the performers. (D’Orazio, 2020). The dramatic recitative and aria forms, as well as an emphasis on emotional expression and psychological realism in their characters, are characteristics of composers like Claudio Monteverdi and George Frideric Handel. On the other hand, French opera was more centred on spectacle and grandeur, emphasizing dance and visual effects. Composers like Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau were noted for their use of large ensembles and choruses and their incorporation of ballet and other forms of dance into their operas.
The orchestra’s function was another significant distinction between Italian and French opera. The orchestra accompanied the soloists’ performances in Italian opera by creating a harmonic and rhythmic backdrop (GONÇALVES, 2019). In French opera, however, the orchestra was far more prominent, frequently performing lengthy orchestral interludes and dance sequences.
The distinctions between French and Italian opera were also significantly influenced by language. Italian was the language used to perform Italian opera, noted for its expressiveness and lyricism. In Handel’s “Rinaldo,” the principal character’s emotionally charged arias, including “Lascia ch’io pianga,” are performed in Italian and evoke desire and melancholy (Haenisch et al., 2019). On the other hand, the French language was sung in French opera, renowned for its clarity and accuracy. The recitative parts of Lully’s “Atys,” which are sung in French, evince haste and intensity in the main character.
Here are a few extravagant opera examples from French and Italian composers. The famous Italian opera “L’Orfeo” by Claudio Monteverdi is often recognized as the first Baroque operatic masterpiece. The protagonist, a musician named Orfeo, journeys to the underworld to save his lover Eurydice (Körner, 2020). The use of dramatic recitative and moving arias, stressing vocal dexterity and elaboration, is a distinctive feature of the opera. On the other hand, the French opera “Armide” by Jean-Baptiste Lully depicts the tale of a sorceress who falls in love with a Christian knight. Ballet and dance are incorporated into the dramatic action, and the opera is famous for its use of massive choral and orchestral music (Welch, 2020). Another French opera that addresses exoticism and the interaction of various civilizations is “Les Indes galantes” by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It includes lengthy musical interludes and dancing movements like the well-known “Tambourin” dance.
Another example is “Giulio Cesare” by George Frideric Handel, an opera written and performed in Italy that tells the tale of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Egypt and his relationship with Cleopatra. In the aria “Va tacito e nascosto,” in which Caesar regrets the betrayal of his closest ally, Pompey, the opera strongly emphasizes psychological reality in portraying its characters (Milella, 2023). On the other hand, a ballet opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau called “Les Indes galantes” examines the issue of exoticism and the contact between many cultures. The opera is famous for using instrumental and dancing music and non-European musical elements.
The evolution of the aria and recitative in French and Italian opera during the Baroque era reflects each nation’s various artistic principles and cultural customs. The use of recitative and aria in Italian opera was a key element of the style and was essential to the dramatic portrayal of characters and emotions (Olsen-Harbich, 2021). Recitative was employed to represent the speech and dramatic action of the opera, and the area was used to describe the characters’ inner emotional states. Known for their mastery of the recitative and aria’s expressive potential, which was distinguished by their use of ornamentation and melodic inventiveness, composers like Claudio Monteverdi and Alessandro Scarlatti.
The evolution of the recitative and aria in French opera intimately correlated with French courtly dance and music culture. The French used recitative and aria to express their preference for a more organized and formal approach to music (Welch, 2020). French arias, known as “airs de cour,” were distinguished by their clean and graceful melodic lines. Still, the French recitative, known as “récitatif mesuré,” was distinguished by its regular rhythmic patterns and melodic formulas.
The works of Monteverdi and Lully provide examples of the contrasts in the development of aria and recitative in Italian and French opera (Körner, 2020). While Lully’s “Armide” uses more ordered and styled recitative and aria, accentuating the grandeur and spectacle of the opera, Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” offers highly expressive recitative and aria, emphasizing the emotional states of the characters.
In conclusion, the Baroque era saw differences in the qualities and traits of French and Italian opera. French opera prioritized the orchestra and instrumental music, with long interludes and dance sequences, as opposed to Italian opera, which relied on solo vocal performances with supportive orchestral accompaniment (Yin, 2020). Recitative and aria also developed differently in each nation, with Italian opera showcasing more emotionally charged arias and French opera showcasing a more balanced mix. We may understand the variety and depth of Baroque music and opera by looking at the works and samples from each nation.
References
Cancellieri, G., Cattani, G., & Ferriani, S. (2022). Tradition as a resource: Robust and radical interpretations of operatic tradition in the Italian opera industry, 1989–2011. Strategic Management Journal, 43(13), 2703-2741. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3436
D’Orazio, D., & Nannini, S. (2019, March). Towards Italian opera houses: a review of acoustic design in pre-Sabine scholars. In Acoustics (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 252-280). MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1010015
D’Orazio, D. (2020). Anechoic recordings of Italian opera played by orchestra, choir, and soloists. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 147(2), EL157-EL163. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0000739
GONÇALVES, S. C. F. N. (2019). The Art of Portrait in Portugal during the Baroque Age (1683-1750). Concepts, Typologies and Protagonists. E-Journal of Portuguese History, 17(2).
Haenisch, Z., Peterson, E., McMillan, L., & Wagner, S. (2019). Musical Drama in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo: How Aria, Recitative, and Ritornello Shape Drama.
Körner, A. (2020). Beyond Nationaloper. For a critique of methodological nationalism in reading nineteenth-century Italian and German opera. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 25(4), 402-419. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2020.1764244
Milella, F. (2023). Beyond Italian Opera. Manuel García in postcolonial Mexico City (1826-1828) (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge). https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.93641
Olsen-Harbich, P. J. (2021). Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-8940529
Welch, E. R. (2020). The Confusion of Diverse Voices: Musical and Social Polyphony in Seventeenth-Century French Opera. Renaissance Quarterly, 73(2), 567-594. https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2020.5
Yin, M. (2020, July). The significance of computer assistance based on opera rehearsal in the vocal music teaching of baroque opera. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1578, No. 1, p. 012122). IOP Publishing. 10.1088/1742-6596/1578/1/012122
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