Most Transalpine musicians and literary men regarded this Italian opera with contempt, a residue of which can still be felt to this very day, especially in the English-speaking world; but within the last two or three decades a notable rapprochement has become perceptible, a realization that technical terms such as “concert opera,” “aria opera,” and the like do not cover the whole situation. Granted all the abuses, we must still recognize a real and serious esthetic, dramaturgical, and psychological contribution made by these “concert arias.” The Italians knew that it is difficult to express wholly inward emotions in concretely articulated words; the all-embracing power of music is far more suited to do so. The spoken theatre’s monologue or soliloquy can be bent to this purpose, but the aria is made for it—the unutterable reigns over the absolute meaning of the words. Opera has wrestled with the problem of the aria’s relevance and function ever since the 17th century—various “reforms” were all aimed at solving it—but the Italians and the Italian-oriented Germans and Frenchmen, from Gluck to Verdi, never really gave up the much-maligned “formal” aria, recognizing it as the pillar of opera, its essential element. Those who concede the triumph of Wagnerian esthetics in Verdi’s Otello simply do not hear this music properly; the arias are there, and in fact they can be found, not even fully concealed, in Wagner himself.34
Unfortunately, the great advantages of the aria were considerably limited by the rigid conventions established by the opera seria; arias were only too often not organically fused but merely linked, here successfully, there not. The difficulties of the bravura pieces are notorious and many of them unnecessary; for, we feel, they could have sprung only from a desire for technical triumph for its own sake. In particular, the coloratura arias devised for the castratos seem almost a wanton trial of strength, a burden added to the already difficult task the composer set himself. In many an opera human relationships were forced into a pattern to mark entry upon and withdrawal from the stage.35 But naturalness in an entrance or exit aria was not an essential consideration in Baroque opera, though it can coincide with, or serve, genuine dramatic ends.
The overabundance of the da capo aria also contributed to a distressing uniformity, making the opera continually revolve around its own axis. The 19th century, with its ingrained rationalistic view, found the da capo aria the most objectionable part of Baroque opera, though devoutly accepting it in Bach’s cantatas and Passions. Having lost this idiom from our musical and intellectual equipment and therefore failing to understand what the da capo aria conveyed to a Baroque audience, we readily reach the conclusion that it is meaningless. But, unless employed exclusively or too frequently, it is far from being the result of the “tyranny of the singers.” It owes its existence to purely musical, formal instincts, for the Baroque composer was seeking not what we call “dramatic truth” but a musical stylization of the “basic affection”—that is, of one exclusive and undisturbed mood, though he was not unfamiliar with the affetti misti. The da capo aria was an elaborate and carefully composed piece of music. Its often purely musical logic could make it undramatic, but just as often it did not want to be dramatic but lyric-expressive instead; the dramatic expression was left to the recitative. The recitative carried the narrative, preparing for and building up to the aria, which discharges the function of what the Germans so graphically call Affektenentladung, the “unloading” of the affective content.
The objection to the da capo aria usually revolves around the “destruction” of the logic of the text, which cannot be so symmetrically set and still retain its meaning and dramatic function. But a close examination of da capo arias will disclose that even in the most stereotyped of them a certain accommodation to the text is evident. Charges of “senseless repetition” of portions or single words of the text have frequently been made, but these too yield to scholarly analysis. “One of the most important aspects of aria construction is the indissoluble connection between the formal layout of the text (repetitions and recurrences) and the formal and tonal layout of the composition. Textual repetitions match musical extensions, textual recurrences match musical returns.” 36 Those who object to these beautifully designed arias forget that the opera aria was the ancestor of most of our present organized, tonally defined, and logically articulated musical forms, vocal and instrumental, as well as the breeding ground for all new means of musical expression from Monteverdi to Wagner.
Handel did not object to the da capo aria as did Gluck and some even before Cluck. In fact, it seems that for a long time he considered it the indispensable foundation of operatic style. We must remember that Handel was a “conservative” composer, if in the noblest sense of the word. On the other hand, how little conservative he was in dealing with the custom, how varied his arias are, how many different ways he could find to color them and give them dramatic validity! In Floridante, the aria “Dimmi o speme” uses for the middle section a dialogue in recitative; in Cleopatra’s great aria in Giulio Cesare, “Venere bella,” the ending of the first part defies all symmetry and orderliness as Handel plays with the A major cadence, delaying its finality for two dozen measures in a constant chain of surprises. There is scarcely an opera without such unusual aria construction, for the Handelian formal design is simple only if the face of a clock is simple. It is better to think of it as complicated but candid. The other great composers also knew how to minimize the sameness of the da capo aria, or, if they adhered to the routine, we often find the correct and formal da capo next to the most imaginative “free” forms. It may, of course, be said by objectors that the crux of the matter lies precisely at this point, and the theory of value advanced by such authors as the writer of these lines must at least partake of the undemonstrability that attends reconstructions, but the proof rests on the demonstrable fact that there are innumerable instances when form in the aria, by virtue of its beauty and perfection, becomes content.
The emergence of the aria as the mainstay of opera caused many difficulties in an era that showed a growing tendency to subjectivity, thus colliding with the rigid organization of the seria. The more individual interest is lavished on the hero the more the rules and conventions are threatened. Thus, while many arias were either actionless elegies or ballads, there were others that clearly transcended the limitations. The finely drawn characterizations, the many little refinements in the parts of accessory figures that are frequently to be found in Handel’s and the great Italians’ operas, disturb the “orderly” continuity of the opera.
Yet it would be idle to claim that Handel did not have a full share in the routine. In many of his arias the singer donned the ample gown of the rhetorician, but underneath the gown there was only a mannikin, and at times the composer seems more interested in beautiful sound than in the drama. The hero could be so pathetically heroic that there was no genuine pathos left for the rest of the cast, and for certain situations we see two exact copies of the same character type in the same opera. There is a very real danger that the modern listener will find this pathos not touching but comical. These heroes are halfway between action and reflection, always wanting to pass from one state to the other, moving among conflicts that fail to develop into dramatic dissonances. The relationship of ideal and reality is uncertain; the idea is strong enough to create real values, but even as it appears to be victorious, the compulsory order, number, and distribution of the arias turns victory into defeat. The protagonists were compelled by tradition to leave after a big aria or, what is worse, to remain on the stage as spectators, reclining on a couch and in many instances actually going to sleep. Double action—that is, two pairs of lovers—was almost a law in Baroque opera; the pairs took turns on the stage and, remaining in a certain equilibrium, provided a more or less orderly alternation of the two principal moods. The arrangement of the contents of the acts was also well regulated, as were correspondences of the grand scenes in the various parts of the opera.
To recapitulate, the aria constituted a stationary pause having consequences that seem flatly
contradictory to dramatic requirements. The most personal utterances, the intimate confessions—the arias—suspend the drama, while the emotion-free and often perfunctory recitatives restore the temporal continuity. It is easy to see that an art so dependent on formal beauty cannot speak to us until we manage to perceive its expressive power. The key to this appreciation is vocal lyricism, melody. After the Baroque, the lyric, epic, and dramatic forms of music gradually yielded before “absolute” music—symphony, quartet, sonata, and kindred species—just as poetry was overshadowed by the novel. (The entr’acte provided by the German Romantic Lied does not change this trend either qualitatively or quantitatively.) Who would say that lyric poetry is a less significant genre than the novel? Could English literature be envisaged without a Shelley? And could we appreciate a Shelley from prose transcriptions? Yet this parallels exactly what we are trying to do with Baroque opera in general and Handelian opera in particular.
Let us remember that such words and notions as “incantation” or “enchantment” come from music and express the power of music, and they all refer to melody, the most powerful means for creating a mood, which in turn creates the sorcery. The composer may begin with something to which we listen with polite indifference, then his pathos forces us to fall in with him, his intensity vanquishes us. There is an empathy factor even in the shortest piece, for the mood created can reach far beyond the duration of the music. In a song there is no time to prepare and create empathy—it must be almost instantaneous—but an operatic aria is another matter. In spite of all the paradoxes in opera, this lyricism is drama, therefore the poet does not reveal himself the way a song-lyricist does; he is portraying a dramatic figure.
All just criticisms notwithstanding, we cannot gloss over the fact that composers of great talent turned out operas by the hundreds, that they lavished the most beautiful melodies on the verses. The applause that accompanied a well-turned delivery of this intoxicating melody came from the bottom of the heart of the people—and not only in Italy.37 Thus, while Baroque opera was a singers’ economy, a restricted and one-sided art, marred by abuses, arbitrary acts, intrigue, nonsense, and disappointment, over it shone the unsurpassable radiance of Italian melody, which no other branch of music could match. At the turn of the 17th century there appeared a musician who raised this sensuous art to such heights that for a hundred years it dominated musical thought. His melodies brought to opera a freshness, amplitude, and nobility, an unerring sense for rounded form, and his ability to create and paint a mood made his music irresistible. The sweet, long-breathed melodies, the beautifully proportioned arias of Alessandro Scarlatti became the model for all composers for generations.
Melodic construction is the most difficult component of composition, the bold, broad, widely arching melody, the one with the “long breath,” being of particular difficulty. Aside from the rise and fall of the line, there are the structure and the punctuation—periods, commas, and colons—which give it clarity. And this melody must have that “divine simplicity” which the Italians valued so much, and which half a century ago was found tiresome—even laughable. It is well known that Verdi’s great tunes were called hurdy-gurdy music by the ardent Wagnerians, who also maintained that such melodies as Bellini’s could be invented by any moderately competent musician. But the Wagnerians failed to consult Wagner himself, who, in an uncharacteristically sincere moment, wrote in an album for Bellini that the Italian was one of his favorite composers because his music is all mood, “innig und genau mit dem Text verbunden.” Now this statement is most interesting, because according to the Wagnerian standards of vocal composition, Bellini’s is certainly loose and often slights the text. But there can be no question about the mood, and this mood is entirely dominated by the melody, as in Scarlatti and Handel. The drama takes place within the melodies, for to the Baroque composer the external happenings are too “coarse” to be noticed and represented.
Handel the melodist is fascinatingly powerful, usually from the beginning of a melody, if not from the very upbeat. His melodic language is bold and free in an era that regarded the Alexandrine as the ideal in both poetry and music; it is full of the most unexpected and subtle elisions, abbreviations, and elongations. Very often a single line of this melody affects us with the finality of a complete masterpiece. His wondrous melodies, refined as though passed through fire a thousand times, give the impression of simple improvisation, but their simplicity hides an artfully magnificent structure that cannot be improvised. Handel wrote many melodies that came from the public domain of the Baroque, many more that represent the beguiling best of all ages. The study of their repeated palingenesis in different works, sometimes decades apart, will disclose the extraordinary rejuvenation one changed interval or dot can accomplish.
[3]
SOME CRITICS MAINTAIN that the German, inclined to polyphony and the symphonic, is too somber and heavy to take to opera naturally, and explain that Mozart was a southerner with an Italian background, while Handel, Hasse, and John Christian Bach became completely Italianized. This is true, of course, but the very fact that these northerners could so completely absorb the spirit and essence of opera that they were able to beat the Italians at their own game shows that inherently the German is perfectly capable of true lyric drama. Why its realization was restricted to the Italian-oriented Germans is explained by the most German of opera composers, Richard Wagner, for it is not that the German is “heavy,” but that drama in Germany always runs parallel with philosophy. This is not so elsewhere, and it is totally otherwise in Italy. In France, Corneille and Descartes were contemporaries, yet they had little in common, and in the 18th century, when philosophy proliferated in that country, there was no significant playwright until the end of the century. The times of Hume and Mill produced no outstanding dramatist in England, but Kant is present in every drama in Germany.
In the Handelian theatre maxims and philosophical contemplation have no place; Handel neither formulated nor employed theories. And what is, of course, of decisive importance in an opera composer, he was a dramatist of the first water and at the same time a lyric poet, as well as a stylist, a storyteller, and an architect. All of these qualities are far removed from the world of philosophy. At times this clear, truly “classic” style warms to rhetoric in constantly rising, beautifully articulated musical sentences, for Handel is the master of musical characterization in melody. Stylistic problems did not exist for him. His artistic world existed a priori and it was largely the verbal material that came to hand which determined whether a work was more or less successful, although, as we shall see, even that was not a necessary criterion, for Handel could overcome the limitations of poor materials. His musical language was capable of expressing thought and emotion entwined, but also, and with equal assurance, emotion almost divorced from thought. At times his music may be imaginatively so condensed as to tax the listener’s intuition, but the difficulty is never that of willful experiment, for while the texture is fastidiously wrought, it is quick with the insight that has discovered the meaning of beauty.
The general form of the Handelian opera is largely a faithful copy of the classic Venetian-Neapolitan prototype. For a long time he must have felt that since in the works of the Scarlatti circle the modus vivendi was well formulated, he could live by their ten commandments; it was only later that he decided to add an eleventh of his own devising. The conventions were strong (they are equally strong in the fashionable grand opera), and they were respected, but while the frame is the same, and so are the subjects, Handel’s music is not rigid and does not follow pattern and etiquette unconditionally. His opera is no longer merely the old court opera; it is music drama whose figures are often snatched by force from the strait jacket of classicist make-believe.
Nevertheless, there were many dramaturgical rules of the opera seria that he accepted unquestioningly—and even welcomed. Thus the relegation off stage of many incidents of the plot permitted him to concentrate on the state of mind of the protagonists
, disclosing surprisingly romantic traits. He was romantic because against the abstract types of the seria he could oppose real individuals. These are not always altogether real in our sense, but perhaps more than that, they are ideals of men, which Plato considered the true reality. To actuality they are still tied by a few strands: we see ancient Greeks and Romans, Scythians, Parthians, Visigothic kings and Egyptian queens. They all lived long, long ago, and could be freely elaborated, but all of them recognize ideals, the ideal of patriotism, sacrifice, honor, loyalty, fidelity, love, filial duty. All of them are filled with consciousness and the will to carry these ideals to victory despite the conventions of the opera seria. The point of gravity in the drama is not so much in the great clashes, but in their preparation and lyric aftermath. One or two figures remain on stage and bare their souls. This is Handel’s favorite moment, which can rise into the monumental.
The monumental impression is due to the fact that the musical forms have saturated themselves with content and impress of themselves, though they do not detach themselves from plot and figures. This is the moment in Baroque opera that causes the greatest difficulty to musician and layman alike brought up on the heritage of the Romantic era; they ask, “What can one, what must one give up for the sake of form? Or is it necessary at all to make this sacrifice?” The answer is that here pure art fills with its own life and raises above time and the possibility of change what actual life has offered. There is perhaps a false touch here and there, for at times the relationship of these perfect forms is merely tonal, constantly gaining in detail but also weakening continuity, and at times the material is so breathtakingly beautiful that its meaning is outshone. Such objections are not unjustified. As a rule Handel subjected the feelings to be expressed in an aria to the closest scrutiny in his determination to purify it of all questionable emotional alloy. Yet it appears that his impressions were occasionally so intense as to overshadow his vigilant intellect.
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 22