MUSIC
THE PROSPECTS OF OPERA.
THE question of the opera of the future, which formed the cockpit of musical. controversy forty years ago, has now become the question of the future of the opera. Ever since its Florentine birth in the sixteenth century opera has always been swinging between two points, the artist on the one side insisting on incisive declaration and dramatic truth, and the singer on the other com- pelling a sacrifice of either, or both, to the exigencies of vocal display. At the outset the swing of the pendulum was altogether in the former direction; the operas of Pen, Caccini, and Monteverde are almost purely declamatory, those of the last-named being almost grotesquely realistic in their illustration of the text. But the singer was soon amply compensated for this initial neglect, and with the eighteenth century came the long tyranny of the prima uomo and the prima donna, from which we are not yet altogether emancipated. Opera in this phase was of a type most familiar to us in the works of Handel, consisting of strings of songs mostly for vocal display and irrespective of the dramatic situation. In these operas, when printed, the composer and publisher did not apparently consider it advisable even to engrave the recitatives which told the 'story of the piece; so unimportant . was the plot, so paramount were the show: pieces, the "airs Of agility," for the singer. Thus it came about that when -Handel, in whom by nature the &lunatic instinct was exceedingly strong, sought to express himself with .more declamatory force, he was driven to take refuge in a species of molted- Oratorio, based num' ly on mytho- logical themes, which in its form of expression belongs to the declamatory school. In these works the recitatives are elaborated almost to the point where Gluck began : and the songs, though occasionally involving concession to vocal display, are as a rule much more closely in touch with the dramatic situation. Yet Handel did not venture to call these works operas, although they were far more worthy of the name than his Italian series. And here we may remark, in parenthesis, as a curious instance of the way in which history repeats itself, that not a few of the so-called oratorios or cantatas produced at our English Festivals of recent years have been in their essence much more like operas than any- thing else.
The next swing of the pendulum was decisively in the direction of the purely dramatic and declamatory. The leader of this movement was Gluck—Berlioz's 1LIYMMe de cceur as opposed to Handel, whom he regarded as a homme de ventre—and so potent was his influence that he succeeded in influencing all schools of opera of either class up to the present day. Then the pendulum began to swing back towards ' vocal display, but slowly. Indeed, the transcendent genius of Mozart succeeded for a time in almost bringing it to a stand- still between the two extremes, so grateful were his numbers to the singer, and at the same time so true to the dramatic significance of the situation. In a word, he never sacrificed beauty to character, or character to beauty. But after Mozart, if we except the solitary but majestic monument to true music-drama which Beethoven gave to the world, opera was for a space given over to the dominion of the singers. The next great landmark is Rossini and the Italian school, followed in turn by the influence of Weber in the dramatic direction, and of Meyerbeer in the vocaL The latter, at heart a dramatist but in practice a seeker after ephemeral applause and a consummate opportunist, tried to reconcile God and Mammon, and has fallen between two stools. Then came the commanding genius of Wagner and the declamatory school at its highest pitch of development. Yet what he called "music of the future" was really identical in tendency with that of Pen and Caccini, Gluck and Weber. Wagner, with the passion for phrase-mongering which was natural to him, identified it with himself and dubbed it Zukunftsmusik ; Verdi, with the modesty which was characteristic of the man, more truly summed up the situation in his dictum : Torniamo all' antico. Both these great composers developed in a similar manner and with very similar results. For the early operas and Rienzi were to Wagner's career as Rause° and the early operas of Verdi were to his ; and both reached the height of declamatory energy in their latest works.
If the history of the past is to be repeated in the future, the next trend of opera should be towards subjugating the drama to the voice, and exalting the singer at the expense of the composer. But as yet there is no sign of this movement, and it may be that as Gluck imperceptibly affected even the vocal school which arose after him, so Wagner and Verdi may affect the future still more. Should that be so, it seems more likely that the dominant influence will be that of Verdi, with his affection for the human voice, than that of Wagner, with his heroic disregard for it whenever he was confronted by the limitations of the larynx. Yet it is only right to remember that Wagner had a wholesome regard for the supreme excel- lence of the best Italian school of voice production; that he sent his niece, Johanna Wagner, to study with Manuel Garcia—Jenny Lind's teacher, and the elder brother of Mali- bran, the doyen of the musical world, who has just celebrated his ninety-sixth birthday—and that he made overtures to the _ same master with a view to his undertaking the training of singers at Bayreuth in 1876. Still, the -fact remains that the 'Vocal athletes trained exclusively in the Wagnerian arena are aeldoin convincing when they emerge from it, while on the other 'hand the most delightful vocal interpreters of Wagner, those who have done most to win him a world-wide repute- lion, have attained the mastery of their art in other fields.
The operas which ' have achieved success -or notoriety
during the last five-and-twenty years—if we except Verdi's Otello and Falstaff and Wagner'a Parmfal—have been in all countries of the realistic type. The pioneer in this field was undoubtedly Rizet, with his audacious and bewitching Carmen, a work which, if it does not justify all. the rap- tures of Nietzsche, at least merits a good deal . of his eulogy. But we doubt whether Nietzsche himself would have approved of the way in which the younger Italians have acted upon his maxim, 11 foul miditerraniser its musique. Realism, more or less squalid, is the dominant factor in the " brutta 4eusica " of Mascagni and Leoncavallo, and in the operas--arristically far superior—of Puccini. In Germany the tremendous personality of Wagner seems, for the time at least, to have crashed out the individuality of the rising generation. Humperdinck's Hansel end Gretel, charming and deservedly popular though it is, is after all only an adaptation of purely Wagnerian principles, and sometimes actual methods of expression, to the mythology of the nursery. It is a charming and fascinating tour de force rather than the work of one who sets foot on the aria Pieridum loca nullius ante trita solo. After Hansel und Gretel, perhaps the most popular opera in Germany during the past decade has been Kienzrs Der Evangelimann. In it we find Gemithlichkeit turned to gush; sentimentality "slops over," as Artemus Ward would put it, on every page ; and the libretto has been described" as though an English opera were written for the glorification of the Salvation Army by a non-humorous and ponderous Gilbert." For the rest, the dynasty of the Strausaes has come to an end with the death of Johann the younger, and throughout the rest of Germany the younger men are so intoxicated with the exuberance of their orchestral virtuosity as to be unable to achieve articulate dramatic utterance. America has produced some graceful song-writers, and in Mr. MacDowell a writer of considerable symphonic talent, but no dirnatic composer of outstanding talent. France has no lack of prolific, accom- plished, and _picturesque composers, yet Carmen still awaits a successor. Whether one looks to promise or achievement, it seems more likely that the next fruitful impetus to opera will be given by a Slavonic or an Anglo-Saxon composer than from any other quarter.
One may note in conclusion a few significant features in the recent development of the lyric drama. One of these is the opera in modern dress. Of this the originator was Lortzing, who carried the device to the point of writing an operatic illustration of an after-dinner game of billiards. But after him, with the possible exception of La Traviata, which has always been played in conventional eighteenth-century costume, we find no specimens of this type until the operas of Bruneau, Le Reve and L'Attague du Moulin, followed more recently by Puccini in his Bohi me and La Tosco The success achieved by these efforts would seem to point to a likelihood of the abandonment of legendary in favour of realistic opera-books. Messidor, Zola's sole direct contribu- tion to the list of libretti, is an interesting attempt to com- bine the two, but in spite of its picturesqueness and power, it cannot be considered a success in practice, however attractive to read and poetical in intention. In this context we may note, as another and more important factor in the present situation, the greatly enhanced importance of the librettist, who from being a negligible quantity has grown to be almost the predominant partner, for a bad book will not now live by association with good music, and even poor music may be redeemed by a. good libretto. But, on the other hand, it may be urged that if we no longer endure work as bad as that of Piave or Wilhelmine von Chezy, we are unable to produce a Schubert or a Weber. Lastly, no consideration of the con- dition or prospects of modern opera can be complete with- out a reference to the element of nationality. Though in a sense music has become internationalised, the utilisation of local colour, of folk-tunes and national rhythms, has been a marked feature in at least three of the most artistic and successful of recent operas,—Carmem, which, though written by a Frenchman, has been practically adopted as the national opera of Spain ; Hansel end Gretel, in which admirable use has been made not only of the sagas, but the tunes of the nursery; and Stanford's Shamus 0 Brien.
O. L. G.
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