A New History of Opera
The Changing Opera. By Paul Bekker. (Dent. 10s. 6d.) IN this book Dr. Bekker traces the history of the opera not from its beginnings in the sixteenth century, but from the time of the great rebirth of opera in the eighteenth century. Dr. Bekker's chapter on Gluck does not contain any new or remarkable matter ; but the following chapter on Mozart is often very illuminating, especially to the majority of people who are probably unfamiliar with Ernst Lert's brill:ant Mozart auf dent Theater. It is true that Dr. Bekker makes the incredible statement that " . . as a matter of fact Figaro, Pon Giovanni and Cosi fan tulle must really be regarded: as. German operas. . . . Mozart wrote them to Italian texts only because what he wanted said and sung could not be said and sung in German." This might prejudice any reader against Dr. Bekker and his opinions ; but his insight into Mozart's psychology is, for all that, often profound. He. divides the operas into the Italian dramas of social life- Cosi fan tulle, Figaro, and Don Giovanni—and the German. folk-plays, Ent,'iihrung and Zauberflo:e : and he shows how. each corresponded to and satisfied a certain part of. Mozart's mentality. His discussion of the treatment of the various: voices, male and female, in the Mozart operas is magnificent and reveals a psychological meaning where unthinking: historians have often seen either convention or mere chance. " The conception of love as a heroic emotion was furthest from Mozart's mind, doubtless because that conception is furthest from reality as well. The nearer he came to feminine• tenderness and delicacy—that is, the more clearly his own fancy approached human credibility—the greater became the richness and variety with which his female characters sang." It is when he treats Mozart not as a German but as_ a human being that Dr. Bekker is at his best.
The chapter (5) on German opera between Fidelio and Tannhariser will be extremely interesting to the general reader, to whom Weber is not much more than a name, and Marschner, Lortzing, and Nieolai hardly that.- 'Dr. Bekker- traces Wagner's descent from his musical predecessors without at all detracting from his greatness and originality. He points to the great effect of the Paris " grand opera," with Meyerbeer as its greatest exponent, on both Wagner and Verdi : and shows how each of these great originals " took " it, as a serum, and then freed their systems from it. Lassen will nichls von Lieb' and Weib he finds the keynote to Wagner's musical psychology : and points the vivid contrast in Verdi's, preoccupation with the ideal of the heroic male figures battling with fate, to whom -wbirtert,snd • woman's love -are only-a as a part of the intense masculinity to which the nineteenth —characteristics are clear reasoning, logical arrangement and century had become unaccustomed in music. " Verdi was, balanced judgment. Now, as Sir Norman Angell points 'out indeed, a deeply passionate and a fundamentally masculine in his introduction, the problem set us by the threat of Nvari. s nature . : . that the first utterances of such. a nature should one that constitutes a challenge_ not to the emotions 1/4 to seem to the culture of an over-refined period crude, banal, • the reason of mankind. It is not because men arc bird-
. or even of street-ballad type, is nut Verdi's fault. He never hearted but _because they are Thick-headed- that wars occur. altered this basic trait of his nature, even in his later utter- - Because man is Stupid, because acts habitually witlaint daces whii.h were, to be sure, less primitive." In dealing with French opera Dr. Bekker shows an under- certain policies, the purpoSe of Which may quite sincerely) standing and an appreciation of the qualities of the French peace, but the result of which must inevitably be war." Tfie voice and French musical genius which is not commori-in -: trouble, Sir Norman insists, is not really an emotional
:.German writers. And as he comes to the discussion of all. Emotions, while telling us " to do right," will not tell Os Carmen and the newer Italian school of verismo he can • ".what is right." In fact, the only emotion really releva0i to separate himself from the'a:'erage musician's prejudice against this debate is " a sense of the moral obligation to be infel/i-
: a rather cheap popularity, and see that " out of artistic - gent."
mediation between Italian power and French sensibility Sir Norman, as usual, is right. Clear thought is the mo Puccini brought -forth a new Latin model . . . this type' of • pensable pre-requisite of every human advance ; nor can th' play is not international : it represents the Latin man of be any alleviation of the sufferings of mankind except thrOuilt the world." But he sees also the pathological clement at 7 straight-thinking. The acid power of thought•Will in the e4t1 the ladtom of this new school. " Those figures which, in disintegrate all the flummery and the froth of current pasaiofis French opera were so delicate and transparent now become • and pretences, eat the life out of the false loyalties and bitieits vocally almost too substantial. They- are also pathologically way through to reveal the facts. Now clear thought one the toadied up in order to lend to their vocal resources a new . subject of peace and war is the commodity which above'-all tonal nuance through- the addition of the note of suffering. others this book seeks to provide: The reader who finishes • Mimi is consumptive : the picturesque element of Butterfly. it will have achieved a wide, calm and accurate vision $,f is her Japanese character." And one has only to run through the whole complex problem in all its ramifications, so far �s a list of Puccini's other works to trace the same characteristic __ the contemporary mind can grasp it. It is a great -se 4e • —the torture scene in Tosco : a certain obsession with the that the writers have done us, and We should be ..prokrty macabre in all three of the triptych : and the sadistic 'grateful.
"about them, and show Puccini as an unhappy and pathetic of which war may bestOpped: The first, the direct way, -man with a touch of morbidity in his nature, is the simple refusal of .people to fight in it This is the The history of the opera after the War becomes little way taken by the conscientious objectors in the last war. more than a catalogue of names and tendencies : and at such The account of their movement given by the •authors a small remove from the events it is not possible that it . comprehensive, well-documented, and sympathetic. 'Ate should be much more. The book as a whole, hoWeVer, is
an excellent. production : and the ". bird's-eye_ view'.' list
of operas at the end serves as an agreeable guide to the subject part of life,. and often only - a eonn4icating-stpand in the fact, like physics or philosophy,.has beconie a Subject: Let me, web of destiny which they are trying to unravel. And„ ,,lie then, say at.ance that this is„,ty, ,far., LIQrst treatment of the explains the old accusation of vulgarity aimed at Verdi, subject with which I am acquainted. _its_ _distinguishiiig
- element in Tu,-andot. This will be nothing new to the readers What is their answer to the question with which they
Previous page
