Supernatural in Opera – MUSS3121

1. Supernatural in literature and music.

Baroque spectacle in the seventeenth century.
Monteverdi’s Orfeo; Locke’s The Tempest; Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

Where do experiences with supernatural come from in literature and art?

Literature
- Frankenstein
- Der Vampir
- Penny Dreadfuls
- Jekyll and Hyde
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Shakespeare – Hamlet, Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest
- Bible – Ombra in choral and sacred music
- Legend of Don Juan/Don Giovanni
- Dante’s Inferno
- Faust – Marlowe, Goethe
- Greek mythology: Orpheus and Eurydice, Dido and Aeneas
o Enlightenment – many Greek myths reimagined
- Carmilla – J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Monteverdi’s Orfeo
- Orpheus is half God, half mortal who can tame wild with magical musical abilities, popular
for composers writing opera
- Libretto by Striggio – prolific 17th century poet/writer
- 2 different endings – outcome of Orpheus being ripped apart on stage, but this version has
lieto fine (happy ending) as was written for a wedding
- Allegorical figures (personification of a character) eg. Music, Hope
- Listen to Act 2 – Orfeo
- Act 3 – references to Dante – ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’
- In order to charm the ferryman, Orpheus sings new style aria ‘Possente spirto’, significant
moment for musicology as Monteverdi writes out all ornaments
- Style of singing is called arioso – mixture between recitative and aria
- Chorus of spirits stepping outside and commenting on the drama
- New style piece: madrigalian style that Monteverdi was known for, walking bass to
represent Orpheus walking through underworld, strophic setting with ritornello between
each verse
- Always have chorus at the end of a scene explaining the moral of the story

What music do we associate with the supernatural?

- Low sounds from singers and orchestra

 - Trombones, regal (reed organ), basso continuo
- Unusual harmonic progressions, discontinuity of vocal melody and harmony
- In a minor key there are more dissonances available – more augmented/diminished intervals
occurring in the key – more appropriate for symbolising ‘other worlds’
- Foundations for creating supernatural in opera are being laid down here in very early opera

Cavalli - Il Giasone (1649)

- Variant on the story Jason and the Golden Fleece
- Married with 2 children but seduced by sorceress Medea
- Versi sdruccioli – built on dactylic rhythms (long-short-short)
- Dell’antro magico – incantation by Medea, fanfare shape to her melodic outline which
signifies power, in E minor, repeated notes = heartbeat/approaching footsteps

Matthew Locke’s – The Tempest (1674)

- Incidental music between scenes in Shakespeare’s tempest
- Low strings, calm and becoming more consonant as storm begins
- Fast moving strings (representing waves) with dissonance, discontinuity, repeated notes

Purcell - Dido and Aeneas (1689)

- Aeneas destined to found Rome and Dido queen of Carthage, falls in love with Aeneas
- Purcell’s version includes witch
- 1688 important year in British history – Glorious revolution – Catholic James II replaced by
William of Orange and his wife Mary – both protestant
- Cave scene – many supernatural scenes set in ‘sub-terrain’ areas
- First thing to notice is key – F minor; not all keys were equal (as in equal temperament that
we now know on a keyboard)

2. Ombra and Tempesta in the 18th century theatre

Comparisons and understanding of ombra and tempesta
- Common key of tempesta is D minor
- Tirades/coup d’achet acciaccatura upbeats on the strings
- Hairpin dynamics
- Ombra – Ceremonial, ominous, infernal
- Tempesta – Cataclysmic, emotional, infernal. With the cataclysmic usually it is caused by an
ombra event – eg. Storms conjured by the gods
- Not necessarily found in conjunction with one another – their overlap point comes through
infernal scenes – or events caused by ombra. They can stand alone in their own right as well.

Gluck’s Don Juan (1761)

- Written 15 years before the German literary phrase Sturm und Drang was coined so requires
a different terminology.
- Brass used in symbolic ways to display statues voice
- Harmonic changes around a pedal note

Source readings of musical history – Gluck’s manifesto

Marais – Alcyone (1706)

- Earlier than Gluck

- Main difference is that it’s in a major key
- No brass – less lower timbres so element of fear is slightly removed
- Heavily based around scales

Rameau – Hippolyte e Aricie (1733)

- Influence of Marais is clear
- Scalic passages, major key
- Rameau uses more advanced harmonic progressions

Aesthetic theory in 18th Century – Music and the Sublime of Terror in the 18 th Century
- Idea of the sublime – to create and achieve the highest state of emotion possible
- Creating music and dramatic events to move the audience
- John Dennis wrote about the sources of sublime ‘gods, demons, hell, spirits and souls of
men, miracles, prodigies, enchantments, witchcrafts, thunder, tempests, raging seas,
inundations, torrents, earthquakes, volcanoes, monsters, serpents, lions, tigers, fires war,
etc.’
- Edmund Burke wrote about the sublime and beautiful (1757) – anything that could initiate
terror operates the ideas of the sublime – ‘it is productive of the strongest emotion which
the mind is capable of feeling’
- James Beattie – Sublime in music is when devotion, courage or other related, elevated
affections. The mind is overcome with astonishment – which can be descriptive of sweet or
terrible ideas

Handel – Admeto (1727)

- Remote key changes, rapid movement in strings during more animated recit, juxtaposed
with slower passages
- Followed by complete contrast in Aria – ‘slumber’ aria
- Deliberate uses of juxtapositions to make the emotional impact – incite in the audience the
same feelings of instability and uncertainty as the characters are feeling.

Hasse – Cleofide (1731)

- Story inspired by ruling of Alexander the Great – conqueror of Europe
- Cleofide sees ‘ghost’ of her husband – instead of the usual ombra characteristics of fear and
anxiety they are inverted because she looks upon the ghost lovingly
- Ombra music appears in the build up to the arrival of the ghost

Metastasio
- Writer of most standard repertory in the 17 th century
- Banned the supernatural in his librettos – his librettos were more based around heroes,
faithfulness, goodness, virtue etc.
- 18th century went against this monopoly and were more concerned with sublime
- Metastasio started to include a ghost scene even if it did not specify it in the libretto which
proved

Jommelli – Volgeso (1766) Act 3 Scene 6 +7

- Use of woodwind and procession
- Solo woodwind to incite images of the ghosts
- Lucio Vero attempts to seduce Berenice
- Horn is a classic masculine signifier – to represent Berenice’s husband is alive
 Gluck – Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
- D minor
- Scene – ‘terrible caverns’
- Rhythmic and harmonic personification of the cried of Cerberus to create the impression of
barking
- Orpheus sings in calm melodic passages, interjected by dissonant choral responses
To do
- New grove article on Hasse
- Look into music and sublime terror 18th century – reading on VLE Edmund
Burke