The Birth of Opera: Styles and Composers, 1590–1650

Introduction: Renaissance Ideals and the Origins of Opera

The Renaissance represented a flowering of Western European civilization in all its aspects. As the name suggests, it was a "renascence" — a rebirth — of high culture that took hold of much of Western Europe at the close of the Middle Ages. Philosophers, painters, sculptors, architects, and composers alike set themselves to the task of reviving the lost glories of ancient Greece and Rome. Taking their cues from the still-standing and recently unearthed relics of the classical world, they attempted to reconstruct their own modern surroundings along antique lines. What they could not learn about the past through direct observation — from statues, buildings, and the like — they attempted to piece together from those Latin and Greek texts that had come down to them. Of all the great classical arts, however, it was music that proved most difficult to reconstruct. Having no recordings of ancient music's actual sound, and possessing very few examples of antique musical notation, Renaissance scholars were forced to construct what they believed to be an accurate replica of classical music.

This ideal music — as they conceived it — would consist of dramatic presentations accompanied by both instrumental and vocal music, with the vocal portions further divided into choral parts and parts for a single voice. Such performances would best approximate the musical presentations of the ancient Greeks, who, unlike the moderns, were believed to have understood and produced the purest, most desirable, and most highly developed forms of every art. This new music would be called opera — "works" in Latin — and it would first appear in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century.

The first composers of opera, working in the period from 1590 to 1650, were therefore faced with the difficulties of reconstructing a lost art. As they had little to work from beyond theories, it was inevitable that their creations would proceed in different directions. Though all agreed that operas should be entirely sung, composers faced the problem of connecting actual songs, or arias, with the sung dialogue of the recitative.

The striving to achieve a seamless linkage between the powerful sentiments expressed by the aria and the need to fill in the "back story" through recitative was emblematic of a basic philosophical goal of the Renaissance period. As one scholar has noted, "It reflects the paradigmatic views of its time — in particular, views of the mind/body relation. Early opera had no unconscious; it was not yet dualistic. Philosophers looked for ways to make soul and substance one."

The Role of the Voice: Caccini, Bardi, and Monody

For many composers of opera, the centrality of song presented an interesting dilemma: if opera was essentially a performance of song, was not the quality of the singing its most important feature? Giulio Caccini discoursed at length on the beauty of the voice, and on the idea that only the solo voice can attain true virtue. Giovanni de' Bardi summed up this viewpoint in a letter to Caccini:

The art of good singing, by implication far superior to counterpoint, comprises ensemble or solo performance. For ensembles, Bardi recommends blending the voices, ornamentation in strict time, and a reserved style of production. The noblest aim of the singer is to express exactly the affections of the song with all the suavity and sweetness he can muster. Dolcezza in voice and melody represents the most important aesthetic foundation of good singing, and in Bardi's estimation, Caccini is unsurpassed in this regard.

For Caccini, Bardi, and others, an opera was essentially an ensemble of beautiful songs. These songs must inspire emotions in their purest and most powerful forms.

Works Cited

Chua, Daniel K.L. Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Harness, Kelley. "Le Tre Euridici: Characterization and Allegory in the Euridici of Peri and Caccini." Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music. Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, 9, 1, 2003.

Maniates, Maria Rika. Mannerism in Italian Music and Culture, 1530–1630. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Marco, Guy A. Opera: A Research and Information Guide. New York: Garland, 2001.

Sternfeld, F.W. The Birth of Opera. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.

Companion to Baroque Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.