CHAPTER I.

WHAT IS OPERA?

What is Opera?—Derivation of term—A musical work—An artificial product—Its justification—Emotional effect of music—Hybrid opera—Modern taste demands one medium of expression—A definition—Music an accessory to opera, but an important one.

[Sidenote: =What is Opera?=]

What is Opera? A question easy to ask, but one that by no means finds so ready an answer; the definitions, “A drama set to music,” “A musical play,” and so forth, being but loose and inaccurate, and not conveying any real idea as to that which they seek to define.

[Sidenote: =Derivation of Term=]

The term “Opera,” derived, or rather abbreviated from the words “Opera in Musica” (Works in music—_i.e._, a musical work), may be at once seen to be only a convenient title that has found favour by its brevity and through lack of a better: translate it and read “works,” and we may see that it is a meaningless term in all else than that it is something created.

And what is this “something” that has been created, that is in people’s mouths so often, and that we designate by the word “Opera”? The least cultured will be able to answer that it is a work for the stage, in which music plays a prominent part: that it is this, and something more, must be shown as we study its rise and development.

[Sidenote: =A Musical Work=]

Let us go a little deeper in our search for a definition. In studying real opera we shall find that not only is it a dramatic production, and that music plays an important part in it, but that any spoken dialogue is foreign to its nature. It is therefore a continuous musical work, uninterrupted by speeches or sentences spoken by the natural voice—sung throughout, the music being illustrative of the story that is being unfolded, and accompanied by appropriate gesture and action. Evidently, then, Opera is a very artificial production; for although under some circumstances one may indeed burst forth into spontaneous song, it is difficult to imagine any considerable number of connected incidents or episodes in one’s life which would naturally suggest music, to which music would be a fitting accompaniment, or which would demand vocalized words for the adequate expression of the sentiments aroused by them.

[Sidenote: =An Artificial Product=]

Fierce rage, passion, death agonies, jealousy, quarrelling on the one hand, and wit, humour, ordinary dialogue on the other—instances of these are more or less commonly met with in our ordinary experiences, and as such they are frequently and naturally reproduced on the stage. But feelings or emotions called up by such events are by no means naturally expressed by musical sounds; and yet in opera we find such emotions, such conditions frequently constituting some considerable portion of the subject-matter of the piece; and since all is sung, it follows that musical expression of these emotions must necessarily be rendered.

Opera, then, must be admitted to be a thing of artificiality. Some will say, “Since the introduction of music into a dramatic work admits an unreal element into that which might otherwise receive a natural interpretation, how can its existence be justified?”

[Sidenote: =Additional Emotional Effect of Music=]

The answer to this is, that whatever may be the feelings or actions to be expressed by the stage characters, proper and suitable music will express them with far greater intensity and far greater power than will spoken words or mere gesture. Such are the emotional qualities of the art of music that a phrase of quite ordinary significance in words may become, if wedded to expressive music, a thing of beauty and life; an emotional feeling may be roused in the auditor that the mere spoken word could never have touched. In the case of words that may themselves contain beautiful ideas, their loveliness can be greatly enhanced by the addition of music, their meaning intensified, their impressiveness doubled.

Artificial, then, as Opera is, and must be, it can justify its artificiality: a drama is put upon the stage, and in order that its situations, its sentiments, and its meaning may be more fully expounded, music is called in to elucidate, to express, and to beautify. Admitting the possibility of this—which no one who has the least feeling for music, or who is at all moved emotionally by the art of sweet sounds, can deny—we find that Opera justifies its existence, despite its unreality and its unlikeness to life.

[Sidenote: =Hybrid Opera=]

But all Opera is not sung throughout: there is a large number of musical works under this name having spoken dialogue. Justification for these is more difficult, for it may be readily understood that one form of expression should be used throughout, and that this modified form of Opera (known as Singspiel), being neither one thing nor the other, is a hybrid form, which really has no right of admission to the title of Opera at all. The fact that it is often effective and highly popular hardly excuses its violation of art form. Of this more anon, for so many plays of this kind with musical numbers were written at a certain period of the history of the art and were classed as operas, that their claims cannot be overlooked. But modern taste in opera demands that one medium of expression be made use of throughout, and thus a return has been made to the early and more artistic form of “Opera in Musica”—the true form, of which the Singspiel is only an offshoot.

[Sidenote: =A Definition=]

We may answer our question, then, “What is opera?” in some such manner as this: An opera is a play designed for the stage, with scenery, costumes, and action used as accessories as in all stage plays, but with the additional use of music to intensify the meanings of the lines which are uttered by the characters, to generally heighten the effect produced by the other combined arts, and to add an emotional element that might otherwise be lacking.

[Sidenote: =Music an Accessory, but an Important One=]

Let us notice that music is only an accessory to the play: an important one, it may be granted, but yet only an accessory. It has been through failure to recognize this limited position of music in opera that accounts for thousands of operas never being heard now. The exaltation of the music at the expense of plot, action, and dramatic fitness has caused the downfall of many a promising operatic composer. Public taste has been to blame, but in the long run it has always veered round to a proper appreciation of the truly artistic; it has made many mistakes, but sooner or later, guided by some master mind, it has discarded the false and taken to the true and real form of opera, with the result that most operas written to-day are consistent wholes, dominated by one general idea, and written upon one fixed governing principle.

Opera, then, generally speaking, is an Art form, in which a stage play is presented with all usual accessories, but with the important addition of continuous music: this is a general definition, but one of which there are so many modifications that we must turn aside for a moment to trace how it happens that so many forms and varieties of opera as there seem to be have sprung into existence.