"THERE are three great schools of opera,—Italian, French, and German.
None other has developed sufficiently to require comment in this brief
chapter.
Of the three standard schools, the Italian is the most frankly
melodious. When at its best, Italian vocal melody ravishes the senses.
When not at its best, it merely tickles the ear and offends common
sense. "Aïda" was a turning point in Italian music. Before Verdi
composed "Aïda," Italian opera, despite its many beauties, was largely
a thing of temperament, inspirationally, but often also carelessly set
forth. Now, Italian opera composers no longer accept any libretto
thrust at them. They think out their scores more carefully; they
produce works in which due attention is paid to both vocal and
orchestral effect. The older composers still represented in the
repertoire are Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. The last-named,
however, also reaches well over into the modern school of Italian
opera, whose foremost living exponent is Puccini.
Although Rameau (1683-1764), whose "Castor and Pollux" held the stage
until supplanted by Gluck's works, was a native of France, French
opera had for its founder the Italian, Lully; and one of its chief
exponents was the German, Meyerbeer. Two foreigners, therefore, have
had a large share in developing the school. It boasts, however, many
distinguished natives—Halévy, Auber, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet.
In the French school of opera the instrumental support of the voice is
far richer and the combination of vocal and instrumental effect more
discriminating than in the old school of Italian opera. A first cousin
of Italian opera, the French, nevertheless, is more carefully thought
out, sometimes even too calculated; but, in general, less florid, and
never indifferent to the librettist and the significance of the lines
he has written and the situations he has evoked. Massenet is, in the
truest sense, the most recent representative of the school of
Meyerbeer and Gounod, for Bizet's "Carmen" is unique, and Débussy's
"Pelléas et Mélisande" a wholly separate manifestation of French art
for the lyric stage.
The German school of opera is distinguished by a seriousness of
purpose that discards all effort at vocal display for itself alone,
and strives, in a score, well-balanced as between voice and orchestra,
to express more forcibly than could the spoken work, the drama that
has been set to music.
An opera house like the Metropolitan, which practically has three
companies, presents Italian, French, and German operas in the language
in which they were written, or at least usually does so. Any speaker
before an English-speaking audience can always elicit prolonged
applause by maintaining that in English-speaking countries opera
should be sung in English. But, in point of fact, and even
disregarding the atrocities that masquerade as translations of opera
into English, opera should be sung in the language in which it is
written. For language unconsciously affects, I might even say
determines, the structure of the melody."
KOBBÉ, Gustav. The Complete Opera Book. The Stories of the Operas, together with 400 of the Leading Airs and Motives in Musical Notation.New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1919.
