Opera Theater 2007–2008

Spring Opera 2008 Information

Friday, February 22 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 24 at 3 p.m.
Kobacker Hall
Moore Musical Arts Center

Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach

• Cast List

The composer, Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880), was born into a musical family. He spent his early years traveling and performing as a virtuoso cellist before settling in Paris and establishing himself as a composer of comic opera. Offenbach left Paris in 1870 because of the Franco-Prussian War, but returned in 1873 and continued working. He began composing his most performed work, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, but died before it was finished; Ernest Guiraud completed the work.

Orphée aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) was originally a two-act, comic opera, the idea for which came from Offenbach’s friend Gustave Doré, and is a parody of the Greek myth on Orpheus and Euridice. Previously under the control of an employer, Offenbach was for the first time able to expand the length of this opera and use a larger cast. Orphée aux Enfers premiered at the Bouffes-Parisiens in October 1858 and was met with mixed feelings. Many felt Offenbach was using the music to satirize Napoleon III, as well as previous operatic settings of the myth. Whether intentional or not, the comic nature of the opera caused it to be a financial success. Offenbach often included popular music, quoted themes from other operas and made absurd connections between characters and music, for example in the famous Can-Can danced by gods.

In 1874, Offenbach found himself in financial trouble and thus expanded the opera into four acts for a new production. Many revisions have occurred since that time, including a version in three acts that BGSU will present. The overture is a collection of the opera’s themes, composed by Carl Binder, for an 1860 production of the opera in Vienna.

Fall Opera 2007 Information

Download a PDF version of the announcement flyer.

Thursday, November 1 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, November 3 at 7 p.m.
Kobacker Hall
Moore Musical Arts Center

Friday, November 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York.

La virtù de’ strali d’Amore by Francesco Cavalli

• Audio Clips
• Cast List
• Director’s Note
• Interview with the Directors
• Plot Summary
• Prologue
• Related Artwork
• Setting

Translated as “The Power of Love’s Arrows,” the 1642 baroque opera transports the audience to a colorful, magical land where peasants and nobles, gods and mortals feel the flames of love when pricked by Amore’s capricious arrows.

Francesco Cavalli began his opera career more as an investor and organizer rather than a composer. Working alongside librettist Orazio Persiani and dance master Giovanni Battista, he opened Venice’s first opera house, the Teatro San Cassiano. Cavalli wrote his first opera, Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo, in 1639. This work served as a testing ground for combining drama with music. This period in opera (1637–c. 1680) is called dramma per musica. Cavalli wrote eight additional operas with librettist Giovanni Faustini beginning with La virtù de’ strali d’Amore in 1642, as he could no longer afford Orazio Persiani.

Born in Venice, Faustini wrote 14 libretti for three opera houses: the San Cassiano, San Moise and the San Apollinare. His plots have a basic outline consisting of foreign lands, socially contrasting characters and a deep love story. The action revolves around the romantic calamity of two pairs of lovers of noble birth, while comic servants are separated and then united. He wrote his libretti on the premise that to finalize his efforts, previously lacking in poetic balance, the added dimension of music was necessary.

Cavalli’s later operas reflect the development of Venetian opera more than any other composer. Although the fluidity of his opera style did not solidify until after the 1650s, his early attempts still represent a consolidation of operatic form and habit in the 17th century. Few works written before the 1650s survived, however many of Cavalli’s works of that period did. Cavalli composed prolifically, writing 28 operas in a 30-year career.

Compiled by Kristina Green

Venice (1600–1750)

Venice in the Baroque period provided one of the richest and most varied environments for music-making of the past millennium. Within six districts, Venice housed a great range of venues in which music was produced. These included parish churches, convents and monasteries; the ospedali, which cared for orphans (mostly female); the palaces and gardens of the nobility; public and private theatres; gambling casinos, and the canals themselves. Among all of these, it was the theaters that brought the greatest challenges to the stability of Venetian musical culture. Although their activities were severely controlled by government decrees, theaters defied the musical status quo for various reasons: the singers could be women. The audience for opera was less specifically Venetian than it was for other genres. The message of the text could be conveyed through the use of mechanically operated scenery; theatre orchestras were small (usually consisting of five strings and two harpsichords) throughout the century; Venetian operas almost always concentrated on solo singing, and choruses were rarely used in Venetian opera.

Venetian Theatres

The architecture of the public opera house was important. Because a source of income was ticket sales, the theater design needed to integrate the economic necessity of having as many seats as possible, yet ensure that the stage could be seen from all angles and provide satisfactory acoustics. The elliptical auditorium, with sides arranged into tiers of boxes, was the solution. The stage design and architecture in Venice by 1637 can be described as follows:

• the use of side wings
• the use of back-cloths to maximize complexity
• the use of the stage as more than a background—as a frame for the actors
• the use of the curtain

There were essentially three agents responsible for theater operation: owners, impresarios and artists. The owners of the theaters were generally aristocratic families who invested in the actual building. The undertakings of the theater were entrusted to an impresario—a society or troupe contracted seasonally. The artists had originally participated in the running of the theater, but later became employees of the impresario.

The expenses of the theater were generally the responsibility of the impresario. Such expenses included: rent, operating costs and payment of singers, players and workers of various kinds. Rental of boxes and ticket sales generated most income. Venetian and foreign nobility rented most of the boxes indefinitely, but paid on a seasonal basis.

Teatro San Cassiano

Venice became a major European tourist attraction because of its massive opera productions and the feasibility of attending any one of the eleven opera houses in existence during its prime. In 1637, Venice became the center of opera in the world, as the first commercial opera was performed at the Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera house. Public meant that the theater was operated by an impresario for a paying public. The Teatro San Cassiano, built of wood in 1565 by Palladio, was ruined by fire in 1629, but was immediately rebuilt in stone. Benedetto Ferrari and Francesco Manelli produced many operas there including L’Andromeda, the first opera performed at the Teatro San Cassiano. L’Andromeda was performed by a troupe from Rome that consisted of seven singers and an orchestra of two harpsichords, two trumpets and 12 other instruments. In 1639, Ferrari and his company left Teatro San Cassiano and placed it in the hands of a company led by Francesco Cavalli. Cavalli composed all the operas played in the theatre from 1639–1645, with the exception of Monteverdi’s Ritourno d’Ulisse in Patria. Each year had two opera seasons. The first took place in the autumn while the second lasted through carnival time, a brilliant occasion where Venice ran wild with joy and excitement.

The Teatro San Cassiano provided the opportunity for many scenic designers and masters of stage illusion to exercise their talents. By 1700, 37 new operas had been staged. San Cassiano suffered from several fires and soon was eclipsed by Teatro San Salvador. The theatre closed in 1807.

Compiled by Courtney Cleveland

Fall Information Sources

Grove Music Online http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Cavalli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera http://www.baroqueopera.com/ http://www.rpfuller.com/gcse/music/baroque.html

Glover, Jane. Cavalli. St Martin’s Press, New York: 1978.