"Operetta" is the Italian diminutive of "opera" and was used originally to describe a shorter, perhaps less ambitious work than an opera..
The term operetta arises in the mid-eighteenth-century Italy and it is first acknowledged as an independent genre in Paris around 1850.[2] Castil-Blaze 's Dictionnaire de la musique moderne claims that this term has a long history and that Mozart was one of the first people to use the word operetta, disparagingly,[6] describing operettas as "certain dramatic abortions, those miniature compositions full of bullshit in which one finds only cold songs and couplets from vaudeville".[9] The definition of operetta has changed over the centuries and ranges depending on each country's history with the genre.[8] It is often used to refer to pieces that resemble the one-act compositions by Offenbach in contrast with his full length compositions, ‘opéra-bouffe’.[2] Offenbach invented this art form in response to the French government's oppressive laws surrounding the stagings of works that were larger than one act or contained more than four characters.[4]
Operetta became recognized as a musical genre around 1850 in Paris. In 1870, the centre for operetta shifted to Vienna when Paris fell to the Prussians.[2] The form of operetta continued to evolve through the First World War .[2]
There are some common characteristics among operettas that flourished from the mid-1850s through the early 1900s, beginning with the French
Operetta was first created in Paris, France in the middle of the 19th century in order to satisfy a need for short, light works in contrast to the full-length entertainment of the increasingly serious tragédie lyrique. The origins of French operetta began when comic actors would perform dances and songs to crowds of people at fairs on open-air stages. In the beginning of the 18th century these actors began to perform comic parodies of known operas. These performances formed operetta as a casual genre derived from
opéra comique , while returning to a simpler form of music.
[12] Many scholars have debated as to which composer should be credited as the inventor of operetta;
Jaques Offenbach or
Hervé. [13] It is concluded that Hervé completed the groundwork, and Offenbach refined and developed the art form into the concept of operetta as we know it today. Therefore, "Offenbach is considered the father of French operetta – but so is Hervé."
[8]
Jacques Offenbach is most responsible for the development and popularization of operetta—also called opéras bouffes or opérettes —giving it its enormous vogue during the
La Fille de Madame Angot (
The Daughter of Madame Angot ).
[15] The two operettas were considered a major hit.
One of the most well-known operettas of famous Hungarian playwright Emmerich Kálmán is the Csárdáskirálynő ("Czardas Queen"). It was played at Broadway , by the name 'Riviera Girl'.
The political limitations placed on Offenbach and Parisian theatre were gradually lifted, and operetta gained wide popularity. While Offenbach's earliest one-act pieces included Orphée aux enfers (1858), was by far the most successful. It became the first repertory operetta and was staged hundreds of times across Europe and beyond.
[9] Offenbach's legacy is seen in operettas throughout the late 19th century and beyond by encouraging
Strauss the Younger to bring the genre to Austria-Hungary. Offenbach also traveled to the US and England educating musicians on the more than 100 operettas he wrote during his lifetime.
[16] This international travel resulted in the appearance of strong national schools in both nations.
[17] By the 1870s, however, Offenbach's popularity declined. The public showed more interest in romantic operettas that showed the "grace and refinement" of the late Romantic period. This included
Messager 's operetta
Véronique and
Louis Ganne 's
Les saltimbanques . The 20th century found French operetta even more out of favor as the international public turned to Anglo-American and Viennese operettas, which continued to develop the art form into the late Romantic era.
Operetta in German
Offenbach was unabashed about spreading operetta around the continent. In 1861, he staged some of his recent works at the Carltheater in Vienna , which paved the way for Austrian and German composers. Soon, Vienna became the epicenter of operetta productions.[9] It is because of the Viennese operetta, not the French, that the term is used to describe a full-length work.[5] Additionally, after the Prussian defeat in 1866, operetta became the sign of a new age in Austria, marked by modernity and industrialization.[18]
Austria–Hungary
Johann Strauss II
The most significant composer of operetta in the German language was the Austrian Johann Strauss II (1825–1899). Strauss was recruited from the dance hall and introduced a distinct Viennese style to the genre.[5] Strauss was highly influenced by the work of Offenbach, so much so that he collaborated with many of Offenbach’s librettists for his most popular works.[4] His operetta, Die Fledermaus (1874), became the most performed operetta in the world, and remains his most popular stage work. In all, Strauss wrote 16 operettas and one opera, most with great success when first premiered.[5]
Strauss's satire was often generic, unlike Offenbach who commented on real-life matters.[4]
Strauss's operettas, waltzes, polkas, and marches often have a strongly Viennese style, and his popularity causes many to think of him as the national composer of Austria. The Theater an der Wien never failed to draw huge crowds when his stage works were first performed. After many of the numbers the audience would call noisily for encores.
Franz von Suppé , also known as Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo, Cavaliere Suppé-Demelli, was born in 1819 and his fame rivals that of Offenbach. Suppé was a leading composer and conductor in Vienna and most known for his operetta Leichte Kavallerie (1866), Fatinitza (1876), and Boccaccio (1879).[19] Suppé was a contemporary to Strauss and composed over 30 operettas 180 farces, ballets and other stage works. Recently, though most of his works have been fallen into obscurity, many of them have been reprised within films, cartoons, advertisements and so on. Both Strauss and Suppé are considered to be the most notable composers of the Golden Age of Viennese operetta.[20]
Following the death of Johann Strauss and his contemporary, Franz von Suppé , Franz Lehár was the heir apparent. Lehar is widely considered the leading operetta composer of the 20th century and his most successful operetta, Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow ), is one of the classic operettas still in repertory.[21]
Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow ) poster by Franz Lehár
Lehár assisted in leading operetta into the Silver Age of Viennese Operetta. During this time, Viennese Censorship laws were changed in 1919.[22] Lehár is most responsible for giving the genre renewed vitality. Studying at the Prague Conservatory Lehár began as a theatre violinist and then took off as a composer in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During this 1905, Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow ) paved a pathway for composers such as Fall , Oscar Straus , and Kálmán to continue the tradition of Operetta. Lehár was also one of the first composers who began to incorporate into film. [2]
The Viennese tradition was carried on by
Karl Millöcker,
Leo Fall ,
Richard Heuberger ,
Edmund Eysler ,
Ralph Benatzky ,
Robert Stolz ,
Leo Ascher ,
Emmerich Kálmán ,
Nico Dostal ,
Fred Raymond ,
Igo Hofstetter ,
Paul Abraham and
Ivo Tijardović in the 20th century.
Germany
Paul Lincke , father of the Berlin operetta
In the same way that Vienna was the center of Austrian operetta, Berlin was the center of German operetta. Berlin operetta often had its own style, including, especially after World War I , elements of jazz and other syncopated dance rhythms, a transatlantic style, and the presence of ragged marching tunes. Berlin operettas also sometimes included aspects of burlesque , revue , farce , or cabaret .
Paul Lincke pioneered the Berlin operetta in 1899 with Frau Luna , which includes "Berliner Luft " ("Berlin Air"),[23] which became the unofficial anthem of Berlin. His Lysistrata (1902) includes the song and tune "The Glow-Worm ", which remains quite popular internationally. Much later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Kurt Weill took a more extreme form of the Berlin operetta style and used it in his operas, operettas, and musicals. It is arguable that some of Kurt Weill 's compositions could be considered modernist operetta.[24]
The Berlin-style operetta coexisted with more bourgeois, charming, home-loving, and nationalistic German operettas – some of which were called Volksoperetten (folk operettas). A prime example is
Reichsmusikkammer (State Music Institute), which deprecated and banned "decadent" music like jazz and similar "foreign" musical forms. In the beginning of twenty-first century, German revival of operetta was an unforeseen theatrical development.
[26]
Notable German operetta composers include Paul Lincke , Eduard Künneke , Walter Kollo , Jean Gilbert , Leon Jessel , Rudolf Dellinger , Walter Goetze and Ludwig Schmidseder .
Operetta in English
H.M.S. Pinafore
Offenbach's influence reached England by the 1860s.
Savoy Operas. Most were enormously popular in Britain, the U.S., and elsewhere. Gilbert, Sullivan, and their producer
Richard D'Oyly Carte themselves call their joint works
comic operas to distinguish this family-friendly fare from the risqué French operettas of the 1850s and 1860s.
[27] Their works, such as
H.M.S. Pinafore ,
The Pirates of Penzance and
The Mikado , continue to enjoy regular performances throughout the English-speaking world.
[28] While many of these operas seem to be very light-hearted, works such as
the Mikado were making political commentaries on the British government and military with one of the main topics being capital punishment which was still widely used at the time.
[29]
English operetta continued into the 1890s, with works by composers such as
Candide’s score in some ways was typical for its announced genre with some waltzes, but Bernstein added the schottische, gavotte, and other dances, and also entered the opera house with the aria “Glitter and Be Gay”
Operetta in Italian
Operetta was the first imported vocal genre in Italy.[34] Since the 1860s, French and Viennese composers such as Offenbach , Hervé , Suppé , Strauss Jr and Lehár have significantly influenced the operatic tradition of Italy. The widespread popularity of foreign operetta in Italy reached its climax at the turn of the century, in particular with the success of La vedova allegra , which premiered in Milan in 1907.[34] Italian operetta composers tended to stretch the definition of an "operetta" more than other nations in order to fit the beauty of Italian Romantic opera style. An example would be Giacomo Puccini , who developed his work in the realistic verisimo style, and would compose "operettas in three acts".[35] Other notable composers of Italian operetta include Vincenzo Valente , Ruggero Leoncavallo , Pasquale Mario Costa , Pietro Mascagni , Carlo Lombardo , Enrico Toselli , Virgilio Ranzato and Giuseppe Pietri .[35]
Reception and controversy
The audiences of operetta during the 1860s and 1870s are described as rowdy and loud.[34] Operetta was considered one of the major controversies about Italian music and culture between the 1860s and the 1920s.[34] During that period, strong nationalistic undertones in Italy strived to unify its national identity. Recognizing operetta as a foreign genre, operetta was perceived as an art form that would contaminate Italian opera or illegitimately undermine its primacy on the stage.[34] It was not until the early twentieth century that Italian composers systematically engaged in writing operetta.
See also
References
Informational notes
Citations
^ "Opera, Operetta, or Musical Theatre? – Blog" . Opera Vivrà . 19 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2020 .
^ .
. Retrieved 2 May 2015 .
^ a b c d "The beginner's guide to operetta | English National Opera" . Retrieved 4 October 2020 .
^ .
^ .
.
^ ]
^ .
^ a b Gänzl, Kurt . "Toperettas: the history of operetta in ten works" , Bachtrack.com, 22 October 2019
.
)
^ "The Merry Widow Lesson: What's Operetta, Doc?" . Utah Opera . 5 January 2016. Retrieved 28 September 2019 .
.
^ "The beginner's guide to operetta" . English National Opera. Retrieved 28 September 2019 .
.
.
^ "Franz von Suppé | Austrian composer" . Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved 4 October 2020 .
.
.
.
^ "Berliner Luft " conducted by Plácido Domingo with the Berlin Philharmonic
.
^ Lamb, Andrew. 150 Years of Popular Musical Theatre . Yale University Press , 2001. p. 203.
.
^ Jacobs 1984 , introductory note on nomenclature
. and Hewett, Ivan (2 August 2009)
"The Magic of Gilbert and Sullivan" . The Telegraph . Retrieved 14 April 2010.
^ "The beginner's guide to operetta | English National Opera" . Retrieved 5 October 2020 .
^ .
^ Bordman, Gerald (1981). American Operetta . New York: Oxford University Press.
^ Ledbetter, Steven. "Victor Herbert" , Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy, accessed February 11, 2009 (subscription required)
.
^ .
^ .
Bibliography
Further reading
Bordman, Gerald (1981) American Operetta . New York: Oxford University Press.
Clarke, Kevin (2007) Glitter and be Gay: Die authentische Operette und ihre schwulen Verehrer . Hamburg: Männerschwarm Verlag .(German)
Ganzl, Kurt (2001) The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books.
Goulet, Charles (1981) Sur la scène et dans la coulisse . Québec, Qc.: Ministère des Affaires culturelles.
Linhardt, Marion (2006) Residenzstadt und Metropole. Zu einer kulturellen Topographie des Wiener Unterhaltungstheaters (1858–1918) . Berlin: Max Niemeyer Verlag. (German)
Traubner, Richard (1983) Operetta: A Theatrical History . Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
Viagrande, iccardo (2009) Tu che m'hai preso il cuor. Un viaggio nel mondo dell'operetta. Monza: Casa Musicale Eco. (Italian)
External links
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Operetta .