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Feb. 13 During the past few weeks music-lovers in Shanghai have been enjoying the very unusual treat of continuous opera, and the experience may have led some of us to overhaul our ideas on this form of entertainment. What the Italian Opera Company has given us is obviously one-sided, not in respect of performance, which was vocally good, if instru mentally uncertain, but as re gards the character of operas pre sented. ‘In its three centuries of existence opera has passed through many phases. RRinuccini and Peri, at the close of the 16th century sought to revive the tradi tions of Greek tragedy, only using music to intensify the tones of ordinary speech and the emotions of the speaker. In the hands of Scarlatti the melodic side of the entertainment began to gain’ the predominance , and from his time the ‘‘book” rapidly degenerated, until opera became nothing but a series of pleasant melodies strung on the thinnest possible thread of story. Gluck strove to revive, and did revive, the old ideals of Peri; but having the misfortune to compete with the marvellous school of ‘‘absolute music’’ of the 18th and early 19th centuries, his teaching did not exert the influ ence that it might otherwise have had. The real reformer, as every one knows, reasserting the claims of drama in music as against the claims of the adored prima donne and primo tenore, was Wagner. Since his day, we seem to see two tendencies in opera: for Richard Strauss the dramatic notion is everything, and the expression of gigantic feeling, degenerating (to some ways of thinking) into mere delight in what is horrible and violent; for men like Puccini Charpentier and Cilea, a strong recognition of dramatic require ments, but even more a keen de light in melodic beauties for their own sake. Of all these phases the Italian Opera Company certainly cannot be blamed for presenting but one or two aspects. On the contrary, we may be grateful to it for achieving, as successfully as it did, models so wide apart as ‘‘Trova tore’’ and ‘‘Bohéme’”’ or “‘Butter fly,’’ besides one other to be re ferred to presently. Between these extremes it is possible to imagine the other links in the chain, and to frame some answer to the question so often asked. ‘Apart from the enjoyment of the music, what rational pleasure can you derive from opera, in which every note sounded, proclaims the absurdity of the whole per formance, as a picture of life?’’ Thus bluntly put, the question is difficult to answer satisfactorily. There are, no doubt, rare musical spirits to whom the actions, voices and gestures of every-day life express “themselves in terms of music. ~The ordinary mortal, even the ardent music-lover, is obliged to confess that it is ab normal, if not absurd, to sing on the stage instead of speaking, and that even in the, to him, most dramatic moments of opera, ac tion is often unnaturally delayed by music. He can think of cer tain operas in which these incon eruities are toned down as it were by the nature of the story. A “costume’’ opera, for example, dealing with events of two or three centuries ago, makes the less strain upon the sense of what is natural, because the whole scenery and surroundings are something out of every-day ex perience ; and just as we agree to allow Hamlet to soliloquize, so we can endure Romeo’s remarkable vocal efforts when in the very moment of dying. Again, Waener’s great tetralogy of “the Ring,’” we are moving in a world of gods and heroes, monsters and giants, of whom it is no strain on the imagination to suppose that they should declaim their thoughts to music rather than in ordinary speech. But directly we encount er a piece in which people smoke cigarettes and wear tail-coats. the ‘old feeling of incongruity rushes wk not to be gainsaid. s,it, then, impossible to pre a ordinary drama, some story that appeals by reason of its com mon every-day emotions, in music, without the sense of na turalness being outraged at every turn? Outside certain limits one must,perhaps, confess that it is impossible; ‘within them, not. For example, let us take two operas, ‘‘Meistersinger”’ ‘and one alluded to above as played by the ‘Italian Opera Company. ‘‘Car men.’’ In the first of these, if we cut out’ the somewhat un necessary philosophy supplied by Hans Sachs, we have an entirely modern light comedy, as much so today as a few centuries ago. To this story Wagner applied all his methods. of using music to, in tensify tones, of speech and varia tions of feeling ; and except, for the musically deaf it remains a perfect story of Bina interest. In ‘Carmen’? again we have a tale of passion and tevuya. _Pos sibly for people who know Spain well the illusion is not so complete as for those who do not. But the composer “has felt the situa tion of his characters go, intense ly, has entered, ‘so deeply, into their passions and was, incidental ly, such a genius to reproduce what he feels; that, it seems im possible that the tale could have been told so effectively in any other way as in this setting of fiery palpitating ‘melody. And while Bizet is much more gener ous than Wagner in introducingg purely vocal opportunities for his singers, he does so in such a way as always to tell us ‘something about the character to whom the aria is assigned—as in the case of the famous toreador’s song, which makes us know the kind of man we are dealing with even though we may not understand a word he sings. Here, again, we find at least one justification for music in dramatic representation, that, when properly handled, it tells us something about the persons con cerned, in a way that the ordin ary theatre cannot,and the au thor of a novel is seldom supposed to do. Perhaps, for purposes, of story-telling, opera might be said, to come half way between a play and a novel. That is not alto gether a satisfactory definition, but it may supply v.a reason for the faith that is in us, when we are tackled about the incongruities of opera and drama.
Newspaper Details
North China Herald
Shanghai, Shanghai, CN
Sat, Feb 20, 1915
Page 36
Full Page
Clipped by
Sheila M.
USA 27 Apr 2026
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