The Birth and Growth of Opera in the Seventeenth Century  

    The seventeenth century was an experimental period in music: the foundations of our modern music were laid at that time.  Monteverdi, Lully, Corelli, Purcell, A. Scarlatti and Couperin are the greatest musicians of the century.

    The birth of opera, round about 1600, was the root cause of all the musical changes that were to occur in the century.  There had been religious plays with music from the tenth century, and towards the end of the Middle Ages secular plays began to develop.  There were also entertainments for special occasions, like masques.  But opera, as we know it today, resulted from the meetings of a group of poets and musicians in a nobleman's house in Florence.  The Renaissance had aroused their interest in Ancient Greece, and their intention was to revive Greek drama.  But they knew even less about it than we do today, and what they inadvertently produced was a new art, "opera in musica", or "opera" for short.  

     They wished to produce a dramatic work, and they realized that polyphonic madrigals were not suitable for the purpose.  So they invented recitative (see p. 94), which gave a solo singer on the stage the chance to declaim the words with a dramatic effect.  It required an accompaniment; but the addition of other voices, as in the madrigal, would have prevented the solo voice from standing out sufficiently.  So they used a harpsichord accompaniment, which had quite a different sound, and its function was merely to accompany the voice in simple block chords.  These were indicated by figuring, and the harpsichordist was free to arrange the chords as he pleased.  This " monodic " style of writing, in which one part was pre-eminent and the rest merely an accompaniment, was a complete revolution from the polyphonic style of Palestrina and the madrigalists, in which all the parts were equally important, and it had far-reaching effects on the future history of the art of music, as will be seen later.

    Peri and Caccini were two of the earliest opera composers, and they each wrote a setting of the story of Orpheus in 1600.  They used recitative most of the time, but there were occasionally more omate passages of coloratura, and a few simple instrumental interludes.  

    The new art spread rapidly throughout Italy, and further developments were made.  The more formal aria (see p. 95) began to be used, in addition to recitative, and the number of instruments used for various effects grew. Monteverdi (1567-1643) was the first great operatic composer, and he, too, wrote a setting of Orpheus, in 1608.  He had a strong dramatic sense, and he loved experimenting with harmonic color and with the tone qualities of different instruments.  He was one of the first composers to use discords without preparation, and to use the tremolo (rapid repeated notes) on the violins, and these devices excited audiences very much.  He used quite a large orchestra, a miscellaneous collection of instruments of the day, such as lutes, viols, violins, harps, small organs, cornetti (a kind of recorder with a cup mouthpiece), and trumpets.  The recitatives were still frequently accompanied by the harpsichord only (secco), but he sometimes used one or two other instruments (stromentato).  He never used all the instruments at once, and for the most part they were reserved for special dramatic effects ' or for instrumental interludes.  

    At first, opera was only possible in the houses of the wealthy nobility, but in 1637 the first public opera house was opened in Venice, and then the new art became immensely popular, and spread rapidly throughout Italy, with opera houses opening in every town.  Audiences came to applaud their favorite singers; and words and drama were quite subordinate to singing and spectacle.  

    Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) wrote a large number of popular operas towards the end of the century.  He was the first to develop the distinctive features of aria da capo form (see p. 95). This appeared to the public, largely because it gave much opportunity for vocal display in the da capo section, when the singer was free to add any ornamentation he thought fit.  By then, it had become the custom to write an overture at the beginning of the opera, and the style he adopted became known as the Italian overture (see p. 87). 

    Opera spread from Italy into other European countries, though it was still sung in Italian. Lully (1632-1687), an Italian    who had settled in France, was a famous court        musician who led Louis XIV's violin band, and who collaborated in plays and ballets with the dramatist Molieré.  He wrote the first operas to French words, and he was more concemed with the quality of the libretto than were the Italian composers.  He used recitativo stromentato rather than secco, and he carefully observed the natural rhythm of the French words.  He liked to introduce a ballet into his operas, and, in addition, he wrote a number of separate ballets, in which he sometimes danced himself.  You may know the aria 'Bois epais' from his opera 'Armide', because it appears in many school songbooks.  Lully adopted the French kind of overture (see pp. 86, 87). 

    Lully influenced the English Purcell (c. 1659-1695), as French ideas were adopted at the English court.  His one opera Dido and Aeneas is still performed today.  But it was not the first English opera.  A masque of Ben Jonson's was set in the style of an opera as early as 1617.  One of the most famous of the early English operas was 'The Siege of Rhodes', written in 1656 by five different composers, of whom one was William Lawes who wrote the music to Milton's masque ‘Comus’; and in 1685 John Blow, Purcell's teacher, wrote “Venus and Adonis”, a chamber opera, which served as a model for 'Dido and Aeneas'.  But opera was not as popular in England as in Italy and France.