Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera by Fred Plotkin

Author:Fred Plotkin [PLOTKIN, FRED]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music / Genres & Styles - Opera, Music / General, Music / Reference
ISBN: 9781401306007
Publisher: Hyperion Digital
Published: 2013-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

7.

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

OPERA AND COMEDY

If beauty is a subjective thing, the notion of what is funny is even more so. What makes one person laugh may leave someone else cold. If you think about the things you laugh at, you will discover a good deal about your outlook on many aspects of life. Most of us find humor in certain jokes, puns, and wordplay, because language is a common denominator that brings the communicator and the listener closer. We also laugh at visual humor: mime, funny movements and gestures, and, in many cases, the misfortune of others. To paraphrase the character of the 2,000-Year-Old Man portrayed by Mel Brooks: “What is funny? If I cut my finger, that’s not funny. If some other guy gets his head bitten off by a tiger, now that’s funny!” The ability to find humor in one’s own frailties and misfortunes is not a universal trait, yet most of us manage to laugh at those of someone else.

The concept of humor in music is much more subtle and, like most forms of humor, effectively resists analysis. Basically, if it’s funny, you know it. Communicating fun in musical terms is a task at least as difficult as expressing drama, love, and tragedy. Nonetheless, certain composers have managed to communicate humor and wit. Among these are Haydn (in his “Surprise” Symphony), Mozart (in his sublime serious comedies Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte), Donizetti (in La Fille du Régiment, Don Pasquale, L’Elisir d’Amore), Verdi (in Falstaff), Puccini (in Gianni Schicchi), Richard Strauss (in portions of Arabella, Der Rosenkavalier, and Ariadne auf Naxos), and even Wagner (in parts of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).

Yet I defy anyone to disagree that the composer who most ably captured the spirit of humor in music was Gioacchino Rossini. So adept was Rossini at expressing comedy in sound that many august scholars and music lovers have discounted his serious work in comparison. One of the first to make this observation, in 1822, was Beethoven. Upon meeting the thirty-year-old Rossini, Beethoven told him that attempting anything but comedy would be pressing his luck. This oft-repeated comment, which was also meant as praise for Il Barbiere di Siviglia, has left an unfair critical legacy. Why do we accept that Donizetti could have written La Fille du Régiment as well as Lucia di Lammermoor, yet we can’t admire Guillaume Tell and Semiramide because they are by the greatest composer of comic operas? As I mentioned elsewhere, it has only been in recent times that Rossini has been given the consideration he is due. This is a result of dedicated scholarship and the availability of singers—especially Marilyn Horne—who have mastered the fiendishly difficult technique and style that proper Rossini singing requires.

What is it that gives Rossini his special brand of humor? I commend to you the fine essay by Volker Scherliess on page 10 of the booklet accompanying the recording we will be studying, on Sony Classical. Scherliess makes the

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