Andrea Fabiano is professor of Italian literature and culture at Sorbonne University, specialist in the history of Italian dramaturgy and opera in the 17th-19th centuries. This interview is taken from the podcast
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LE FIGARO. - Is Italy the birthplace of opera?
Andrea FABIANO. -
It is in fact from Italy and its movement of dramaturgical creations that opera was born at the end of the 16th century.
It is a moment when Italian writers and playwrights try to innovate in terms of dramaturgy.
At this time the dramatic pastoral, a romantic genre which depicts rural life and customs, the
commedia dell'arte,
popular comic theater, and at the same time the opera, an entirely sung spectacle, were born.
The tragedy became unbearable to the courtiers of the Italian states of the time.
A fully sung show then seems much more pleasant.
“In Italian, I don’t have to make any effort. I enjoy saying the words and everything becomes easier,” declared French coloratura Nathalie Dessay. Is Italian the easiest language to sing?
This was the idea of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century.
Indeed, the Italian language is the language of opera.
It is in Italian that we have the first example of a piece entirely sung.
A whole formidable production system was put in place from the 17th century onwards, a system involving musicians, singers and instrumentalists, who traveled throughout Europe, bringing opera and Italian with them.
As for the language itself, we can say that the syntactic flexibility of Italian facilitates construction and versification more suited to music.
Can we also attribute this to the richness of vowels in Italian?
There are indeed more vowels.
But they do not alone allow the amplification required by “melisms”, these melodic figures of several notes to carry a single syllable.
In these cases, it is necessary to break the equivalence between syntax and syllables to construct music which escapes the balance between speech and music, and amplifies certain emotions through melismas.
These melismas, in fact, will concentrate on the vowels, in particular on the open vowels which generally end the verse in such a way as to suspend the melismas.
Setting a poem written in advance to music, or putting music already written into words, are two practices that have long been opposed to each other. Language or music, which is more important in opera?
It’s a question that runs through the entire history of opera.
We also dispute the primacy of this or that type of creator.
Is it the librettist, the author of the written text?
Or is it the musician?
At the beginning, there are both practices.
There is that of using an already made, already existing text, then manipulated by the musicians, or that of writing the music first and then adapting the text.
Let's say the standard pattern is to write the text and booklets first.
This means that the verses are written following a dramaturgical organization which allows the musician to vary and adapt his music.
What matters is the alternation of the versification of the tunes, because the difference in verse allows the musician a rhythmic variation and on the other hand, the alternation of expressions, of different passions to also vary the tones musical.
Do you have any examples of opera where the text prevails over the music?
In all operas from the beginning of the 17th century, we obviously have pre-eminence over the texts.
We can cite the operas of Claudio Monteverdi for example.
Gradually, this is reversed, as air takes more and more place in the dramaturgy.
The aria is the sung moment where singers develop their vocal abilities and vocal expression, as opposed to the recitative which ensures the progression of the plot.
That’s when the divide was created.
The textual aspect therefore becomes less important in relation to the music.
This gives rise to what is called belcanto.
In the art of “bel canto,” the same phrase can be repeated over and over again. The important thing is the air?
“Bel canto” is a term that originated at the end of the 17th century to define a way of singing with a lot of melisma, and therefore a lot of virtuosity on the part of the singers.
This technique lasted until the 1920s and 30s of the 19th century.
Obviously, this creates problems for men of letters who consider that the excesses of the singers' voices and abilities to improvise spoil the beauty of the text.
But at the same time, for musicians, “bel canto” becomes an instrument to develop a melodic part that is extremely moving and meaningful for the audience.
In “bel canto”, Italian opera takes liberties with prosody, language, the correct pronunciation of syllables... Has it always been like this?
We must differentiate between the two systems that exist in an Italian opera, until the end of the 18th century: the recitatives, and then the aria.
The recitatives are the dynamic part where the plot develops.
In general, prosody is respected, so there is one note per syllable.
On the other hand, in the static moments that are the airs where the passions of the characters, the emotion of the characters take center stage, the prosody is no longer respected.
It is then the music which takes up all the space in relation to the text.
What about this balance between text and music in contemporary operas?
There are obviously various kinds of contemporary opera.
We obviously try to create operas which have a construction with an important literary text.
I think of the collaborations in Italy with poets like Sanguinetti, writers like Calvino participated in the creation of opera.
But that generally creates a conflict, a tension, because the two systems have a very fragile balance.
If you take non-Italian examples, even of avant-garde opera, like that of Lou Reed with Bob Wilson, there indeed, there is an aspect which is more dramaturgical, which takes place in relation to a real unfolding with a musical site analogous to that of traditional opera.
Let's say that musicians, from the end of the 18th century, tried to take control of the opera as a whole.
Mozart was the first to dictate to his librettist Da Ponte and concrete elements, even prosodies.
Verdi will do the same thing.
So there is this logic of the musician who is in control.