Day 296: Opera’s expression
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
296 — Opera’s expression
24-May-1972
(Mittwoch–Wed.)
TRANSCRIPT
Did even less today. Becoming lazy. Piano goes good.
Horn…
Strauss Capriccio.
It seems that dialogue in an opera is so sporadic and
ever-changing that nothing (except the words) are
communicated. However, during an orchestral passage
and a long solo aria, the words don’t matter because
the music speaks for itself.
REFLECTIONS
Opera’s
dialog. I hit on
this idea a few days ago. Again, to summarize, I
believe that I am sitting through some of Richard
Strauss’ operas and when there is operatic dialog,
let’s call it recitative-like singing—passages that
function as conversation—the music is not as
emotional as when you are listening to long arias
backed up by an emotive orchestra. It is the nature
of those conversational passages. Of course, these
are not recitatives, but I liken them to vocal
singing telling the story. What I need to remember is
that opera is a form of visual entertainment, like
theater, where people are following a storyline. They
follow the opera in their native language (German,
I’m not following so well), and they understand the
dialog and the story. The intent here is the message
(words, action, plot) and not the music.
I am more moved by the melodic and song-like
character of arias that function as the “songs” in
the opera, and not as much by the dialog.
Links:
Capriccio
on
Wikipedia
John
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