# Is opera more a dramatic experience than musical?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Strauss, Elektra, Netherlands PO, Marc Albrecht, cond., SACD. Great sound, but the same old problem I've always had with opera: where's the melody? The soprano sings with so much 'expressivity' and declamation, that it is no longer singing, but some speech-like process between singing and sprechstimme. If I had to transcribe the 'melody' being sung, it would be frought with error, as I can't tell if she is singing a minor second or a major second. Sometimes single sustained notes defy identification as pitches, because there is so much vibrato.

In this sense, much opera, to me, is not a musical experience, but must be tolerated as primarily a dramatic experience. This is because the singing is more dramatic than musical.

Is it expecting too much for opera to be recognizably musical?

I like music to be a 'musical' experience, not a dramatic experience at the expense of 'pitch' and melody. Perhaps my great error is that I do not understand that opera is NOT primarily a musical form, but a hybrid of drama and music, often at the expense of music.

If this demonstrates my 'ignorance' of opera, then in my own defense I must ask: what percentage of opera listeners have chosen this form as their _exclusive_ domain mainly because of the dramatic quality, without the necessity of it being a 'musical' experience? These musical qualities would include recognizable melodies.

Are the ranks of opera listeners inundated with 'non-music' listeners who don't hear things musically, or is this a small percentage? If these fans were virtually tone-deaf, would they even admit it?

Is it possible that some opera listeners are tone-deaf, or are not cognizant of pitch to the extent that other Classical music listeners are? Does this explain the once universal popularity of opera to entertain the masses, a large percentage of who may be, for all practical purposes "tone deaf" or at least totally unaware of music as "pitch" and melody?

What examples or proof can be given to counter this suspicion?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Is opera more a dramatic experience than musical?


no.

music first.

the operas that are still around owe it to the music, not libretti.


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## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

I know I am in the minority among opera aficionados, but (as I have written before) I am fascinated by opera for its cultural significance above all. I am very into European history and literature, and of course opera was a key factor in the actual lived experience of 18th century and 19th century European culture, spanning all social circles from academic intellegentsia to revolutionary bohemia. Once I began exploring operas I found amazing new entry points into European history and culture that are thrilling, wonderful, enlightening, essential. This is the topic of my recently created opera podcast, "Lost Music: Exploring Literary Opera".

It happens that I am also obsessed with music. But, as I explain on this podcast, the music of my life is rock, punk, hiphop, jazz, blues, funk, etc. I do very much enjoy operatic music - my favorites being Mozart and Rossini - and I listen to it constantly now. It can be good background music in some cases, and great foreground music when I pay attention to it. When I go to the Met and hear it live, I am often thrilled by what I hear. Still, as a musical experience for me it barely compares to the best rock concerts I've seen. That doesn't make me any less interested in it. So, yes, I am among the minority of opera fans who does not say "music first".


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> The soprano sings with so much 'expressivity' and declamation, that it is no longer singing,


sounds like beautiful singing to me -






and what a splendid opera too.






wrong example to support the topic's point.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> sounds like beautiful singing to me - and what a splendid opera too.


I will concede that this particular excerpt enables the soprano to bring out the pitch more clearly than other excerpts may have; but the music is pretty tonal right here, and is easier to perceive as 'musical.'

I'll also admit that that timbre of a voice can be beautiful, but if it is at the expense of _clearly perceived pitch,_ as with excessive vibrato, then it becomes a sensual experience of timbre, at the expense of pitch. To me, the main elements of "musical" meaning are pitch and rhythm. Maybe that's my problem: I should just listen to it as I would listen to musique concrete, or Ligeti, or Xenakis, as pure sound.
But opera is supposed to fit into the "conventional" definition of music, isn't it?



> (Elektra is the)...wrong example to support the topic's point.


In a way, considering my statements above, Elektra is a _good_ example of the seeming "unmusicality" of opera, since this is Strauss at his most radical.

Your choice of excerpt, which has the singer outlining a chordal arpeggio, is the exception rather than the rule in this particular opera.

In most sections of Elektra, it might be hard for many listeners to even hear the "melodies" in this opera as making much musical sense - even if they were clearly stated - as it borders on atonality.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> no.
> 
> music first.
> 
> the operas that are still around owe it to the music, not libretti.


No, it's not a question of music vs. libretti; it's the mannered singing that drives it towards being "emotive, expressive, mannered, and speech-like" at the expense of being "a clearly perceived pitch."

Who can justify this 'dilemma' by 'telling it like it is' and recognizing the mannerisms which are my obstacle to a 'musical' experience rather than a 'dramatic' one?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> opera is supposed to fit into the "conventional" definition of music, isn't it?


but what is conventional in music? isn't that 'rich in sound & meaningful' in the first place?



millionrainbows said:


> it's the mannered singing that drives it towards being "emotive, expressive, mannered, and speech-like"


symphonies can be like speech. Beethoven 9th and its part 4 for instance -






- the cellos & double basses do really speak in there.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> and what a splendid opera too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The opera might be 'splendid' but 'beautiful' it ain't. I don't think even Strauss would have considered it so as it is a study of pathological hatred and self-perpetuating violence, as Gotz Friedreich's production brings out. Apparently 'as Strauss was composing the text was triggering deep anxieties deriving from his own ambivalent attitude towards his parents. Strauss's father, a domineering man, who encouraged his son's compositions but repeatedly disparaged the results, had died in 1905, an event which in turn caused Strauss's mother (whose mental health was never less than precarious) to have a massive breakdown, necessitating confinement in a sanatorium. The subject matter of Elektra therefore touched every raw nerve in Strauss's being and those same raw nerves also spilled into every bar of the opera's music and also explain the torrential savagery of the emotions it recreates in the listener.'
So who expects beauty from this? For beauty go to Figaro or Carmen not Electra.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

DavidA said:


> 'beautiful' it ain't. I don't think even Strauss would have considered it so as it is a study of pathological hatred and self-perpetuating violence


what's pathological about having a just revenge? Ancient Greece this is, incidentally.



DavidA said:


> as Strauss was composing the text was triggering deep anxieties


come on... the opera in fact insinuates that 20th century ruling elites were to clash in order to sort out the old rivalries, which later erupted in a form of the revolutions & world wars, besides a massive purge of the world elites during that period.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> So who expects beauty from this? For beauty go to Figaro or Carmen not Electra.


A point worth keeping in mind: Different operas, from different periods, emphasize different elements. So it's problematic to generalize about "opera" and its audience.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

Shouldn't it be both, Gesamtkunstwerk and all that? I love Elektra (and Salome!) precisely because Strauss creates such a violent sonic world to match the lurid onstage drama. It's not necessarily a tuneful opera in the traditional sense, but the musicality is consistent and expressive and does a terrific job of supporting the plotting - it's harrowing, which is what it should be. And when the music does build to a recognizable (danceable, even) melody, it's an ironic, sick death waltz, a choice that also makes dramatic sense. The opera is dissonant and musically freakish, and when it finally coalesces into something lilting and joyful, it's reflective of the disturbing triumph and Elektra's loss of sanity.

I think it's amazingly fun to listen to and watch due to that great harmony between the music and the action. If you don't enjoy it musically, that's valid, but that doesn't mean it's not musical, and I don't think that opera should be necessarily expected to fit in to the "conventional" definition of music, whatever that may be. The music and action should support one another, or be crafted to fit together in a way that makes it difficult to imagine one working better without the other.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> Strauss, Elektra, Netherlands PO, Marc Albrecht, cond., SACD. Great sound, but the same old problem I've always had with opera: where's the melody? The soprano sings with so much 'expressivity' and declamation, that it is no longer singing, but some speech-like process between singing and sprechstimme. If I had to transcribe the 'melody' being sung, it would be frought with error, as I can't tell if she is singing a minor second or a major second. Sometimes single sustained notes defy identification as pitches, because there is so much vibrato.
> 
> In this sense, much opera, to me, is not a musical experience, but must be tolerated as primarily a dramatic experience. This is because the singing is more dramatic than musical.
> 
> ...


"What examples or proof can be given to counter this suspicion?"

Are you familiar with Mozart's operas? Or are you one of those rare people who isn't moved by Mozart? Because the music in his operas is great. Plenty of melody there. Also Beethoven's "Fidelio", several others. How about Handel's operas?

I agree with some of what you say somewhat. Many operas have large swaths of formulaic music that has a dramatic feel to propel the action but often seems rather weak musically.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Opera is drama, but its primary expressive medium is music. As a musician, I've never found this problematic. The greatest composers of opera are great composers. They make superb music, regardless of the enormous variety of styles in which they write. But I can see two reasons why a musician might question the "musicality" of operatic music: 

1.) In supporting dramatic action, music may assume forms unlike those we're accustomed to in concert music. Composers in different periods found different solutions to the problem of tailoring musical form to the needs of storytelling. Baroque and Classical opera relied mainly on a series of short, "closed" forms in which dialogue and action were carried on in speech-like recitative, while clearly structured arias and choruses focused on moments of specific emotional expression. Romantic opera tended increasingly to illuminate action and emotion simultaneously and moment by moment, in a continuous musical texture. The latter procedure is an extraordinary challenge for the composer, and the resulting music may not always make perfect sense, formally, when heard without regard to its dramatic function. But the best composers succeed most of the time in avoiding this potential weakness, often by embedding small forms within the unfolding musical texture and maintaining unity with motivic repetition, strong harmonic relationships, and a clear expressive trajectory. 

2.) Operatic music may be poorly performed, especially by singers, and since truly great singing (from the standpoint of both voice and musicality) is the exception rather than the rule, opera frequently fails to attain its musical potential in a way that instrumental music generally does not. It's mainly the difficulty of realizing the intentions of the composer that prevents an operatic masterpiece by, say, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini or Strauss from being stimulating and satisfying as music. 

In the theater, the musical power of opera may be compromised by inappropriate staging that detracts from the expressive meaning of the music. This is an all-too-common experience in our era of postmodern "anything-goes" and directorial dictatorship. But don't get me started on THAT subject!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I for one love non-operatic classical music, so it is possible to love opera AND orchestral/instrumental music. However, I don't find opera to be lacking in melody. There's a wide range of incredibly tuneful operatic music from Handel to Puccini. Verdi apparently said that a melody has to be so appealing that the listener should be able to sing it back from memory after just one listen. His operas are jam packed with melody.

The question of whether the music or the words are more important in opera is the theme of Strauss' Capriccio and if you think Elektra has no toons...

N.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

as for drama in music, what is called 'music' does indeed have drama within its form, as opposed to mere noise of lying media products like pop, jazz, rock etc. - the very names of which expose their nature so that we shun these.

and music is 'classical' for a reason, because it refers to Ancient Greece, where literature & theater gave birth to the sound we have known until now; this profound system of sound does indeed rely on the way a story being narrated or presented on stage.

however, the main point of it all is not that much about pitch but more about rhythm; this dramaturgic pose, that is, which operates silence as means to convey the message to the listener and coordinate the blocks of information, that music consists of, so the story being told would reach the deepest feelings of the audience in order to make them experience catharsis.

as we see, its all about rhythm and operating it diversely by using instances of dramatic silence that will appear in the music performed, or maybe even not appear but, anyway, remain behind the curtain as if in wait to appear, thus exerting influence on the entire listening process.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DavidA said:


> The opera might be 'splendid' but 'beautiful' it ain't. I don't think even Strauss would have considered it so as it is a study of pathological hatred and self-perpetuating violence, as Gotz Friedreich's production brings out.
> 
> So who expects beauty from this? For beauty go to Figaro or Carmen not Electra.


That's exactly what I read in my booklet notes of the Netherlands PO/Albrecht SACD. It says the story is based totally on pathological hatred.

I'm glad to see replies which seem to recognize and address my complaints, rather than write me off as ignorant, especially Woodduck's illuminating response. Perhaps the answer for me, for now, is to keep listening.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> but what is conventional in music? isn't that 'rich in sound & meaningful' in the first place?


By a 'conventional' definition of music, I mean music in which pitch and rhythm are the main concerns, as opposed to John Cage or Ligeti, and music concrete, in which pitch is not the main concern. You know, the "elements" of music: pitch, rhythm, timbre...



> ...symphonies can be like speech. Beethoven 9th and its part 4 for instance - - the cellos & double basses do really speak in there.


Yes, music can be about dramatic "gesture." See my blog. But when "gesture" overwhelms pitch, as some opera seems to do, I have problems listening to it as "music," and it becomes more like a drama, with speech laid-over the music.

https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/millionrainbows/1069-instrumental-music-dramatic-gesture.html


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Perhaps the answer for me, for now, is to keep listening.


That helps! You might want to try Lohengrin by Wagner. I find that one to be highly satisfying. And several other Wagner operas. Oedipe by Enescu is another beautiful opera I discovered several years ago. The recording on EMI with Van Dam, and Hendricks.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Is opera more a dramatic experience than a musical one? No - but it depends on the period!

_Elektra_ is early 20th-century - post-Wagnerian, in other words. A lot of operas from this period make little distinction between recitative and aria. Closed forms / 'numbers' (arias, duets, ensembles, choruses) are rare. It's a throwback in some ways to the 17th century operas of Monteverdi, Cavalli, and Lully. I'm not a fan; my ear wants something more melodic.

If you want melody, you should really look between the early 18th century Baroque to the mid-19th century.

Composers were admired for their _compositions_; contemporary critics discussed the form of the piece, as well as their instrumentation, harmonies, and counterpoint. (I could dig out examples, but it's late! Opera Rara's booklets are full of examples; so are 19th century musicologists like Clément and Fétis.) But the best works, as with any stage work, are dramatically compelling (or at least entertaining).

In Italian bel canto opera, the ensembles and finales were often the highlights. Have you heard much Rossini? Not the _Barber_, but his opera seria, particularly from the Naples period? (_Maometto II_, _Donna del lago_, _Ermione_, _Mosè_, _Ricciardo e Zoraide_, _Zelmira_?) Colossal mastery of closed forms (including a massive Terzettone, and, in one of the French operas, a gran pezzo concertato with 14 voices); instrumentation that starts near Haydn then moves towards Beethoven; geared towards psychological and dramatic ends. (I also recommend Meyerbeer's early Italian operas, especially _Margherita d'Anjou_ and _Il crociato in Egitto_; Mercadante, especially _Orazi e Curiazi_, full of robust instrumentation, enormous fresco-like ensembles and finales, and a shocking ending; and Donizetti wrote a score or so of great scores.)

To go back to the Baroque... Handel's the best-known, but I prefer the Neapolitan composers like Vinci (especially _Artaserse_, his masterpiece, with "Vo' solcando un mar crudele", but _Catone in Utica_ has some impressive bravura arias; the beautiful, slowly unfolding "Quell'amor che poco accende"; and an excellent quartet) and Porpora.

French tragédie lyrique is an acquired taste; even contemporary audiences from other countries found it too dry, too tuneless; it becomes more melodic a couple of decades or two after Lully, but it's not really until Gluck that one can enjoy it without making mental adjustments. Rameau's _Hippolyte et Aricie_ is superb - musically imaginative, instrumental colour, arresting harmony - and has an extraordinary, enharmonic trio. From the 1760s, French opéra-comique appears; the early ones are pretty flimsy, but Monsigny's _Roi et fermier_ is tuneful.

Gluck is great - both as a musician and as a musical dramatist. _Paride ed Elena_ is beautiful; _Iphigénie en Tauride_ his masterpiece. (This is the one where he disconcerted the musicians: "He's lying; he killed his mother!") Mozart, of course; particularly _Figaro_ and _Don Giovanni_; Mozart's best music is beautiful, full of sympathy and understanding for his characters, with great tunes and some ingenious ensembles - a multi-section finale in _Figaro _that ends as a septet; several bands playing simultaneously in _Don Giovanni_; a superb quartet and a sextet in the same opera...
(And there are Sacchini; Gluck's heir Salieri - by no means mediocre!; Grétry: _Andromaque _, after Racine, and _Richard Coeur-de-lion _are the standouts I've heard, but _L'amant jaloux _has a beautiful serenade. Works from this period - such as _Andromaque_ - consist of musically dense scenes (rather than numbers), with arias, choruses, declamation forming a whole.

From the revolutionary period: Beethoven's _Fidelio_ is the surviving work from this time; full of nobly beautiful choruses, with an ingenious Mozartean quartet and a glorious choral ending. (I haven't warmed to Spontini, who can be rather bombastic; probably his best is _Olympie_, which sometimes sounds like an artillery barrage; I have yet to investigate Méhul and Cherubini.)

I've mentioned Rossini and bel canto.

In the lighter side of opera: In France: Boieldieu's _Dame blanche_, full of earworms, with a masterly auction ensemble; Auber's light but exhilaratingly rhythmic works, such as _Fra Diavolo_, _Le cheval de bronze_, and the grand operas _La muette de Portici_ and _Gustave III_; and the ever inventive, witty Offenbach, with some of the cleverest ensembles in opera (including ones in gibberish Chinese and Italian, an indigestion quartet, and canonic choruses). The Polish national opera, Moniuszko's _Straszny dwór_, is one of the most melodic operas I know - with several fine ensembles, a terrific bass aria, a tenor aria (with clock chimes), and a mazurka. Over in Germany, there are Weber (his Gothic Singspiel _Freischutz_, full of dark forests and devilry), and Lortzing (_Zar und Zimmermann_, which I remember has a fine sextet).

There are the powerful, richly imaginative grand opéras of Meyerbeer (especially _Les Huguenots_, _Le prophète_, _Dinorah_, and _Vasco de Gama_) and Halévy (_La juive's _his most famous). Meyerbeer, enormously popular in the 19th century, combined Italian bel canto with French declamation and German instrumentation and harmonies in historical operas about politics, religion, colonisation, and intolerance; the sober Halévy continues the French tragédie lyrique tradition with a keen sense of character and electrifying drama.

The great Hector Berlioz wrote three (possibly four) operas. The life-enhancing, joyous _Benvenuto Cellini_ mixes the sublime and the grotesque in true Hugo Romantic spirit; it was a failure, but it's one of my half-dozen favourite operas. _Les Troyens_ is his massive resurrection of late 18th century tragédie lyrique; here, very much the emphasis is on music rather than drama; the first two acts, showing the fall of Troy, are gripping; the last three, at Dido's court, are full of inspired pieces, but rather slow. _Béatrice et Bénédict_, his caprice written with a needle, is a witty take on _Much Ado About Nothing _(omitting most of Shakespeare's plot); it has a rapturously beautiful duet for soprano and contralto. I said maybe four; it depends whether you count _La damnation de Faust_, his légende dramatique - which has been staged both as an opera and as a concert work. Berlioz was considered an iconoclast, a radical ... but his idols were Gluck and Beethoven, and he believed very much in FORM - "this form without which music does not exist, or is only the craven servant of speech".



> If the Futurists tell us: "One must do the opposite of what the rules prescribe; we are tired of melody, tired of melodic patterns, tired of arias, duets, trios and movements whose themes are developed regularly; we are surfeited with consonant harmonies, with simple dissonances prepared and resolved, with natural modulations skillfully contrived; one must take account only of the idea and forget about sensation; one must scorn the ear, strumpet that it is, one must brutalize it in order to master it; it is not the purpose of music to be pleasing to it; music must be made accustomed to anything and everything, to strings of ascending and descending diminished sevenths which resemble a knot of hissing serpents writhing and tearing each other, to triple dissonances which are neither prepared nor resolved, to inner parts forcibly combined without agreeing harmonically or rhythmically and rasping painfully against one another, to ugly modulations entering in one part of the orchestra before the previous key has made its exit; one should show no regard to the art of singing and give no thought to its nature or its requirements; in opera one must confine oneself to setting down the declamation, even if it means writing intervals that are outlandish, nasty and unsingable…
> 
> The witches in _Macbeth _are right: "Fair is foul and foul is fair." If that is the new religion, I am very far from professing it; I have never been part of it, I am not now and I never shall be. I raise my hand and swear Non credo. On the contrary, I firmly believe that fair is not foul and foul is not fair. Certainly, it is not music's sole purpose to be pleasing to the ear. But music's purpose is a thousand times less to be unpleasing to it, to torture and destroy it.


Also Gounod (lots of good melodies in _Faust_); Bizet (_The Pearl Fishers_, _Carmen_).

There's the ever-green Verdi, who combined Italian bel canto with, later in his career, French grand opera influences; _Trovatore_ (the last bel canto), _Rigoletto_ (with its famous 'thinks' quartet), and _Traviata_ are his most famous works, but I prefer _Don Carlos_ (his French masterpiece), _Aida_ (grand opera Egyptian style), and _Otello _(almost through-composed, but with arias &c arising naturally from the action)

_Lohengrin_ is Wagner's most Italianate work, and his most engaging dramatically; _Flying Dutchman_ his most hummable; _Tannhauser_ his most melodic, but it's rather static. There's a lot of Sprechgesang in the later music dramas, but when he _does_ write duets, choruses, and ensembles, they're usually wonderful.

There's a rich seam of opera in Russia, often historical or legendary: Glinka's _Life for the Tsar_ (terrific trio and quartet) and _Ruslan & Lyudmila_ (brilliant whizzing overture); Mussorgsky's impressive _Boris Godunov_, with almost Shakespearean dramatic monologues and magnificent crowd and mob scenes; Borodin's _Prince Igor_, which has a fine chorus and an eclipse at the start, a good bass-baritone aria, and the Polovtsian dances; and Rimsky-Korsakov; these are mainly on Wagnerian lines, with a lot of quasi-recit, but the instrumentation is, as you'd expect, wonderful, and there are some beautiful arias and choruses, particularly in _The Snow Maiden_ and _The Tsar's Bride_.

We're nearing the turn of the century, which is where we came in with _Elektra_!

Jules Massenet's my favourite late 19th / early 20th century composer; he's astonishingly versatile, reinvents himself with every opera, and was one of opera's great melodists. He unites the free-flowing Wagnerian music-drama with the French opéra-comique, grand opéra and opéra lyrique styles. Massenet could move seamlessly between recit, song and orchestra, without the symphonic element overwhelming the singers. (I wrote about him here.)

A lot of verismo is quasi-recit; this includes Puccini, whose most musically interesting work is _Turandot_, a kind of last hurrah for grand opera with 20th century, post-Schoenberg effects. Probably the most tuneful verismo opera I know is Mascagni's _Cavalleria rusticana_; it has a splendid Easter Hymn and a vigorous baritone aria. Not mad on Cilea.

Strauss is often guilty of note-spinning: conversation with little melodic content. Even _Der Rosenkavalier_, his most popular work, has a lot of talk - but the Presentation of the Rose and the final trio are exquisite. There are beautiful passages in all his operas; probably _Salome _is his most consistently musically inspired (although some would say _Die Frau ohne Schatten_, his Wagnerian reworking of _The Magic Flute_). I'd also recommend _Ariadne auf Naxos_, a kind of Straussian chamber music (from the guy who said 'Louder, I can still hear the singers!') opera seria. His bel canto pastiche _Die schweigsame Frau_ has some really lovely music, including (from memory) a trio? at the end of one act, and a bass aria at the end.

And that bass aria is - aptly enough - "Wie schön ist doch die Musik":






It's midnight, and I feel tired.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Opera is music first, because if it were not, it would be a production with actors on Broadway instead.
However, with the excellent interpretations by those singers who happen to be graced with acting talent, it certainly brings the opera to life even more. After all, opera is a visual presentation.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> pitch and rhythm are the main concerns


the main concern is rhythm, a second one is pitch.

because what use of pitch without rhythm? how you build a melody then?



millionrainbows said:


> when "gesture" overwhelms pitch, as some opera seems to do, I have problems listening to it as "music,"


that is not such a issue if you listen to these operas many times long enough and grow accustomed.

melodies will begin to transpire sooner or later even if the composer made it hard to listen.



millionrainbows said:


> https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/millionrainbows/1069-instrumental-music-dramatic-gesture.html Music gradually divorced itself from drama over several centuries.


i hear different. Mahler, Strauss, Prokofiev, Stravinsky etc. - they do have drama in their works.

maybe even more so than a century before.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I enjoy listening to classical non vocal music in the car but find symphony concerts boring. I like the more human involvement of opera in a live performance. Elektra is incredibly gorgeous music to me that is wild, dramatic and over the top like a Star Wars movie. It is one of my top 5 favorite operas. I enjoy musicals but am not passionate about them like my friends are.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I think the question is too broad for a simple yes or no, so I'll go with "it depends." It's probably more dramatic than musical compared to plain music as the moment any music includes the voice with words there's dramatic considerations. Even outside of opera you can hear choral composers take advantage of the dramatic possibilities within texts (this doesn't necessarily mean a lack of melody or more declamation, merely that the shape and form the music takes is directed by the text; think of something like word painting in Handel or Purcell). Opera is, of course, a hybrid of drama and music, but in being a hybrid it's a bit strange to ask whether one or the other is dominant; the idea is that one enhances the other, not that it overpowers it. It would be like asking if film is a more pictorial or literary genre; it's both, and the visual aspect is there to render/affect how we perceive the literary aspect. 

Those caveats aside, different eras and different composers emphasized different aspects of this relationship. Many others in this thread have written quite eloquently and at length about this, so I won't repeat what they've said; but I would say that it's impossible to generalize about opera from one work. Personally, I don't find Elektra tuneless, but it's definitely among the more drama-centric operas out there. If you want to hear tuneful R. Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier or Ariadne auf Naxos is what you're after, but for even more melody I'd turn to Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Well, I'm glad that the opera buffs here have finally admitted to the facts! Opera is a specialized form of drama and music!


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Opera is a specialized form of drama and music!


that isn't main point about it since music itsef came from literature and theater.

music is a narrative the images of which are put in sound to a much bigger effect.

opera, symphony, concerto - the drama is in the music, be it present onstage or not.


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## FleshRobot (Jan 27, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> no.
> 
> music first.
> 
> the operas that are still around owe it to the music, not libretti.


Many operas are said to not be as popular as they could because of the weakness of the libretto. If that's true or not I don't now.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

FleshRobot said:


> Many operas are said to not be as popular as they could because of the weakness of the libretto. If that's true or not I don't now.


Many operas have failed solely because of the weakness of the libretto. It *does* make a difference.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> In the theater, the musical power of opera may be compromised by inappropriate staging that detracts from the expressive meaning of the music. This is an all-too-common experience in our era of postmodern "anything-goes" and directorial dictatorship. But don't get me started on THAT subject!


Interesting that I was reading in a recently published book that the era of regietheatre has been brought about by the relative lack of good new operatic material to perform hence opera houses employing directors to give a new spin on old classics. ie the emergence of the director is a result of the paucity of new operatic material.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

amfortas said:


> Many operas have failed solely because of the weakness of the libretto.


an opera can fail only due to its music.

bad libretti do not kill operas, not even the likes of Simon Boccanegra.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bad libretti can cripple operas, but mainly because they fail to provide the composer with opportunities to write his most effective music, or they interfere with his ability to achieve effective dramatic pacing. That happened with Weber's _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon;_ there's great music in them, but they don't "gel" in theatrical terms. A poor libretto is one that undercuts the composer in his effort to create well-shaped _musical_ drama.


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