# Opera and arranged marriages



## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Numerous operas have plots involving a young woman who is promised by her father to a baritone but loves a tenor. Operas always treat the subject in a very negative light.

I wonder if anybody ever did a study - a Social Studies dissertation or something - about this. Did opera have an influence in liberalizing society and making of arranged marriages a less desirable institution?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I've just watched "La Cambiale di Matrimonio"










which deals with this very subject. The baritone is a bluff Canadian who sees the whole transaction as a mercantile transaction and the girl as goods - this is lightly satirised in the opera. The Canadian generously renounces the marriage and even promises to leave his fortune to the tenor so that the young couple can get married. The father who ignored his daughter's happiness definitely comes over as an insensitive half-witted pompous Englishman and the message of the opera is that you shouldn't sell your daughter.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Yes, I own this one. And there are many others, as you know. My point is, did opera have an effect in ridiculing this practice and speeding up its end in Western societies?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I don't know, it must have been a gradual process with lots of influences - the growth of the idea of Romantic love, the right of women to have their own property and their own bodies, the welfare state meaning that money is not so important in thinking about getting married, increased mobility of people, I don't know what else. Opera would just be one of the performing arts that usually reflects and sometimes influences people's attitudes.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Well, haven't arranged marriages always been a subject, not just for opera, but for theatre too? Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor's biggest secondary plot is the two conflicting arranged marriages of Anne Page, which of course do not go as planned. 

I think I read somewhere that arranged marriages, at least outside of royalty and the upper tiers of nobility was very limited, if not non-existent. People married whomever they pleased, generally.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aksel said:


> Well, haven't arranged marriages always been a subject, not just for opera, but for theatre too? Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor's biggest secondary plot is the two conflicting arranged marriages of Anne Page, which of course do not go as planned.
> 
> I think I read somewhere that arranged marriages, at least outside of royalty and the upper tiers of nobility was very limited, if not non-existent. People married whomever they pleased, generally.


Even today, arranged marriages are still very prevalent in some cultures (in India, for example).


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> Even today, arranged marriages are still very prevalent in some cultures (in India, for example).


Yes, I do know that. I was actually talking about the western world. I should have specified, sorry.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Aksel said:


> Yes, I do know that. I was actually talking about the western world. I should have specified, sorry.


No, you may be right, actually. Like you said, the fact that in India it's like this doesn't mean it wasn't like you said, in Western societies.

So maybe it's like this in India because opera is not popular there?

I'm kidding. My initial post, like Natalie showed, must be exaggerating the importance of opera on this. Most likely, like she said, it's more that opera (and other genres like you said) reflected a growing trend in society to ridicule arranged marriages than the other way around.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

I don't think that composers were out to make a big statement or change society with their "arranged marriages operas." It just opened up the possibility for them to create funny and/or dramatic situations that also made people automatically sympathize with the prima donna. A more important statement was made by Mozart in an opera like Le Nozze di Figaro where contrary to the fashion of the day the everyday man was the smart one that ended up with the girl at the expense of the not quite so noble nobleman.


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## rsmithor (Jun 30, 2011)

Alban Berg's Lulu... Act 1 Scene Two

Lulu
‘Of my husband’… If I belong to one man in
this world, I belong to you – without you I’d be
God knows where. You rescued me and you took
my hand, you gave me my food, you gave me
clothing, on that day when I stole your watch.
Do you think I’ve forgotten? Who except you in
all the whole wide world has ever felt I was
worthy of love?

(Reprise of the sonata)

Dr Schön (pursuing the matter in hand)
Leave me out of this! If you feel obliged to me,
then don’t throw yourself for the third time at
my feet! Why ever did I marry you off, if you’re
seen at every hour of the day entering my house
when you want. I ventured to hope that having a
husband young and kind, such as all self respecting 
girls would gladly wish to flaunt, you
would at last be fulfilled and happy.

Lulu
I see!
(aside to herself )
Yes, yes, yes…

ENO Production... translation by Richard Stokes... Chandos "Opera in English" Ber's Lulu CHAN 3130(3)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There is an attempted arranged marriage in *Donizetti's* comic opera _*The Daughter of the Regiment*_. The countess (Marquesa) wants her illegitimate daughter Maria to marry an aristocratic guy in the second act (the mother & daughter are reuinited in the first act & the countess takes Maria to her castle to meet the guy). But Maria is already in love with another guy called Tonio, who is a member of the regiment that adopted her before she was taken back by her mother. Anyway, all ends happily for Maria & Tonio, the countess acquieses to what they want, & in any case the guy she had lined up didn't seem that interested in Maria anyway...


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> I've just watched "La Cambiale di Matrimonio"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There was a guy around here asking for names of operas that made reference to Canada. Did we tell him about this one?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Almaviva said:


> There was a guy around here asking for names of operas that made reference to Canada. Did we tell him about this one?


Yes, but it wasn't the right one.


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