# Development of the Overture?



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm writing an essay and would like to know approximately when and how the overture went from being thematically more or less independent of the opera's score (e.g., _The Marriage of Figaro_) to being the medley of melodies from the score that one hears in the Broadway musical. Was it Wagner who was responsible for this change (as I notice _Tannhauser_, for example, features the Pilgrims' Chorus from the opera in its overture), or was it another composer? Surprisingly, I can't find any information about the Broadway-type overture on Wikipedia and would really like to know how/where it originated.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mozart anticipates the spooky statue music in the _Don Giovanni_ overture, and the Masonic ritual chords in the overture to _Die Zauberflote._ Beethoven uses themes from _Fidelio_ in the Leonore overtures, and Weber's overtures and those of French composers such as Auber and Herold are of the potpourri type.

Wagner's preludes and overtures represent a development beyond the potpourri overture and can't be described as "medleys." They all use thematic material from their operas but in a variety of ways.
Verdi used the potpourri type but increasingly dispensed with long overtures in favor of short preludes and, in _Otello_ and _Falstaff,_ none at all.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Certainly by the late 18th / early 19th century; we find it in Grétry, from memory, definitely in Boieldieu.

In several 18th century operas, though, the overture _was _part of the opera, whether dramatically or thematically. (Most, though, are independent pieces.) Rameau's _Zais _depicts nothing less than the creation of the world, with the separation of the elements from primordial Chaos; _Nais_ shows the Titanomachy (the war between the gods and giants).
In Gluck's _Iphigénie en Tauride_, there's no overture per se; the curtain rises at once, and we have an orchestral storm, with a chorus of priestresses. His pupil Salieri's _Europa riconosciuta_ has a pantomime shipwreck accompany the overture. (Later Italian operas - such as Meyerbeer's _Crociato in Egitto _and Donizetti's _Assedio di Calais_ - also open with pantomimes.)
In Grétry's _Andromaque_, the overture merges directly into a chorus, so we can't tell where one finishes and the other begins.

Other overtures are almost symphonic poems. Piccinni's _Diane et Endymion_ describes the freshness of the dawn, birdsong, and all nature revived by the sun. Grétrýs _Guillaume Tell_ shows the peace of the countryside (with birdsong and Alpine horns) disrupted by Austrian soldiers and then revolution.

In the early 19th century:
Rossini's _Ermione _- the overture is interrupted by a chorus lamenting the fall of Troy
Meyerbeer - _Robert le Diable_: prelude based on the demon Bertram's evocation of the nuns; _Les Huguenots_: a kind of fugue of "Ein feste Burg".
Donizetti's later operas often use brief instrumental preludes.

ADDED:
Mozart quoted themes in the overtures to Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni.
Some of Rossini's are potpourris - _Aureliano in Palmira _quotes the Act I finale - but it ends up as an independent piece for _The Barber of Seville_ and _Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra_.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Bellinilover said:


> I'm writing an essay and would like to know approximately when and how the overture went from being thematically more or less independent of the opera's score (e.g., _The Marriage of Figaro_) to being the medley of melodies from the score that one hears in the Broadway musical. Was it Wagner who was responsible for this change (as I notice _Tannhauser_, for example, features the Pilgrims' Chorus from the opera in its overture), or was it another composer? Surprisingly, I can't find any information about the Broadway-type overture on Wikipedia and would really like to know how/where it originated.


OK, in France, certainly by 1783. Grétry's _Caravane du Caire_ quotes some of the melodies; the big theme from the end of the overture, for instance, comes from the Act I finale. (There might be some earlier examples.)


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