# Opera As Drama Vs Opera As Narrative



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I imagine many here will be familiar with Kerman's famous "Opera as Drama" book in which he argues how the music is woven into the drama of the libretto. He uses this method to disparage a work like the finale of Tosca where he says:


> Tosca leaps, and the orchestra screams the first thing that comes into its head, "E lucevan le stelle." How pointless this is, compared with the return of the music for the kiss at the analogous place in Otello... Tosca herself never even heard it; and the musical continuity is course and arbitrary. Once again, this loud little epilogue is for the audience, not for the play.


This single point always made me think not that Kerman was right about Tosca, but rather that he was wrong about opera as drama, and that it was closer to narrative. While it's very true that in an opera like Otello the kiss theme is very much meant to evoke what is happening in the character's mind, this, in itself, isn't even drama. It's more akin to narrative literature in which the 3rd person narrator is describing what's someone is thinking. In actual drama this can't happen independently of the character explicitly saying what they're thinking.

This also helps to make sense of the finale of Tosca. It's true Tosca never heard that aria; but that's not the point. Tosca has always seemed to me a story of "paradise lost;" one in which innocent love and art is corrupted by the "will to power," as Nietzsche called it. That aria both remembers back on its innocence--which is especially potent considering what's just happened before it--before transforming it into a lamentation of its loss. The reason the orchestra "screams" that aria at Tosca's demise is because this is a narrative device recalling the moment that most encapsulated the opera's themes.

I'm curious as to what others think of this idea: is opera more drama or narrative? Are there other examples where you feel the music plays more of a narrative rather than a dramatic role? Do you agree or disagree with Kerman? What do you think about this particular Tosca scene and the music's role? All subjects worth discussing here.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I won't go listen to check myself, but isn't Scarpia's music in there at that point somewhere? If it is, the question of drama would need no discussion. And the idea of her lovers music, to which he earlier sang "oh sweet kisses, oh languid casesses" playing while she takes her life, with him lying in front of her dead, would seem to be the stuff of dramatic irony to the max. Music/Drama irony!

As a basic take, the idea of music as narrator, which I'm sure holds in certain places, does not speak to what I feel the orchestras central function is. It's far more elemental than that. I've always felt that rhythm pulses in the bloodstream and once that happens melody and harmony and word have the opportunity to intoxicate, infuriate, disgust, invoke pity and the myriad other responses we turn to music drama for. I haven't thought at great length about the role of the narrator in non-musical drama but I wouldn't guess that I would assign it nearly so large a role.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

The "Tosca didn't even hear it" bit has to be one of the stupidest criticisms in the history of Puccini scholarship, which is no small feat. (Charles Osborne is also competitive there.) Does he think that E lucevan le stelle was supposed to be diegetic music, that Cavaradossi was singing a song in the world of the story? The only way I can make any sense of it is that he is referring to the text... that Tosca might have heard what Cavaradossi said, and that would recall the music in some way... maybe? Again, that's not much smarter. Also, how does this criticism not apply to Wagner all over the place? Should the Waldvogel be shot because she wasn't there listening to the Rhinemaidens sing? If she was, how can a songbird live underwater? Where did she learn that song? Wow, Wagner must be an idiot who was pandering to his audience.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> This also helps to make sense of the finale of Tosca. It's true Tosca never heard that aria; but that's not the point. Tosca has always seemed to me a story of "paradise lost;" one in which innocent love and art is corrupted by the "will to power," as Nietzsche called it. That aria both remembers back on its innocence--which is especially potent considering what's just happened before it--before transforming it into a lamentation of its loss. The reason the orchestra "screams" that aria at Tosca's demise is because this is a narrative device recalling the moment that most encapsulated the opera's themes.


I think this is exactly right. Act three is rather dramatically inert. The previous two acts were a continuous sweep of dramatic music, but Act 3 is about the sitting and waiting. Cavaradossi sings E lucevan at the beginning of the Act, and it recurs at the end of the act, giving act 3 a circular structure. What happens in this circle? Very little. What does happen we all saw coming a mile away. But _Tosca and Cavaradossi didn't_, which is the point. Tosca is living inside a Romantic Fantasy. Cavaradossi falls into the Fantasy when he sings that aria, and like a dream, Tosca comes back to save him, and they sing about how they'll go out into the world and remake it into a world of light and harmony and... Well, yeah, right. How appropriate then that the music that underscored Cavaradossi's statement of "svani per sempre il sogno mio d'amore" "my dream of love has vanished forever" recurs at the precise moment that Tosca's comes crashing down! Of course, it's a little complex, because Tosca's last words are essentially, "This isn't over!" That could be seen as her refusing to give up on her fantasy even until the moment of death, which would, as ScottK points out, bring the irony to a highpoint.

Now that I have that off my chest, the issue of drama vs. narrative literature is really interesting. I will be thinking about this. Thanks for bringing up such an interesting topic!


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Now that I have that off my chest, !


There were about 3 or 4 places I was going to choose to say simply....That's Funny:lol:!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Tosca is living inside a Romantic Fantasy. Cavaradossi falls into the Fantasy when he sings that aria, and like a dream, Tosca comes back to save him, and they sing about how they'll go out into the world and remake it into a world of light and harmony and... Well, yeah, right. How appropriate then that the music that underscored Cavaradossi's statement of "svani per sempre il sogno mio d'amore" "my dream of love has vanished forever" recurs at the precise moment that Tosca's comes crashing down! Of course, it's a little complex, because Tosca's last words are essentially, "This isn't over!" That could be seen as her refusing to give up on her fantasy even until the moment of death, which would, as ScottK points out, bring the irony to a highpoint.


I agree, pretty much, with this. My impression of that moment is that it's as if the orchestra is saying, "See, that's what your romantic fantasy gets you!" In some ways it doesn't matter as it needs to be a melody that the audience already has heard (a new theme coming out of nowhere would be too jarring) and the treatment of it at that point is in total keeping with the opera's melodramatic treatment of the subject matter.

N.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm curious as to what others think of this idea: is opera more drama or narrative? Are there other examples where you feel the music plays more of a narrative rather than a dramatic role? Do you agree or disagree with Kerman? What do you think about this particular Tosca scene and the music's role? All subjects worth discussing here.


Sounds to me like the TC crowd, at least in early response, sees stuff to consider in your take but doesn't see as much in Mr. Kerman!!!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I imagine many here will be familiar with Kerman's famous "Opera as Drama" book in which he argues how the music is woven into the drama of the libretto. He uses this method to disparage a work like the finale of Tosca where he says: This single point always made me think not that Kerman was right about Tosca, but rather that he was wrong about opera as drama, and that it was closer to narrative. While it's very true that in an opera like Otello the kiss theme is very much meant to evoke what is happening in the character's mind, this, in itself, isn't even drama. It's more akin to narrative literature in which the 3rd person narrator is describing what's someone is thinking. In actual drama this can't happen independently of the character explicitly saying what they're thinking.
> 
> This also helps to make sense of the finale of Tosca. It's true Tosca never heard that aria; but that's not the point. Tosca has always seemed to me a story of "paradise lost;" one in which innocent love and art is corrupted by the "will to power," as Nietzsche called it. That aria both remembers back on its innocence--which is especially potent considering what's just happened before it--before transforming it into a lamentation of its loss. The reason the orchestra "screams" that aria at Tosca's demise is because this is a narrative device recalling the moment that most encapsulated the opera's themes.
> 
> I'm curious as to what others think of this idea: is opera more drama or narrative? Are there other examples where you feel the music plays more of a narrative rather than a dramatic role? Do you agree or disagree with Kerman? What do you think about this particular Tosca scene and the music's role? All subjects worth discussing here.


Good food for thought because as I read your post I started to picture Tosca up at the parapet and instead of "e lucevan le stelle" being played, Scarpia's theme was played to its end, and wow... what a moment! It gave me goosebumps with that final note.
I think you're on to something.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

The thing is, when Kerman says that the orchestral ending is "for the audience, not for the play" he is describing a dramatic effect, not a narrative effect. Good theater is what the audience comes for, if that also serves good narrative then all the better. But of the two, drama always trumps story.

Sondheim tells a story about _Gypsy_. He and Jule Styne had dinner with Oscar Hammerstein after the preview performance Hammerstein attended, and asked him for notes. He made a couple of suggestions for minor stage set tweaks, but then said that the ending of "Rose's Turn" was wrong. Originally at the end there was just a held note in the upper strings fading out, emphasizing that she was alone and then you hear Gypsy's solitary clapping - a very sarcastic moment which leads to the last scene of the show.

Hammerstein said they needed to end with a climax, and give Rose her bow, so the audience could applaud and have a release. Sondheim said that that went against everything Hammerstein had taught him and stood for about plot and every song serving the narrative. Hammerstein replied, well, yes, but if you don't give the audience this moment then they won't be watching the last scene still feeling that they had been gypped.

The audience is a major part of any theatrical production and the work must involve the audience if it is to succeed at any level.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

SanAntone said:


> The thing is, when Kerman says that the orchestral ending is "for the audience, not for the play" he is describing a dramatic effect, not a narrative effect. Good theater is what the audience comes for, if that also serves good narrative then all the better. But of the two, drama always trumps story.
> 
> Sondheim tells a story about Gypsy. He and Jule Styne had dinner with Oscar Hammerstein after the preview performance Hammerstein attended, and asked him for notes. He made a couple of suggestions for minor stage set tweaks, but then said that the ending of Rose's Turn was wrong. Originally at the end there was just a held note in the upper strings fading out, emphasizing that she was alone and then you hear Gypsy's solitary clapping - a very sarcastic moment which leads to the last scene of the show.
> 
> ...


This makes a lot of sense, especially when I look at it from Scarpia's powerful ending note which grips me, the audience person, and my emotion, even more than the "E lucevan le stelle", and in that sense must become a dramatic gesture more than a narrative.
Look what I learn here. It's fascinating!


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm curious as to what others think of this idea: is opera more drama or narrative?


I don't accept the premise of the question.

Theatre is theatre, literature is literature and both are usually (although don't have to be) narrative. (Theatre is more flexible as literature can be included as part of the experience; E.g. text can be projected onto a curtain.) I suppose you could write an online book that is interspersed with short video performances though.

The device of a narrator exists both in literature and theatre, so theatre doesn't have to be solely drama (and some scenes in literature are written as dialogue in such a way that they approach drama or something that could be termed a theatre of the mind). It seems clear to me that opera is both drama and narrative, just as it is both poetry (or at the very least words) and music. However, the music serves an emotional purpose in opera that is only conveyed by the speaking voice (including rhythms and silences) in spoken theatre. Sometimes the music does little more than heighten the drama, at others it aids the narrative or adds more layers of narrative complexity to the work.

Opera is both drama and narrative, just as spoken theatre is. It might seem at first glance that the addition of music makes opera more narrative than spoken theatre, but it very much depends on the work in question as both genres cover a wide range of types and styles.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm curious as to what others think of this idea: is opera more drama or narrative? Are there other examples where you feel the music plays more of a narrative rather than a dramatic role? Do you agree or disagree with Kerman? What do you think about this particular Tosca scene and the music's role? All subjects worth discussing here.


Opera is a form of drama, not a narrated account of events. It's a play, consisting, like spoken drama, of characters doing and saying things. But as a form of drama in which music is the defining and dominant means of expression, opera is a distinctive kind of drama. A drama set entirely to music is crucially paced and shaped by music, which also creates the emotional tone of the story and defines the subjective lives of the characters. Operatic characters are ultimately what the composer, not the playwright - the librettist - makes of them, and the more he makes of them by means of distinctive and moving music, the more the essential drama is to be found not in the bare-boned stage action but in the music itself. The composer "acts out" a drama musically, and the people onstage are there to make specific and comprehensible the music's connection to life. All this makes music much more than a "narrator" standing outside the play and commenting on it. The essential drama of opera unfolds in the sounds of voices and orchestra, and what the actors do onstage will be meaningful to the extent that they understand that audible drama and manifest it visually. Maria Callas said that if you want to know how to act in opera, you must listen to the music.

Music in opera can have a quasi-narrative function, pointing up connections between things, evoking the past or anticipating the future, and hinting at things not thought, spoken or enacted by the characters onstage. But the fact that the drama of opera takes place most importantly in the music requires that we understand the narrativity of music as essential to what musical drama is, not as something to be conceived as extraneous, separate or contrary to it.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ... This single point always made me think not that Kerman was right about Tosca, but rather that he was wrong about opera as drama, and that it was closer to narrative. While it's very true that in an opera like Otello the kiss theme is very much meant to evoke what is happening in the character's mind, this, in itself, isn't even drama. It's more akin to narrative literature in which the 3rd person narrator is describing what's someone is thinking. In actual drama this can't happen independently of the character explicitly saying what they're thinking.
> ...


I don't take a stance regarding Puccini but I am not quite sure whether I agree with the distinction between narrative and drama here. Most of art up to 20th century was narrative art - I would say that definitely most of classic operas are focused on some sort of narrative and a story. This however does not by any means suggest that they are not drama at the same time.

I would also definitely not say that a theme could be compared to an explicit statement made by a 3rd person narrator. Such position assumes some kind of direct causal pre-planned relation between the music and the response it is supposed to generate in the listener. In the end, it is in no way explicit and such perception is very private for every individual. I also don't think that this cannot happen in drama - I think a talented actor is very capable of alluding to or indicating ideas that are not explicitly stated. That, for many (including me), is characteristic of great acting - real life is not explicitly simple and a truthful imitation of it should not come off that way either. If one thinks about it, the tone of an actor's voice can convey similar things as music in opera.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Lots of interesting replies here.



ScottK said:


> As a basic take, the idea of music as narrator, which I'm sure holds in certain places, does not speak to what I feel the orchestras central function is. It's far more elemental than that. I've always felt that rhythm pulses in the bloodstream and once that happens melody and harmony and word have the opportunity to intoxicate, infuriate, disgust, invoke pity and the myriad other responses we turn to music drama for. I haven't thought at great length about the role of the narrator in non-musical drama but I wouldn't guess that I would assign it nearly so large a role.


I do not/did not want to make the "music as narrator" thing too literal. I think the general point is that in typical non-musical drama all we have are the characters, their words, and the actors who attempt to embody those characters and words. In narrative there is the addition of a "separate voice" if you will, one that describes, comments, and, well, narrates. It's not clear to me in opera whether music functions more "as drama" or "as narrator." I do think there are examples where it can do both.

To take an example, in drama actors have the sole task of deciding how to speak the words on the page and color their meaning. In opera, this choice is limited because of the need to hit certain notes of certain durations (though obviously there is some freedom of interpretation within even those notes and durations, or else every singer would sound the same). The point is that when a composer is setting words to music for characters to sing they are very much using the music to take on a dramatic interpretative role. However, there are plenty of cases where the music isn't doing this, such as in the Tosca example, where I very much feel the music is serving more of a narrative function because it isn't limited to what a character is thinking or feeling or expressing. As others have said this narration can even take on an ironic role and relationship with what the characters are saying.



vivalagentenuova said:


> The "Tosca didn't even hear it" bit has to be one of the stupidest criticisms in the history of Puccini scholarship... The only way I can make any sense of it is that he is referring to the text... that Tosca might have heard what Cavaradossi said, and that would recall the music in some way... maybe?


This is how I read it, and it makes more sense in the context of him comparing it to the "kiss" scene of Otello, which happens both at a moment of passion and recurs during the scene when Otello is about to kill Desdemona, with Kerman's point being that despite Otello's murderous rage that memory of love is on his mind. This obviously can't be happening in the Tosca finale because Tosca can't be remembering/thinking of something she never heard herself.



vivalagentenuova said:


> I think this is exactly right. Act three is rather dramatically inert. The previous two acts were a continuous sweep of dramatic music, but Act 3 is about the sitting and waiting. Cavaradossi sings E lucevan at the beginning of the Act, and it recurs at the end of the act, giving act 3 a circular structure. What happens in this circle? Very little. What does happen we all saw coming a mile away. But _Tosca and Cavaradossi didn't_, which is the point. Tosca is living inside a Romantic Fantasy. Cavaradossi falls into the Fantasy when he sings that aria, and like a dream, Tosca comes back to save him, and they sing about how they'll go out into the world and remake it into a world of light and harmony and... Well, yeah, right. How appropriate then that the music that underscored Cavaradossi's statement of "svani per sempre il sogno mio d'amore" "my dream of love has vanished forever" recurs at the precise moment that Tosca's comes crashing down! Of course, it's a little complex, because Tosca's last words are essentially, "This isn't over!" That could be seen as her refusing to give up on her fantasy even until the moment of death, which would, as ScottK points out, bring the irony to a highpoint.


Another point I've made about Act 3 is that Tosca is still under the impression that the purity of love and art can save them. She's literally telling Cavaradossi to "act the part" and everything will be OK!



vivalagentenuova said:


> Now that I have that off my chest, the issue of drama vs. narrative literature is really interesting. I will be thinking about this. Thanks for bringing up such an interesting topic!


:tiphat:



The Conte said:


> I don't accept the premise of the question.
> 
> Theatre is theatre, literature is literature and both are usually (although don't have to be) narrative. (Theatre is more flexible as literature can be included as part of the experience; E.g. text can be projected onto a curtain.) I suppose you could write an online book that is interspersed with short video performances though.


Yes, narrators exist in theater, but they are not as omnipresent as they typically are in other narrative literature. There isn't a narrator going "he/she said" after every line of dialogue like you typically get in narrative fiction, nor are the narrators in theater typically describing scenes since that's what you have sets for. A good analog here is film. Film is mostly drama except with a camera and editing (and music?) acting as narrator, and that makes a huge difference in how we experience film VS theater.



The Conte said:


> It seems clear to me that opera is both drama and narrative, just as it is both poetry (or at the very least words) and music.


Yes, I would accept that it's both and can be more one or the other depending on the work or moments within the work. I simply think that looking at it as only drama is too limiting.



Woodduck said:


> Opera is a form of drama, not a narrated account of events. It's a play, consisting, like spoken drama, of characters doing and saying things. But as a form of drama in which music is the defining and dominant means of expression, opera is a distinctive kind of drama. A drama set entirely to music is crucially paced and shaped by music, which also creates the emotional tone of the story and defines the subjective lives of the characters. Operatic characters are ultimately what the composer, not the playwright - the librettist - makes of them, and the more he makes of them by means of distinctive and moving music, the more the essential drama is to be found not in the bare-boned stage action but in the music itself. The composer "acts out" a drama musically, and the people onstage are there to make specific and comprehensible the music's connection to life. All this makes music much more than a "narrator" standing outside the play and commenting on it. The essential drama of opera unfolds in the sounds of voices and orchestra, and what the actors do onstage will be meaningful to the extent that they understand that audible drama and manifest it visually. Maria Callas said that if you want to know how to act in opera, you must listen to the music.
> 
> Music in opera can have a quasi-narrative function, pointing up connections between things, evoking the past or anticipating the future, and hinting at things not thought, spoken or enacted by the characters onstage. But the fact that the drama of opera takes place most importantly in the music requires that we understand the narrativity of music as essential to what musical drama is, not as something to be conceived as extraneous, separate or contrary to it.


While I largely agree with what you say about how music functions in opera, I think you have a too limited idea of what a narrator's role is. A narrator isn't just someone "standing outside the play and commenting on it." A narrator determines what perspective we have on the events and characters that we're observing. In literature the narrator can either show us a first-person perspective or a third-person perspective. They can describe scenes, emotional states, etc. In film, the narrator is essentially the camera and editing, both of which determine the perspective upon which we see events from. The one key difference with most drama is that our perspective is literally the seat in the audience that we view the stage from. There isn't a narrator dictating where our attention goes. Obviously, narrators can stand outside of the events and comment on them, but that is not all narrators can do. Even if we consider your terms of how music paces and shapes the drama, creates emotional tone and defines subjective lives of characters... these are all roles that a narrator fulfills both in literature and film.

I certainly did not mean to imply that the narrative function of music was not essential to the drama or something extraneous, separate or contrary to it. Far from it, just as I think the role of the narrator is crucial to any great film or narrative literature.



annaw said:


> I don't take a stance regarding Puccini but I am not quite sure whether I agree with the distinction between narrative and drama here. Most of art up to 20th century was narrative art - I would say that definitely most of classic operas are focused on some sort of narrative and a story. This however does not by any means suggest that they are not drama at the same time.


I wonder if perhaps we're using the terms "narrative" differently here, because I know of plenty non-narrative drama prior to the 20th century.



annaw said:


> I would also definitely not say that a theme could be compared to an explicit statement made by a 3rd person narrator. Such position assumes some kind of direct causal pre-planned relation between the music and the response it is supposed to generate in the listener. In the end, it is in no way explicit and such perception is very private for every individual. I also don't think that this cannot happen in drama - I think a talented actor is very capable of alluding to or indicating ideas that are not explicitly stated. That, for many (including me), is characteristic of great acting - real life is not explicitly simple and a truthful imitation of it should not come off that way either. If one thinks about it, the tone of an actor's voice can convey similar things as music in opera.


Not an "explicit statement" perhaps, but music in opera absolutely colors our perspective on dramatic events within the opera, and it's not doing it purely through what the characters are saying or how the performers are performing it. This does strike me as more similar to the role of narrative than the role of non-narrative drama where all we have are the characters, words, and the performers.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Lots of interesting replies here.
> 
> I do not/did not want to make the "music as narrator" thing too literal. I think the general point is that in typical non-musical drama all we have are the characters, their words, and the actors who attempt to embody those characters and words. In narrative there is the addition of a "separate voice" if you will, one that describes, comments, and, well, narrates. It's not clear to me in opera whether music functions more "as drama" or "as narrator." I do think there are examples where it can do both.
> 
> To take an example, in drama actors have the sole task of deciding how to speak the words on the page and color their meaning. In opera, this choice is limited because of the need to hit certain notes of certain durations (though obviously there is some freedom of interpretation within even those notes and durations, or else every singer would sound the same). The point is that when a composer is setting words to music for characters to sing they are very much using the music to take on a dramatic interpretative role. However, there are plenty of cases where the music isn't doing this, such as in the Tosca example, where I very much feel the music is serving more of a narrative function because it isn't limited to what a character is thinking or feeling or expressing. As others have said this narration can even take on an ironic role and relationship with what the characters are saying. .


I like your further explanation very much. (Not the first time I've been accused of being "a little literal" !!) So now that that's clear my answer is....BOTH. I think your explanation above is pretty much irrefutable....both of the roles , as you describe them, certainly exist and are important. The narrator role, however, almost certainly not showing up as often. But The Contes' assertion that..."My impression of that moment is that it's as if the orchestra is saying, "See, that's what your romantic fantasy gets you!" begs the question "is the orchestra another character in the opera?" ...or if it's the narrator, its a narrator with a snarl!


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> This is how I read it, and it makes more sense in the context of him comparing it to the "kiss" scene of Otello, which happens both at a moment of passion and recurs during the scene when Otello is about to kill Desdemona, with Kerman's point being that despite Otello's murderous rage that memory of love is on his mind. This obviously can't be happening in the Tosca finale because Tosca can't be remembering/thinking of something she never heard herself.


That helps a little, but it seems like an extremely narrow view of the acceptable dramatic uses of thematic recurrence. Also, even on that narrow view, it's actually not true that Tosca would have no "memory" of that moment: Cavaradossi _is thinking about a romantic encounter with her when he sings that aria_. So it actually would make sense that Tosca would flash back to a similar moment at the end... But it makes the most sense to say that she's having a similar experience of her Romantic dreams being crushed as Cavaradossi did while singing the aria. It's the "never even heard it" bit that makes me shake my head. The way you put it is much clearer.


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

I have another question regarding the narrative.

Do you think it is feasible to implement *plot twist* (one of the most abused literary technique in modern novels and movies) in opera?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> While I largely agree with what you say about how music functions in opera, I think you have a too limited idea of what a narrator's role is. A narrator isn't just someone "standing outside the play and commenting on it." A narrator determines what perspective we have on the events and characters that we're observing. In literature the narrator can either show us a first-person perspective or a third-person perspective. They can describe scenes, emotional states, etc. In film, the narrator is essentially the camera and editing, both of which determine the perspective upon which we see events from. The one key difference with most drama is that our perspective is literally the seat in the audience that we view the stage from. There isn't a narrator dictating where our attention goes. Obviously, narrators can stand outside of the events and comment on them, but that is not all narrators can do. Even if we consider your terms of how music paces and shapes the drama, creates emotional tone and defines subjective lives of characters... these are all roles that a narrator fulfills both in literature and film.
> 
> I certainly did not mean to imply that the narrative function of music was not essential to the drama or something extraneous, separate or contrary to it. Far from it, just as I think the role of the narrator is crucial to any great film or narrative literature.
> 
> I wonder if perhaps we're using the terms "narrative" differently here, because I know of plenty non-narrative drama prior to the 20th century.


There may be plays in which the primary role of determining the structure, expressive power and meaning of the events onstage is taken by a narrator. Such a construction is possible, but there are good reasons why most plays are not made this way. In general it would constitute an impoverished form of theater, more pageantry than drama, and a fall-back for self-styled dramatists who don't know how to write a play. In a novel, narrative is the whole shebang; in a play, a narrator may be brought in (carefully) for a particular purpose. Neither model corresponds to music in opera, even if music can, in a loosened sense of the term, narrate, and even if a narrator, strictly defined, can perform some of the functions of other expressive media such as music and poetry.

Wagner called opera (speaking of his own music dramas) "deeds of music made visible." This is interesting, in that it represents a mature perspective on the art form of opera, arrived at after the experience of composing _Tristan und Isolde_ made him realize that his earlier view of music's role in opera - as a kind of _narrator_ illuminating the poetry and dramatic action - failed to do justice to its primacy and centrality in the "total art work" he had posited while deep in his theoretical mode. It isn't that the music of an opera _doesn't_ "comment" on the play; it's rather that what the music is doing is the very heart of the play, as we can easily discover by comparing the experience of listening to a recording of an opera at home with watching it enacted and spoken onstage without music. Certainly there are operas in which the nonmusical aspects of the drama are somewhat self-sufficient; _Pelleas et Melisande_ is a rare example of a play set to music almost(?) verbatim, and might seem to lend support to the idea that its music functions like a narrator introduced into a stage play. But even in this instance, the fact that Maeterlinck's play is rarely given, while Debussy's opera is a unique masterpiece prominent in the standard repertoire, tells us something important.

The question asked at the end of your OP was not "can music in opera function like a narrator?" - obviously it can - but "is opera more drama or narrative?" When music is the primary art in the _Gesamtkunstwerk_ which is opera, music is the primary stage on which the drama takes place. 
"Narrator" doesn't do justice to its role.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I have another question regarding the narrative.
> 
> Do you think it is feasible to implement *plot twist* (one of the most abused literary technique in modern novels and movies) in opera?


There are a number of operas that have plot twists:

*Magic Flute* - It turns out that the Queen of the Night is the baddie, not Sarastro.
*Fedora* - It turns out that the murderer of Fedora's husband is her new boyfriend Loris.
*Lucrezia Borgia* - She's his MOTHER!

There will be others.

N.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Rachel turns out not to be Jewish at all but decidedly a Christian in "La Juive."

Gilda's beloved Gualtier Malde turns out to be none other than the Duke in "Rigoletto".


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Trovatore ends with a classic plot twist (similar to those of La Juive and Les Hugenots).

Plot twists in opera are often easy to see coming and it's interesting how they can still satisfy even when you know they are coming up. In this respect opera can be a bit like Columbo. The "spoilers" actually don't ruin the ending as although the viewer knows what is going to happen, the culprit doesn't and so the enjoyment comes from watching the shock when the characters who are in the dark discover the surprise.

N.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

The Conte said:


> it's interesting how they can still satisfy even when you know they are coming up. The "spoilers" actually don't ruin the ending as although the viewer knows what is going to happen, the culprit doesn't and so the enjoyment comes from watching the shock when the characters who are in the dark discover the surprise.
> N.


I'll go with that for some of the time, but only some! I've always wondered what it would be like to see a performance of "The Glass Menagerie" in which The Gentleman Caller and Laura have real chemistry and I don't know the outcome!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

The Conte said:


> Trovatore ends with a classic plot twist (similar to those of La Juive and Les Hugenots).
> 
> Plot twists in opera are often easy to see coming and it's interesting how they can still satisfy even when you know they are coming up. In this respect opera can be a bit like Columbo. The "spoilers" actually don't ruin the ending as although the viewer knows what is going to happen, the culprit doesn't and so the enjoyment comes from watching the shock when the characters who are in the dark discover the surprise.
> 
> N.


Alfred Hitchcock made his living on letting the audience in on the plot before the end. "Let 'em play God" he said. 
It works.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> There may be plays in which the primary role of determining the structure, expressive power and meaning of the events onstage is taken by a narrator. Such a construction is possible, but there are good reasons why most plays are not made this way. In general it would constitute an impoverished form of theater, more pageantry than drama, and a fall-back for self-styled dramatists who don't know how to write a play. In a novel, narrative is the whole shebang; in a play, a narrator may be brought in (carefully) for a particular purpose. Neither model corresponds to music in opera, even if music can, in a loosened sense of the term, narrate, and even if a narrator, strictly defined, can perform some of the functions of other expressive media such as music and poetry.
> 
> Wagner called opera (speaking of his own music dramas) "deeds of music made visible." This is interesting, in that it represents a mature perspective on the art form of opera, arrived at after the experience of composing _Tristan und Isolde_ made him realize that his earlier view of music's role in opera - as a kind of _narrator_ illuminating the poetry and dramatic action - failed to do justice to its primacy and centrality in the "total art work" he had posited while deep in his theoretical mode. It isn't that the music of an opera _doesn't_ "comment" on the play; it's rather that what the music is doing is the very heart of the play, as we can easily discover by comparing the experience of listening to a recording of an opera at home with watching it enacted and spoken onstage without music. Certainly there are operas in which the nonmusical aspects of the drama are somewhat self-sufficient; _Pelleas et Melisande_ is a rare example of a play set to music almost(?) verbatim, and might seem to lend support to the idea that its music functions like a narrator introduced into a stage play. But even in this instance, the fact that Maeterlinck's play is rarely given, while Debussy's opera is a unique masterpiece prominent in the standard repertoire, tells us something important.
> 
> ...


The narrator model may not correspond 1:1 to the function of music in opera, but neither do I think the dramatic model does, as I mentioned in my first post. In drama without narration all we have are the characters, their words, and the performers. Music is none of these things, and when we look at the function it's serving within opera, it frequently seems closer to me to narrative than drama. There are exceptions to this, as I noted in my response to ScottK.

I also very much agree with Wagner's view (or what you're relating about Wagner's view), but consider what you said above about narrative being "the whole shebang" in literature; it sounds to me like you're similarly describing music as "the whole shebang" (or very close to it) of opera. There's no denying that an opera would be extremely different than the libretto performed sans-music; but that very much invites the speculation regarding what music is doing it, how it's doing it, what the relationship is, how/why is it so transformative. I think the "total art work" view is a good one, and is a similar feeling I have about all hybrid mediums (film and video games included) that merge multiple artistic disciplines to create a new holistic experience that is unique than any of these mediums in isolation. That's very much a "forest"-perspective argument; yet, however much the saying is concerned with missing the proverbial forest, it can still be interesting to study the "trees" that make up our experience of the forest and their relationship with each other. (Hopefully that metaphor wasn't too belabored!)

I appreciate your thought that "narrator" doesn't do justice to its role, but neither does thinking of it only in terms of drama--or at the very least how Kerman is interpreting music's dramatic function.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

vivalagentenuova said:


> That helps a little, but it seems like an extremely narrow view of the acceptable dramatic uses of thematic recurrence. Also, even on that narrow view, it's actually not true that Tosca would have no "memory" of that moment: Cavaradossi _is thinking about a romantic encounter with her when he sings that aria_. So it actually would make sense that Tosca would flash back to a similar moment at the end... But it makes the most sense to say that she's having a similar experience of her Romantic dreams being crushed as Cavaradossi did while singing the aria. It's the "never even heard it" bit that makes me shake my head. The way you put it is much clearer.


I do want to say that I hope I haven't given too negative of an impression of the Kerman book. Despite my disagreements with many of his judgments and criticisms it's still a superb work of criticism with many piercing insights and is well worth a read for anyone seriously interested in opera. I rarely view critics' worth solely on how much I agree with them, but rather on how insightful I find them and how even on points of disagreement they provoke me to think more deeply about the subject and my own views. Kerman accomplishes both of those goals superbly.

I do agree with you, though, that his view of opera as drama is too limiting, and I also suspect his dislike of Tosca had less to do with these particular aesthetic principles and more to do with the fact that it (and Strauss's early operas, which he also disparages) offended his rather delicate artistic sensibilities. It's often the case that we seek to rationalize/justify our tastes and reactions on very different grounds than what actually caused us to feel that way about whatever it is we're criticizing, so I don't hold that very common/human foible against Kerman.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I have another question regarding the narrative.
> 
> Do you think it is feasible to implement *plot twist* (one of the most abused literary technique in modern novels and movies) in opera?


Plot twists are easy in librettos and some examples have already been named. Much more interesting than plot twists are what I'd call disillusionment arcs, which can either come with or without plot twists. The Magic Flute is an example of both a plot twist and also a disillusionment arc, where Tamino comes to the realization that he's been deluded from the beginning. A work like Cosi fan tutte is a much subtler example of a disillusionment arc, where the characters are slowly stripped of their romantic illusions. The remarkable thing about that opera is how Mozart is able to balance the aesthetic of humorously poking fun at their naivety while also allowing us to experience their emotions as it happens. That balancing of the comedy that comes from a satirical distancing of one's perspective on events, and the tragedy that comes from the more intimate invitation to sympathize/empathize with the characters, is one of the things that gives Mozart's Da Ponte operas such artistic richness in general. I wrote about this a long time ago in a thread titled Mozart's Voi Che Sapete and Romantic Irony. (Mozart is hardly the only composer that does this, of course. The theme of disillusionment is all over the works of Wagner as well).


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Thanks, guys! The Magic Flute and Trovatore have classic plot twists. Silly me!


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