!!!Oper

Opera: Forerunners of opera can be traced to at the beginning of the 
Modern Age and were festivities that formed part of court life in such 
Italian cities as Mantua and Florence. In 1594 a dramatic work, 
"Dafne", with music by J. Peri to a text by O. Rinuccini, 
was performed in Florence, and from the early 17th century 
performances of musical productions also took place in Austria: The 
first opera production north of the Alps was shown in 1614 at the 
court of the Archbishop of Salzburg,  Marcus Sitticus von Hohenems, by 
an Italian opera troupe. When members of the Habsburg dynasty married 
princesses of the houses of Gonzaga and Medici, the new musical genre 
also became popular with the Austrian rulers. Under Leopold V and 
Claudia of Medici, Innsbruck became an important centre (one of the 
first "Comoedienhaeuser" ("comedy buildings") north of the 
Alps was built there in 1629/30). Opera did not find a home at the 
Imperial Court in Vienna until 1625; it asserted its position in the 
1740s and soon thereafter became a hallmark of courtly pomp. Baroque 
opera, which was an exclusive feature of court culture in Austria well 
into the 18th century, was regarded as a "Gesamtkunstwerk" 
("total work of art") to which all the arts and artists of the court 
(architecture, painting, music and dance) made their contributions in 
honour of the ruler. Occasions for operatic performances were the 
rulers' and their families' birthdays and namedays, marriages, births 
of heirs to the throne etc. Operas were especially written and 
composed for such purposes and were therefore played only once, a 
practice that persisted well into the 18th century. Opera at the 
Imperial Court of Vienna acquired an almost legendary reputation under 
those Austrian emperors who were not only music enthusiasts but also 
active musicians, Ferdinand III, Leopold I (who actually 
composed operas and operatic arias), Joseph I and Karl VI. 
P. A. Cesti's "Il pomo d´oro" (1668), F. Conti's 
"Il trionfo dell´amicizia e dell´amore" (1711) 
and "Costanza e Fortezza" (1723) by J. J.  Fux evoked 
international interest and praise. But it was not only outstanding 
composers such P. A. Cesti, M. A. Ziani, A. Draghi, 
G. F. Sances, A. Caldara, G. Bononcini, J. J. Fux and 
others, but also librettists like A. Zeno and P. Metastasio who earned 
fame. Maria Theresia, who was forced to reduce court expenditures, 
nevertheless continued the Court Opera tradition ("Metastasian opera" 
with composers such as. J. A. Hasse, J. Bonno and C. W.  
Gluck. Side by side with Court Opera, theatrical and operatic 
productions were increasingly under the influence of aristocrats such 
as W. A. Kaunitz, who promoted French plays and opera. This 
Francophile attitude was also important for Gluck's opera reform, 
which sought to combine the new ideas of A.  Zeno and P.  Metastasio 
with the ideals of French opera.The "Nationalsingspiel" genre, 
typified by I. Umlauf's "Die Bergknappen" with which the Vienna 
Hofburgtheater was opened in 1778, owed its origin to an order issued 
by Emperor Joseph II rather than the aspirations of Vienna's 
bourgeois population to educate their minds.

\\
Composers who wrote in the vein of the Viennese singspiel (as opposed 
to similar productions in northern Germany) included P.  Wranitzky, J. 
 Weigl, J. B.  Schenk and W.  Mueller; however, the genre was 
also adopted by W. A.  Mozart in his "Entfuehrung aus dem 
Serail" and "Zauberfloete". After the Emperor's death, 
the Burgtheater rapidly became the home of Italian opera, and the 
singspiel moved to the suburban theatres (Theater an der Wien, 
Freihaustheater, Theater in der Leopoldstadt, Theater in der 
Josefstadt) with their popular musical plays, which had attracted 
suburban audiences from the early 18th century onwards.

\\
After the culmination of opera in all its facets (the courtly opera 
seria, opera buffa, singspiel etc.), which is linked with the names of 
J. A. Hasse, A.  Salieri, C. W. Gluck and W. A. Mozart 
(and ultimately L. van  Beethoven´s "Fidelio"), 
the first half of the 19th century saw a crisis for opera, 
particularly with regard to the works of Austrian composers, as 
exemplified by F.  Schubert´s attempts to write successful 
operas.

\\
The most popular forms of music theatre, and the area in which most 
works were created, were the singspiel and popular comedies in 
Viennese dialect richly garnished with music numbers. "Grand opera" at 
the Burgtheater and Kaerntnertortheater, however, was (and still is) 
dominated by the Italian repertoire, with only few exceptions such as 
C. M. von Weber, A.  Gyrowetz and J.  Vesque von 
Puettlingen. While the production of operas by Austrian composers 
increased continuously up to the beginning of the 20th century, few of 
these works, or their authors, were able to find a steady place in the 
repertoire, the only exception being the works of R.  Strauss.

\\
On the other hand, this was also the time when opera became a social 
and cultural institution, particularly under the directors F.  Schalk, 
R.  Strauss and G.  Mahler. Alongside the Vienna Hofoper (later 
Staatsoper), opera houses or theatres that included opera in their 
repertory existed at Graz, Linz, Innsbruck and Klagenfurt; they served 
as a springboard for many young talents, as was also true of the 
theatres in Bohemia and Moravia (up to 1918), where many outstanding 
careers (including that of G. Mahler). The Vienna Opera, however, did 
not confine itself to the cultivation of Italian operas and the works 
of German Romanticism up to R. Wagner and R. Strauss, but also 
produced, though with a smaller number of performances, contemporary 
and avant-garde works: A.  Schoenberg´s one-act operas 
"Erwartung" and "Die glueckliche Hand", A.  
Berg´s "Wozzeck" (which has since become a "classic" 
of modern opera), E.  Krenek´s "Jonny spielt auf" 
(Jonny strikes up the band) and G. von  Einem´s 
"Dantons Tod" (Danton's Death).

!Literature
G. Zechmeister, Das Wiener Theater naechst der Burg und 
naechst dem Kaerntnerthor von 1747 bis 1776, 1971; O. Michtner, Das 
alte Burgtheater als Opernbuehne, 1970; H. Seifert, Die Wiener Oper am 
Kaiserhof im 17. Jahrhundert, 1985; N. Tschulik, Musiktheater in 
Oesterreich, die Oper im 20. Jahrhundert, 1984; A. Seebohm (ed.), 
Die Wiener Oper, 1986.


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