What If We Sang the Entire Stage Play?

Four-hundred-twenty-five years ago, when they put on a play, they knew how to keep the audience entertained while they changed out the sets between acts.  What they did is, they brought out a clutch of musicians, and ran through some pieces until they had the stage all shipshape again, and the curtain went back up.

It worked pretty well, and when the composers started going for longer and better music for the intermedi, the audiences began focusing more on the set-change music than the actual play.

Two guys named Jacopo, one J. Peri and the other J. Corsi, thought it would be clever to keep the musicians up there the whole time, and have the actors sing their lines.  Using a story and words from their friend Rinuccini, they staged a play called Dafne, which had a fair amount of actual singing, filled in with “melodic speech” called recitative.  This 1598 experiment is considered the first opera.

In 1600, Peri came up with another musical play, telling the ancient story of Orpheus and Euridice, and his Euridice is the oldest opera you can find on video, because the music to Dafne has been lost.  Euridice doesn’t get a lot of kudos from the critics, but it’s obviously important historically.

Claudio Monteverdi was the court composer for the Duke of Mantua in those years (this is not the same Duke of Mantua who destroyed the lives of Rigoletto and his daughter).  An innovator, Monteverdi thought he’d take a shot at the new concept himself, so he also picked up the Greek O & E tale, and wrote out music for every line of his two-hour show, L’Orfeo.  It’s not only Monteverdi’s first opera, but the earliest opera that is still performed frequently.

Yes!  This Idea Works!

It ages well.  Monteverdi knew more about audiences than Richard Strauss did, so he made sure that the characters sang cohesive songs, with a bit of repetition for emphasis and drama, maybe a little philosophical commentary when it makes sense, and music that conveys the mood of the scene.

This is no “action and hot splits” show, nothing that would adapt well to 21st century blockbuster movies or video games.  Monteverdi spends 15 minutes explaining how happy Orpheus and Euridice are, now that they have finally found each other and are delightfully in love.  In fact, the whole little town is happy, and they sing optimistically about that, going through several song pieces.

When Euridice suddenly dies, the entire population is crushed, and Orpheus is ruined, and that is explained in another series of songs.  It’s working well!  This opera concept is a hit, Claudio!

It’s convincing, it’s engaging, and the songs make it far more emotive than if they had just stated their lines.  The earliest opera that is still performed is worth seeing, 400 years later.  (You see how this is done, Giacomo Puccini?  You could try this too!)

Music from 1607

Don’t think this is a series of widely varied song styles, tempos, and moods.  L’Orfeo does not have the Broadway pizzazz of Songbird, or even of Perichole, and to me, it is a struggle to detect when they move from one song to another.  Sure, if I pay close attention, I can tell that this song is in four and that one is in three, or occasionally a major key theme will pop up amid the tearful minors.  Monotonous?  For some, yes.

But I did hear the key changes, and poor Orpheus sang with a mood very different from his gal Euridice.  Pluto sang like Pluto, and the townsfolk did actual choruses, for clarity and variation (listen, R. Wagner, and learn!).  Orpheus, in fact, sang songs that sounded middle-eastern, or Asian; the tremolo and the dissonance – what limb are you out on, Monteverdi?

So the story rolls out slowly, but it keeps you watching and on track, and part of the fun is knowing you are hearing something they came up with centuries ago.  Strange, for sure, but not stale.  I’m starting to catch on, perhaps, and maybe this is an indication that I should give silly old Vivaldi another hearing.

Paris Knows How to do This

There’s a stunning recording from the Paris Opéra-Comique in 2021, where they use no sets at all, unless you count the flowers.  A fellow named François Roussillon pulled this one together, and he augments the renaissance-baroque song style by describing the location and the mood through movement of the performers. 

They aren’t just happy, they are holding each others’ hands, shoulder-hugging, and embracing.  It’s not just Hades, it’s a place where vague serpent-like beings slither and roll across the dark stage, and across each other.

Poor Orpheus is not simply unhappy, he’s alone on the floor, surrounded by funereal roses.  The dead folks stand together on the side, heads shaven, and hardly move while they sing.

They use the stage stairway; they use a couple of front boxes, they use not a scrap of lumber nor a single chair nor any infernal rotating stage gear.  It’s even more sparse than New York’s incredible 2007 Onegin, and it’s absolutely beautiful.