The Spread of Opera, Part II

            Opera’s spread outside Italy had mostly to do (at least initially) with touring companies that crossed the borders of Italian speaking lands into Switzerland and France.  Touring theatrical companies were nothing new as comedic and dramatic troupes existed long before the innovation of opera, at that time there were known as the Comici dell’arte.  The notion of opera taking on this kind of dissemination was really due to venetian theatres short season which gave time for companies to travel to other places in Italy (and beyond).  Early examples of this include Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’ Ulisse in partia, La Finta Pazza, Egisto and Giasone. The major touring troupe of this time went by the name of Febiamonici (which was probably several opera companies according to Tim Carter).  

            One major influence outside of Italy’s borders was Antonio Cesti who composed operas and cantatas in Innsbruck and Vienna. During the middle of the 1600s opera was becoming more of a solidified genre and because of this the art form could be adapted to regional taste and commercial (or political) needs.  Tim Carter writes: “This also eased the transmission of Italian opera to northern Europe. Cesti’s contribution to opera in Innsbruck and Vienna reveals the domination of Italian or Italian-trained composers north of the Alps: the only important exceptions are offered by France and England.”

            The reason France (or more specifically Paris) was an exception was because of the long-standing tradition and domination of French Ballet and other Renaissance entertainment used in the court to display the superiority of the King’s courtiers.  New theatrical endeavors were underway though, mostly through Lully and Moliere who sought to fuse aspects of stage drama, ballet and singing. The best known and most successful of this was the work Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme which was composed in 1670. Most legitimate Italian opera was met with intolerance on the part of the French viewing public for reasons associated with xenophobia.  Eventually the audience did come around with the Operas of Lully who based his pieces on classical folklore as well as Midlevel stories, these works were complete with dance and were in fact sung throughout as Lully was able to prove that the French language would adapt to Recitative.

            Like Paris, London had a tradition of theatre in its presentation of Masques (which were comedic staging that often included song).  But London was not an isolated city on a far away island, it was in fact a place with many international citizens and composers were well aware of modern Italian styles. The King Charles II himself spent a great deal of time in Paris and British theatre owes a great deal to French styles.  One of the largest breakthroughs of the century in England was in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis which Carter refers to as “a miniature opera.” Venus and Adonis was “an important precedent for Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aneas which is to this day one of the best (if not the best) known of British opera. Other more laughable attempts at opera were done by yet another retelling of the Orpheus myth which may go some distance in explaining why there was not yet another prominent composer of English opera until Handel.