A Book of Operas

A Book of Operas

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Title: A Book of Operas Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
Author: Henry Edward Krehbiel
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5724] [Yes, we are more than one

year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 17, 2002]
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OPERAS ***

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A BOOK OF OPERAS
THEIR HISTORIES, THEIR PLOTS, AND THEIR MUSIC
BY HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL

TO
LUGIEN WULSIN
AN OLD FRIEND
"Old friends are best."--SELDEN.
"I love everything that's old,--old friends, old times, old manners, old
books, old wine."--GOLDSMITH.
"Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors
to read!"--MELCHIOR.

CONTENTS

Chapter I
"Il Barbiere di Siviglia"
First performance of Italian opera in the United States--Production of
Rossini's opera in Rome, London, Paris, and New York--Thomas
Phillipps and his English version--Miss Leesugg and Mrs.
Holman--Emanuel Garcia and his troupe--Malibran--Early operas in
America--Colman's "Spanish Barber"--Other Figaro operas--How
Rossini came to Write "Il Barbiere" --The story of a fiasco--Garcia and
his Spanish song--"Segui, o caro" --Giorgi-Righetti--The plot of the
opera--The overture--"Ecco ridente in cielo"--"Una voce poco
fà,"--Rossini and Patti--The lesson scene and what singers have done
with it--Grisi, Alboni, Catalani, Bosio, Gassier, Patti, Sembrich, Melba,
and Viardot--An echo of Haydn.

Chapter II
"Le Nozze di Figaro"
Beaumarchais and his Figaro comedies--"Le Nozze" a sequel to "Il
Barbiere"--Mozart and Rossini--Their operas compared--Opposition to
Beaumarchais's "Marriage de Figaro"--Moral grossness of Mozart's
opera--A relic of feudalism--Humor of the horns--A merry overture
--The story of the opera--Cherubino,--"Non so più cosa son"-- Benucci
and the air "Non più andrai"--"Voi che sapete"--A marvellous
finale--The song to the zephyr--A Spanish fandango--"Deh vieni non
tardar."

Chapter III
"Die Zauberflöte"
The oldest German opera current in America--Beethoven's appreciation
of Mozart's opera--Its Teutonism--Otto Jahn's estimate--Papageno, the
German Punch--Emanuel Schikaneder--Wieland and the original of the
story of the opera--How "Die Zanberflöte" came to be written--The
story of "Lulu"--Mozart and freemasonry--The overture to the opera--
The fugue theme and a theme from a sonata by Clementi--The opera's
play--"O Isis und Osiris"--"Hellish rage" and fiorituri--The song of the
Two Men in Armor--Goethe and the libretto of "Die Zauberflöte"--
How the opera should be viewed.

Chapter IV
"Don Giovanni"
The oldest Italian operas in the American repertory--Mozart as an
influence--What great composers have said about "Don Giovanni,"--
Beethoven--Rossini--Gounod--Wagner--History of the opera--Da
Ponte's pilferings--Bertati and Gazzaniga's "Convitato di Pietra"--How
the overture to "Don Giovanni" was written--First performances of the
opera in Prague, Vienna, London, and New York--Garcia and Da Ponte
--Malibran--English versions of the opera--The Spanish tale of Don
Juan Tenorio--Dramatic versions--The tragical note in the overture
--The plot of the opera--Gounod on the beautiful in Mozart's music
--Leporello's catalogue--"Batti, batti o bel Masetto"--The three dances
in the first finale--The last scene--Mozart quotes from his
contemporaries--The original close of the opera.

Chapter V

"Fidelio"
An opera based on conjugal love--"Fidelio," "Orfeo," and "Alceste"--
Beethoven a Sincere moralist--Technical history of "Fidelio,"--The
subject treated by Paër and Gaveaux--Beethoven's commission--The
first performance a failure--A revision by the composer's friends-- The
second trial--Beethoven withdraws his opera--A second revision --The
revival of 1814--Success at last--First performances in London and
New York--The opera enriched by a ballet--Plot of "Fidelio"-- The first
duet--The canon quartet--A dramatic trio--Milder-Hauptmann and the
great scena--Florestan's air--The trumpet call--The opera's four
overtures--Their history.

Chapter VI
"Faust"
The love story in Gounod's opera--Ancient bondsmen of the devil--
Zoroaster, Democritus, Empedocles, Apollonius, Virgil, Albertus
Magnus, Merlin, Paracelsus, Theophilus of Syracuse,--The
myth-making capacity--Bismarck and the needle-gun--Printing, a black
art--Johann Fust of Mayence--The veritable Faust--Testimony of
Luther and Melanchthon--The literary history of Dr. Faustus--Goethe
and his predecessors--Faust's covenant with Mephistopheles--Dr.
Faustus and matrimony--The