High Notes of the Victorian Era

By McB Smith

2006

McB Smith is the marketing and public relations director for the Des Moines Metro Opera. A fine arts graduate of Colorado College, she presented a program on Victorian opera at the April Tea at Terrace Hill. The following is an excerpt of her remarks.

The Victorian era, known in music circles as the Late Romantic period, is for many their favorite period in music. The music is defined by intense energy and passion, though the term “romantic” doesn’t refer to romance in the way we think of it today. During that time, the rigid forms of the Classical period gave way to greater expression. Music moved closer to art, literature and theatre. Nationalistic sentiment and the human struggle became dominant themes of the age.

Grand Opera was perhaps the greatest legacy of the Late Romantic period. While there was a world of difference between the deep, psychological subtexts of Wagner’s epic operas, Verdi’s dramas of human passion, and Puccini’s realistic portrayals of everyday life, there was one element common to nearly all Grand Opera: a dramatic unfolding of events, usually ending in tragedy.

The Victorian era saw the Industrial Revolution, the urbanization of America, rebellions in Europe, the American Civil War, the Gold Rush, an enormous influx of immigrants into the United States, and the introduction of world-changing inventions, including the electric light, the phonograph and the telephone. In short, it was a time of great upheaval. The same is true of opera because, like all things, opera is a product of its time.

During the 19th century, opera began to turn in a new direction to appeal to the new middle class. Instead of subjects drawn from ancient history and classical mythology, many composers and librettists found inspiration in the literature of Shakespeare, Goethe and Victor Hugo. Grand Operas were often involved with national, revolutionary and political history.

Arguably the most popular opera of the times—indeed, it was Queen Victorias favorite—was Gounod’s Faust, a Victorian morality tale with the devil representing sexuality and aggression. Some of the best-known and best-loved operas were created during this period. Italy had an explosion of native composers, including Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, all of whom had a penchant for dramatic and comedic operas. Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is perhaps the best example of Italian comic opera of the period with witty dialogue, unforgettable characters and beautifully crafted music.

The most famous of all the Italian opera composers during this era, however, was Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi viewed opera as human drama to be conveyed through the use of simple, direct, vocal solo melody. He wrote long, continuous scenes, rather than a string of individual songs that allowed for applause between each; he believed such breaks disrupted the continuity of the opera. By pressing the story forward with the music, he bound the music to the dramatic action. With one exception, Verdi’s operas dealt with serious subject matter drawn from sources ranging from Shakespeare to Victor Hugo.

The marriage between music and literature was one of the distinguishing marks of 19th century opera. Like Verdi in Italy, German composer Richard Wagner used this to maximum advantage. Wagner not only created a new genre of operatic theater, but his influence was so profound, it is still being felt today. He believed that the function of music was to serve the ends of dramatic expression, and his operatic scores vividly outlined what was happening on stage. Wagner created a musical theme associated with a particular person, thing or idea in the drama. This idea is used today, often in movie scores.

Wagner also insisted on much of the concert protocol we have today. He placed an utter ban on any noise from the audience, and he was the first mainstream theatrical producer to turn off the lights in the auditorium. He was the first to place the orchestra under the stage, and thus the orchestra pit was born.

The theme of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance is based on Victorian values that emphasize duty, unselfishness and honesty. Many Victorians found that the choice between “worldly interest” and “sense of duty” was the central dilemma of life. Crucial to an understanding of the metamorphosis from opera to musical theatre via comic opera is the Gilbert notion, following Wagner and Verdi before him, that the words—and thus the drama—came first. It was Sullivan’s great talent to write inspiring music that supported the words clearly. Rhythms matched the sentences, vowels and consonants fell in the correct place, involving the audience and making Gilbert-and-Sullivan songs extremely popular and their comic operas everlasting.

In the 1850s, P.T. Barnum coaxed “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind to the United States for her American debut for the astronomical sum of $187,000. His publicity campaign highlighted her virtuous Christian character and the prestige of opera singing. There were reports of huge, enthusiastic crowds and a scarcity of tickets, despite the opening-day ticket cost of $225.

Lind had taken Europe by storm, and even Queen Victoria was impressed with her. “The great event of the evening,” Queen Victoria wrote in her diary on April 22, 1846, “was Jenny Linds appearance and her complete triumph. She has a most exquisite, powerful, and really quite peculiar voice, so round, soft, and flexible.” Opera was not just the province of the elite any longer. Opera singers had become celebrities.

Operas and operettas, particularly those by Gilbert and Sullivan, were touring the United States. Lillian Russell and others had begun to rise to operatic stardom. Burlesque, still a new form of entertainment, had up to this time been a parody of popular operettas and stage productions. Shapely women showed as much leg as the law would allow, and witty humor was the mainstay. As burlesque developed further, it led to vaudeville, a forerunner of todays Broadway shows.

The experimentation with form and popularization of music seen during the Romantic period made it not only acceptable to play around with the rules of music, but also made it “normal” to do so. This meant that, more than ever before, composers experimented and discovered what was possible and what wasn’t. Many of the current ideas and philosophies about music come from this era—as does a great deal of today’s favorite music.

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