Teacher's Guide Cambridge Pre-U MUSIC Available for teaching ...

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Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) was one of the most ardent Wagnerians among late nineteenthcentury
French composers. He studied privately and initially trained for the law, working in the
Interior Ministry from 1861 until 1880. His first two comic operas, L’Étoile (1877) and Une Éducation
manquée 1879) were not very successful, though their charms are more evident now than they were
at the time. Gwendoline (1885) is set in eighth-century England and has a decidedly implausible plot,
but it contains some of his most assured and developed music. Le Roi malgré lui (1886) also suffers
from an over-complicated plot, but the music is again of a very high quality.
Jules Massenet (1842–1912) entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eleven. He studied
composition with Ambroise Thomas and won the Prix de Rome in 1863. He was one of the most
prolific operatic composers of the nineteenth century: no fewer than 29 operas survive, and a further
seven were either destroyed or have been lost. His most important operas include Manon (1884), Le
Cid (1885), Werther (1892), Thaïs (1894) and Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame (1902), though only Manon
and Werther are nowadays performed with any regularity. Massenet’s style owes much to Gounod
and Saint-Saëns – lyrical and conservative, but capable of a surprising amount of dramatic force
when needed. In Werther he adopted an approach to vocal writing that lies somewhere between
melody and recitative (a technique first used, though very differently, by Wagner and developed
further in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande). In other respects, however, Massenet’s style grew
increasingly old-fashioned as the century came to an end, a fact that was underlined by the contrast
between Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, which received their first
performances within three months of each other in 1902. Even so, Massenet’s influence on younger
opera composers was strong. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire
in 1878 and his pupils included Gustave Charpentier (Louise, 1900), Reynaldo Hahn (nine operas or
operettas, 1898–1947, including Ciboulette, 1923), Alfred Bruneau (13 operas, 1886–1931) and Gabriel
Pierné (nine operas, 1883–1934, including Vendée, 1897).
(b) Italy
Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini
The traditions of eighteenth-century Italian opera were essentially continued in the works of
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835), with
an emphasis on bel canto singing and a clear distinction between recitatives and arias (with the
musical structure depending on a succession of separate ‘numbers’).
Rossini composed some 38 operas between 1810 and 1829, mainly of the opera buffa (comic opera)
type, in a fresh, witty style. Among the most famous of them are L’Italiana in Algeri (Venice, 1813),
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rome, 1816), La Cenerentola (Rome, 1817), La gazza ladra (Milan, 1817) and
Semiramide (Venice, 1823). In 1824 Rossini moved to Paris and his last two operas were written and
produced there: they were Le Comte Ory (1828) and Guillaume Tell (1829).
Donizetti was even more prolific than Rossini, composing no fewer than 64 operas between 1818
and 1843. They include works of both opera buffa and opera seria types. Among the best known
are Emilia di Liverpool (Naples, 1824) L’elisir d’amore (Milan, 1832), Lucrezia Borgia (Milan, 1833),
Maria Stuarda (Naples, 1834) and Lucia di Lammermoor (Naples, 1835). Like Rossini, Donizetti also
wrote operas for production in Paris, including La Fille du régiment (1840), La Favorite (1840) and
Don Pasquale (1843). The libretti of some of his operas were based on stories by romantic authors,
including Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Victor Hugo and Schiller.
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