Composer Profile - Activefolio

48 Chapter 5
would open and the opera would begin. An overture is a direct ancestor to the “main
title” music one finds preceding movies and television shows today.
The first successful opera was Orfeo, first produced in 1607 and composed by
Claudio Monteverdi. Orfeo was among the first operas to employ separate arias, recitatives,
and choruses. In doing so, Monteverdi avoided the dullness of the earlier attempts at
opera by crafting many shorter pieces of music that served the needs of the particular
scene in the opera. Orfeo was such a success that opera became a dominant musical force
in Italy within a very few years. In 1637, the first public opera house was constructed in
Venice, giving virtually anyone the opportunity to experience this new form of entertainment.
Indeed, opera was the first real “multi-media” experience for audiences. Today,
fans of all types of visual entertainment from movies to television and even some
video games owe a debt of gratitude to the developers of opera for first combining the
visual and aural arts into one integrated form.
The use of overtures, arias, recitatives, and choruses in operas continued for over
two hundred years with relatively little change, until the works of Wagner in the late
nineteenth century reexamined the role of music in opera. To a great extent, many
elements of early opera still exist today in Broadway musicals, except that the sung
recitatives are usually discarded in favor of spoken dialogue.
Baroque Vocal Music: Opera, Oratorio, Cantata
The use of arias, recitatives, and choruses in vocal music pervaded Baroque vocal composition.
If opera is the secular spectacle of the Baroque, its sacred counterpart is the
oratorio. An oratorio is a large-scale work for chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra, just
as an opera is. However, important differences exist between them. An oratorio is always
religious in nature, based on Christian scripture or a religious story. In addition, an
oratorio is never staged; it is performed as a concert work. In other words, there are no
costumes, sets, or dramatic action. Certainly the most famous of all oratorios is Messiah
by Handel, though Handel, Bach, and other Baroque composers wrote many others.
A cantata is also composed of arias, recitatives, and choruses, but it is a smaller
scale work. Typically, cantatas range in duration from fifteen minutes to a half an hour,
whereas the average opera or oratorio can easily last two hours or more. The text of a
cantata was often religious, though many secular cantatas exist. If a cantata uses a religious
text, it is typically called a “church” cantata. Cantatas, both sacred and secular,
were extremely popular in the Baroque. The Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti
(1660–1725) composed over 600 cantatas, mostly secular. Johann Sebastian Bach composed
about 300 cantatas, mostly sacred, of which only about 200 have been found.
Though cantatas are still composed even today, their popularity fell off rapidly after the
Baroque period. As in the case of oratorios, all cantatas are designed to be performed
without costumes or staging.
An opera or oratorio usually begins with an overture; however, a cantata may or
may not have one due to its compact dimensions. Handel was the master of opera in the
Baroque, Bach the master of the church cantata, and both were geniuses in the oratorio
form.
Opera, Oratorio, Cantata
OPERA long staged secular
ORATORIO long unstaged sacred
CANTATA short unstaged sacred or secular
All of the above forms employ arias, recitatives, and choruses