La Bohème - San Francisco Opera

The Opera Orchestra
Used by permission of San Diego Opera and Elizabeth Otten
The Opera Orchestra is an integral part of the opera, and is much like a symphony
orchestra. The orchestra is made up of four instrumental families, plus a group of
miscellaneous
instruments. Within each family, one of the instruments corresponds to
each of the four main voice categories. The orchestra is led by the conductor, or maestro,
who stands in the pit in front and below the stage. The conductor is fully responsible
for the
progress of the opera. He or she must blend and balance the music at all times, keep
proper tempo and regulate the dynamics 1 . The conductor also cues each singer when they
are to begin singing. In some opera houses, video screens placed around the stage and
auditorium transmit a live picture of the conductor in the pit. This keeps the singers from
having to look down into the pit all the time.
While the orchestra may be used simply to accompany a singer or singers, it usually
enhances the drama by being an independent
and equal partner with the singers. Though
it is not visible to many of the audience members, it is an extremely important contributor to
the impact of the production.
Musical instruments have been around since prehistoric times, and there is hardly a
civilization that did not have, at
least, a drum or flute of some sort. Music has been used to
accompany
performances as long as they have existed. The first operas were usually
accompanied by whatever instruments were available and parts were not specifically
written for the orchestra. Instead, the instruments doubled the voices, that is, they played
the same melodies. The composer Monteverdi is often given the honor of having created
the beginning of the orchestra as we know it. The musicians of the time were given an
indication of chords to be played, called a figured bass, and they improvised from that. By
the time of Bach and Handel in the 18
ed
th century, there were still no prescribed parts for the
keyboard instruments. In the late 18 th century, at the time of Mozart, most orchestras us
a variety of instruments, and parts were especially written for them. Many of the
instruments in a modern orchestra started in opera orchestras .
45