2 Burkholder ⦁ Opera Party with a plot that could be read or performed. Due to their thematic material that revolved around the shepherding lifestyle, pastorales utilized scenery depicting luscious landscapes.3 In addition, madrigal comedies which consisted of groups of songs that had comedic themes and attempted to tell a dramatic story were another Italian genre that preceded opera.4 Although Donald Grout wrote in A Short History of Opera that “their chief usefulness may have been to prove that madrigals alone were not suitable for dramatic purposes,” madrigal comedies are still worth noting when discussing the history of opera.5 Finally, among these forerunners, the intermedio was the most similar to opera. These were plays that would employ instrumental music, solos, duets, or even choruses in their performances.6 The intermedio contributed to the marriage between music and drama, quite literally setting the stage for the onset of opera. The only difference between the two genres was that in the intermedio dialogue was still spoken, unlike in operas which were entirely sung.7 The opera genre was a direct result of these preceding dance and dramatic genres, and the characteristics of opera can be traced back to the practices they employed. Opera in its very nature had potential as a useful political tool because of the messages that could be communicated through drama and dialogue. Two developments that unarguably contributed to opera, and continue to do so, are the styles of recitative and arias. Besides borrowing from Greek mythology for thematic material, the opera genre also inherited the style of recitative from this culture. The Greeks established the original conventions of recitative, but it was revived by the Italians during the Renaissance. Research of the Greek method defines recitative by the following three rules. First, “the text must be clearly understood.” Second, “the words must be sung with correct and natural declamation;” and third, “[t]he melody must not depict mere graphic details in the text but must interpret the feeling of the whole passage.”8 Recitative would go on to replace the spoken dialogue of opera’s predecessors. In addition, the emergence of arias, strophic songs with free melody and simplified rhythms compared to other vocal works of the time “formed the necessary foundation for true dramatic music and thus made possible the 3 Grout, 29–30. 4 Grout, 32–33. 5 Grout, 33. 6 Grout, 24. 7 Grout, 27–29. 8 Grout, 35–36.
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