Harmonium

[mere_bagatelle]

So, tonight I went to hear John Adams talk (thanks, Micaela!) and

Comments

[scioltamente]

Micaela will be in a waaaaay better position than I to answer that question, since my opera exposure is limited. The stutters of Nixon's "News" aria ("News! News! News news news news news news news news news news has a, has a, has a, has a kind of mystery, has a, has a, has a kind of mystery!") are pretty much specific to Adams and his idiom. Classical-period opera (Mozart and such) frequently had characters repeating whole lines or verses verbatim to round out the musical form, but they generally didn't employ that sort of stuttering gesture from "Nixon." Romantic opera made such repetition less common, and of course, Wagner generally eschewed it entirely. I think of most post-Wagner opera as lacking that willingness to repeat the text at the expense of verisimilitude. So, no, the stuttering is not true among all opera. (You can hear this in 20th-century English opera if you think of Britten, as in "Turn of the Screw" or "Midsummer

[mere_bagatelle]

Thanks; that makes a lot of sense. I should have thought of TotS as I was writing this post. In fact, I did shortly thereafter; I woke up with "Malo, malo" in my head around 4 A.M. (not the same sort of repetition at all).

The only thing I've heard, actually, that sounds like it is "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread." Isn't that a loaf of bread? Think it is, think it is.

[elenlin]

Should have been John Adams buys a loaf of bread.

[mere_bagatelle]

Indeed! Though "Adams" does not have quite the same range of possibilities as "Glass" insofar as minimal-word pieces go...

[elenlin]

What he said

[loggionista]

I mostly agree with B. I would extend the "age of repetition" to include all pre-Wagnerian 19th-century opera. If there's anything resembling a chorus or a cabaletta, there's going to be a lot of repeated phrases. Even Wagner does it a lot in his earlier works

[mere_bagatelle]

Thanks. That is cool about language specificity. I am excited that we are going to see Dr. Atomic! You will have to tell me about Salome, too.

[scioltamente]

Good point on the verisimilitude. I guess "dramatic unity" is more what I was going for -- amplifying the importance of the text so that such repetitions don't make sense anymore. I suppose Wagner felt the same way about repetitions as he felt about numbers in operas? That is a conjecture.

Sondheim has things to say about English as a lyric language. Not enough open vowels compared to, say, Italian, but great for rhythmic declamation and patter. Basically.