Assignment 23: The Perfect Playlist--Amir Abou-Jaoude

Opera is an art form which has enjoyed great longevity--it has been around for about four hundred years. Although opera composers have always sought to tell a story through song, the way they have done that has changed over the years. In a sense, the history of opera reflects the history of the world in that it is a window into what people thinking when an opera was first created.

Whenever you feel that you want to brush up on your opera knowledge, I have created a playlist that traces the history of the art form through five key arias and melodies.

1. "Che faro senza Euridice"--Christoph Willibald Gluck, 1762

Opera has existed since the 1600s. In its earliest days, opera was an intimate art form, and singers would tell incoherent stories for a small audience of upper-class men and women. Gluck fundamentally changed the art form with his opera Orfeo ed Euridice, based on an ancient Greek myth. Opera would no longer be just a series of arias strung together randomly. Instead, arias and melodies would fit within the larger context of a story. Short pieces of music would string big show pieces together. This famous aria from Gluck's landmark opera represents the emotional high point of the work. The song is made all the more emotional by the fact that Gluck has used the story to build up to it throughout the opera.

2. Prelude from Le nozze di Figaro--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1786

Mozart adopted Gluck's ideas of opera, and in this popular work, he tells the story of a young barber and his pretty wife working for a womanizing count. Mozart's romantic comedy got him into trouble with Europe's royalty. It seemed that he was making fun of them on stage. However, Mozart's prelude is revolutionary. Before Mozart's time, composers would write random melodies that had nothing to do with the opera as preludes. They assumed the audience would like to hear a little music as they chatted amongst themselves. However, in this prelude, Mozart introduces us to the musical themes of the opera and prepares us for what we are about to hear in the opera. What Mozart did was apply Gluck's philosophy to a small, "insignificant," part of the opera. His music marks a further step away from just a series of arias. Mozart is moving towards telling a story with music.

3. Prelude from Tristan und Isolde--Richard Wagner, 1859

Wagner took Gluck and Mozart's innovations one step forward. Like Mozart, he introduces all the themes of his opera in this prelude. However, Wagner also introduces the "leitmotifs" that will tell the story of the opera in the piece of music. Wagner attached "leitmotifs"--little themes or pieces of music--to characters and ideas in his operas. In Tristan und Isolde, Wagner created individual themes for the two lovers. Other themes symbolize their passionate love and their melancholy deaths. Wagner wanted to be able to completely tell a story through music, and he sets up his leitmotif approach in this prelude. Furthermore, the prelude opens with a large chord of dissonance--a step away from the melodious nature of Gluck and Mozart's music.

4. "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Salome--Richard Strauss, 1905

Strauss--perhaps best known for his Also sprach Zarathustra music--was a disciple of Wagner, and he too was interested in integrating the music of an opera with the opera's plot. However, Strauss's major innovation in Salome concerns the types of stories that could be told in opera. Strauss chose to adapt Oscar Wilde's version of Salome to the opera stage. Wilde's play was erotic and grotesque. During this piece, played towards the end of the opera, Salome  dances before her father, King Herod, in order to receive the head of John the Baptist. The eroticism present in the music and the story of the opera proved too much for some--the opera was banned on stages throughout the globe.

5. "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung" from Nixon in China--John Adams, 1987

Opera became involved in a kind of crisis as the 20th-century wore on. As opera houses shifted to reviving works from Gluck, Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss, there was little room for new composers to find their operatic voice. In 1987, John Adams wrote this work, based on Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, for the Houston Grand Opera. This aria features a singing Jiang Qing, and the monumental story of the opening of relations with China is depicted through music. Gluck, Mozart, and Wagner discovered how a story could be told through music, and Richard Strauss pushed the limits of what could be told in an opera. John Adam's work proves that even recent historical events can be interpreted through this age-old art form.

Hopefully, this playlist will provide you with an insight into the world of opera.