=French Schools of Opéra=.—As already explained, French opera is
divided into two styles, known as Opéra Comique and Grand Opéra,
according to the use of dialogue or recitative. Not that this is the
only difference. The Grand Opéra is naturally adapted to subjects of
a large or heroic scope; the Opéra Comique, like the _Spieloper_ in
Germany, to lighter episodes of a romantic or humorous nature. As will
be seen, however, it not infrequently happens that the latter form is
adopted for serious subjects, owing to the fact that it is generally
easier for a composer to find acceptance at the Opéra Comique than
at the Grand Opéra. The youthful composer or the one who has not yet
acquired a name for himself is expected to win his spurs in the former
before attempting to enter the latter. Hence, even if his work is
somber or tragic in character he often finds it advisable to cast it
into the lighter form for the sake of having it produced.
=The Opéra Comique=.—The Opéra Comique had its origin in the
introduction of the Opéra Buffa in Paris by an Italian company about
the middle of the 18th century, which led to the Gluck-Piccini
controversy. Pergolesi’s _La Serva Padrona_ in particular awakened
great admiration and brought about the creation of a similar type of
French opera. It was at first hardly more than an elaboration of the
already existing vaudeville, or play with songs. =François Philidor=
(1726-1795) and =Andre Grétry= (1741-1813) were its founders. Grace
and simplicity, scrupulous adaptation of the music to the clearness
of diction always demanded by French taste were its distinguishing
characteristics.
=Its Development=.—=Étienne Méhul= (1763-1817), a pupil of Gluck,
gave it a larger musical development and a greater depth of dramatic
feeling. His _Joseph_ (1807), founded on Biblical history, is a classic
of this school. Its dignity, its severe and noble style won less
cordial recognition in France than in Germany; a generation later it
was to exercise a decisive influence on the future creator of the music
drama. It was through a performance of _Joseph_ that Richard Wagner,
then director of the opera in Riga, first felt inspired to battle
against the empty conventionalities of the operatic stage. Méhul’s
enlargement of the Opéra Comique was carried on by Cherubini, who
through the ill-will of Napoleon found the doors of the Académie de
Musique, the technical title of the Grand Opéra, closed against him.
Even his greatest tragic opera, _Medée_ (Medea), was produced (1797) as
an opéra comique without recitative and ballet, the latter being also
reserved exclusively for Grand Opéra. Thus it often happened that there
was little, in many cases no intrinsic difference between the music of
the two schools.
=The Typical Opéra Comique=.—There was, on the other hand, a
development of a type more closely corresponding to the original scheme
of the Opéra Comique. Strongly influenced by the romantic tendencies
of the day, its romanticism by no means resembles that of the German
school as represented by Weber and his followers. This, in its appeal
to the deeper emotions by the idealization of nature and recourse
to the supernatural, is thoroughly alien to the Gallic temperament,
and had no appreciable effect on French composers. Gaiety and humor,
freshness of invention, lightness of touch, elegance and finish
characterize the true Opéra Comique. Its pathos never sinks below
a certain sentiment which is skilfully used rather for the sake of
contrast than from any persistent attempt at awakening the more somber
feelings. The singer and the actor both meet with consideration; the
former by sparkling melodies, expressive and grateful to sing, not
over-burdened with the technical difficulties in which the Italian
school abounds; the latter by a drama furnishing piquant situations,
seasoned with wit and interesting in itself as a play.
=Boieldieu, its Founder=.—As Méhul gave the impulse to the graver,
more dignified style, so =François Boieldieu= (1775-1834) laid the
foundation of the typical Opéra Comique, the most original and
essentially national French operatic form. His _Jean de Paris_ (John of
Paris) and _La Dame Blanche_ (The White Lady) placed him at the head of
this school. The latter in particular, based on a curious combination
of situations taken from two of Scott’s novels, “The Monastery” and
“Guy Mannering,” has been sung the world over and still remains an
unsurpassed example of the Opéra Comique in its best estate.
=Auber=.—The most prolific composer in this style was =Daniel Auber=
(1782-1871). Though he began as an amateur and after years spent
in other pursuits, he outlived all his early contemporaries and
became its most widely known representative. With one exception,
to be noticed later, his works reveal the salient characteristics
of the school—freshness and melodic charm, finesse of rhythm and
instrumentation, delicacy and refinement rather than power and depth.
His most popular opera, _Fra Diavolo_ (1830), has been sung on all
stages and in almost all languages. Others less known but equally
meritorious are _Le Maçon_ (The Mason and the Locksmith), _Le Domino
Noir_ (The Black Domino) and _Les Diamants de la Couronne_ (The Crown
Diamonds.)
=Hérold and Adam=.—=Louis Hérold= (1791-1833), as a pupil of Méhul,
inclines to a more serious style. His _Zampa_ contains strongly
romantic features which made it more successful in Germany than the
melodious _Le Pré aux Clercs_ (The Clerks’ Meadow—a noted duelling
ground in Paris during the 17th century), though in France this vies
with _La Dame Blanche_ in the distinction of being the most popular
Opéra Comique in the repertory. Though less significant than any of the
foregoing, =Adolphe Adam= (1803-1856), the composer of _Le Postillon
de Longjumeau_ (The Postilion of Longjumeau), deserves mention for
the grace and fluency of his melodies, albeit they show a decline in
character and style which prefigures the decadent school of the _Opéra
Bouffe_ (burlesque opera).
=Opéra Bouffe=.—The attentive observer can hardly fail to perceive that
the opera as appealing to the people at large more than any other form
of music is peculiarly susceptible to social and political influences.
The Opéra Bouffe being a degenerate offshoot from the Opéra Comique,
it is no mere accident that the period of its most extended popularity
coincided with the extravagance and folly of the Second Empire. As a
distinct type it is due to =Jacques Offenbach= (1819-1880), a German
by birth, who took advantage of the taste of the time by turning his
attention to the parody of the classical and mythological subjects
which had furnished material for the early operas. Frivolous and
mocking in text, sprightly and vivacious in melody and rhythm, his
operettas possess undoubted piquancy and an effervescent style which
for a time intoxicated the public. Their vogue was happily broken by a
series of light operas of much more worth. Of these, _Les Cloches de
Corneville_, known to Americans as “The Chimes of Normandy,” by =Robert
Planquette= (1840-1903) is the best example.
=The Influence of the Opéra Comique=.—The Opéra Comique, as founded
by Boieldieu and continued by Auber and Hérold, bears a distinctively
national character to a much greater degree than the more cosmopolitan
Grand Opéra. Unlike this, its development was entirely due to native
composers who gave it the thoroughly Gallic impress of spirit,
vivacity, and truth to nature which carried it triumphantly through
all the theatres of Europe. Thus it served to counteract in part
the reactionary tendency of Italian opera. In Paris, as elsewhere,
during the first quarter of the 19th century Italian influences
were very powerful; Rossini’s works and those of his imitators
had the undesirable effect of reviving in a modernized form the
conventionalized opera of the 18th century, the chief object of which
was the display of the singer. The Opéra Comique, though limited to
the lighter phases of the drama, performed a service of no small value
in upholding a standard of legitimate musical expression at a time when
the allurements of florid song were obscuring the dramatic ideals which
Gluck had established at the cost of so much labor and effort.
=Grand Opéra=.—About the same time, important changes were impending
in Grand Opéra, though these were more in the nature of a development
from the type founded by Lully and afterward enlarged by Rameau,
Gluck and Spontini than a revolution such as Weber and his followers
had effected in Germany. They were, however, the outcome of the same
romantic influences modified by the characteristic French adherence to
established form. A grand opera according to tradition must have five
acts, consisting of arias, ensembles, choruses, etc., connected by
recitatives, with a ballet in one or two of the middle acts, generally
the second and fourth.
=Its Change of Style=.—Auber’s _La Muette de Portici_ (The Dumb Girl of
Portici—known also as Masaniello), produced at the Académie de Musique
in 1828, formed the point of departure for the new style. Though it
held to the traditional form of Grand Opéra, it was in spirit, theme
and treatment a startling change from the ordinarily genial works of
this composer, characterized as it was by a force and fire, a vigor and
decision which he had never shown before and was never to show again.
It marks the beginning of the modern historical opera, the complete
abandonment of classical and ancient history as the only appropriate
material for Grand Opéra. The people were brought upon the stage not as
slaves or as meekly acquiescing in the will of those in authority, but
as insurrectionists demanding rights of which they had been defrauded.
The story of the Neapolitan fisherman leading his comrades into
rebellion against their tyrannical rulers had a powerful effect in the
agitated state of political affairs which culminated in the revolutions
of 1830. It is significant that a performance of _La Muette de Portici_
immediately preceded the riots in Brussels, which in that year resulted
in the expulsion of the Dutch from Belgium. Rossini’s _William Tell_,
which followed in 1829, manifested precisely the same tendencies,
musically as well as dramatically. Both were destined to be cast into
the shade by the works of a third composer who gave the French grand
opera a style which practically dictated conditions on all stages for
half a century and is still not without influence.
[Illustration: GIACOMO MEYERBEER.]
=Meyerbeer=.—This composer was =Giacomo Meyerbeer= (1791-1864), German
by birth and early education, Italian by training in more mature years,
and finally French by adoption. A juvenile pianist of great promise,
he studied with Clementi; he went through a severe course of fugue and
counterpoint with Zelter, the teacher of Mendelssohn; in composition
he was a fellow-student with Weber under the famous Abbé Vogler. In
Vienna he knew Beethoven and was advised by Salieri to study in Italy,
where he wrote a number of Italian operas after the style of Rossini.
In 1826, he went to Paris, the Mecca of all opera composers, with the
design of making himself familiar with the conditions of Grand Opéra.
=His First Grand Opera=.—The result of his studies was _Robert le
Diable_ (Robert the Devil) produced in 1831. This created a veritable
sensation. Nothing of so comprehensive a style had been seen or heard
before. Meyerbeer’s cosmopolitan education, his receptive rather than
original mind, enabled him to combine the outward characteristics at
least of the three schools—French, German, Italian—as no one had ever
attempted. The story of the arch-enemy of mankind seeking to ensnare a
son by an earthly mother into sharing his lost condition, the struggle
between the powers of good and evil for the mastery of the tempted
soul gave full scope to such an amalgamation of styles. The ballet
and spectacular effects of Lully, the supernaturalism of Weber, the
roulades of Rossini were all brought together with an art that dazzled
and intoxicated an admiring public.
=His Other Grand Operas=.—Five years later _Robert_ was followed
by _Les Huguenots_ (The Huguenots), which achieved a still greater
success, and is the one opera of Meyerbeer which continues to hold
its own against the encroachments of time. In one or two episodes of
_Le Prophète_ (The Prophet), which was produced in 1849, the composer
reached the highest level of his creative activity, notwithstanding the
manifest artificiality of his scheme. His last work, _L’Africaine_ (The
African), was brought out the year after his death and like the others
owed its success to a skilful mingling of all the elements, musical,
spectacular, and dramatic, which go to make up this type of opera. His
_L’Étoile du Nord_ (Star of the North) and _Le Pardon de Ploërmel_
(better known as Dinorah) were composed for the Opéra Comique.
=Influence of Meyerbeer=.—Meyerbeer so held the public in his grip
that other composers of Grand Opéra gained but slight attention
during his lifetime. Only =Jacques Halévy= (1799-1862) was able to
meet him on equal terms in this field with _La Juive_ (The Jewess),
in which he shows the earnest spirit of his master Cherubini. Though
Meyerbeer’s watchword was success at any cost and his aim to assure
it by the accumulation of cunningly devised sensations rather than
through the innate power of his music, his works had a powerful and,
on the whole, a beneficial influence on the course of modern dramatic
music. They placed living, palpitating beings on the stage instead
of the cold abstractions of mythology and antiquity; the singer was
forced to impersonate as well as to sing. His insistence on all means
of expression—vocal, instrumental, and scenic—though often exaggerated
and fatal to purity of style, led to an extension of technical ability
in all these directions, and prepared the way for a master of greater
power and higher aims. It must not be overlooked that Richard Wagner
frankly modeled his _Rienzi_ (1842) after _Les Huguenots_, and that
Meyerbeer in _Le Prophète_ shows plainly the influence of this work by
his German contemporary.