Opera buffa

Opera buffa (Italian, plural: opere buffe) is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc. It is especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy. It was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter.

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera considers La Cilla (music by Michelangelo Faggioli, text by F. A. Tullio, 1706) and Luigi and Federico Ricci's Crispino e la comare (1850) to be the first and last sightings of the genre, although the term is still occasionally applied to newer work (for example Krenek's Zeitoper Schwergewicht). Summits in this history are the 80 or so libretti by Carlindo Grolo, Loran Glodici, Sogol Cardoni and various other approximate anagrams of Carlo Goldoni, the three Mozart/Da Ponte collaborations, and the comedies of Gioachino Rossini.

Similar foreign genres such as opéra comique or Singspiel differed as well in having spoken dialogue in place of recitativo secco, although one of the most influential examples, Pergolesi's La serva padrona, sparked the Querelle des bouffons in Paris as an adaptation without sung recitatives.

History

Comic characters and situations, usually involving servants, had been a part of opera until the early 18th century, when "opera buffa" began to emerge as a separate genre. Opera buffa was a parallel development to opera seria and arose in reaction to the so-called first reform of Zeno and Metastasio.

The type of comedy could vary, and the range was great: from Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 1816 which was purely comedic, to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in 1786 which added drama and pathos. Another example of Romantic opera buffa would be Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore of 1832.

It is claimed that the last true example of the opera buffa is Luigi and Federico Ricci's Crispino e la comare in 1850.

Relation to and differences from opera seria

While opera seria deals with mythical subjects such as gods and ancient heroes and only occasionally contained comic scenes, opera buffa involves the predominant use of comic scenes, characters, and plot lines in a contemporary setting. The traditional model for opera seria had three acts, dealt with serious subjects in mythical settings as stated above and used high voices (both sopranos and castrati) for principal characters, often even for monarchs. In contrast, the model that generally held for opera buffa was having two acts (as, for example, The Barber of Seville), dealing with comic scenes and situations as earlier stated and using the lower male voices to the exclusion of the castrati. This led to the creation of the characteristic "basso buffo", a specialist in patter who was the center of most of the comic action. (A well-known basso buffo role is Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni).

References

Eisen, Cliff, et al. 'Mozart'. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Sections 7–10. . 18 Nov. 2009

Hunter, Mary. The Culture of opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna: A Poetics of Entertainment. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1999. (reviewed in: Stevens, Jane R. "Shifting Focus to Mozart's Operas." Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Fall 2001) pg. 160–162.)

Opera buffa. World Book Online Reference Center. 2008. 3 Feb. 2008

Platoff, John (1992). "How Original Was Mozart? Evidence from "Opera Buffa"." Early Music: Vol. 20 No. 1. Oxford University Press, Feb. 1992. Pg. 105–117.

Webster, James, Hunter, Mary (1997). Opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1997. (reviewed in: Baker, Nicole. "Untitled." Notes, Second Series, Vol. 56, No. 1 (September 1999) pg. 138–140.)

Weiss, Piero and Budden, Julian (1992). Opera buffa in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie, London. ISBN 0-333-73432-7

Donald Grout. A Short History of Opera. New York, Columbia University Press, 1965.

Roger Parker The Oxford illustrated history of opera

Piero Weiss and Julian Budden. "Opera buffa." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 4 Dec. 2009 .

Fisher, Burton D. The Barber of Seville (Opera Classics Library Series). Grand Rapids: Opera Journeys, 2005.

Category:Opera genres Category:Opera terminology * Category:Italian loanwords