Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Opera Buffa / The Opera Wars: - La Serva Padrona 1733
Opera Buffa / The Opera Wars: - La Serva Padrona 1733
N. Piccinni C.W.Gluck
Fair Game;
- Opera buffa
- Intermezzo
- La Serva Padrona 1733
- Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 1710-1736
- War of the Buffoons (Guerre des Bouffons) 1752
- jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778
- Le devin du village 1752
- Quarrel of the Gluckists and Piccinists 1770
- Niccolo Piccinni 1728-1800
Opera Buffa
- Predecessor : The Beggar’s Opera (J. Gay, 1728, England)
- Makes a caricature out of opera seria
- Characteristics:
- Simple melodies
- Libretti contain every-day people
- Duets, trios, etc. (instead of focus on solo arias)
- Very few da capo arias
- Involved bass singers
- Avoided castrati
- Lighter subject matter
The Intermezzo
- Origin of Opera Buffa
- Lighter entertainment between the acts of an opera seria
- Sung drama
- Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 1710-1736
- La serva padrona (‘the Maidservant as Mistress’)
- Performed between the acts of Il prigionier subperbo (‘the Proud
Prisoner’) 1733
La Serva Padrona
- Cast: 3 people (of whom 1 is mute)
- Serpina (soprano)
- Uberto (bass)
- Vespone (manservant, mute)
- Plot Part 1:
- Uberto is exasperated with Serpina for being ‘arrogant’ and tells Vespone
to find him a wife, so he can be rid of Serpina
- Plot Part 2:
- Serpina and Vespone trick Uberto. Vespone disguises himself as
‘Tempesta’, a man about to marry Serpina, who wants 4000 crowns
dowry. When Uberto refuses, ‘Tempesta’ Tells him to either pay the dowry
or marry Serpina himself, which he does.
- Considered a silly, funny thing, not supposed to be heavy at all
Pamphlet War
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778
- Swiss
- Le devin du village 1752
- SIMPLE MUSIC (drawn from folk songs)
- Plot: shepherd and shepherdess love each other but suspect each other.
Help comes from the village soothsayer (‘devin’), and they get married
- Pamphlet by Rousseau (1753): ‘Letter on French Music’
- …. There is neither measure nor melody in French music, because the
language is not sensitive… French singing is only continual barking,
unbearable to all unprejudiced ears; that the harmony is brutal…. I
conclude that the French have no music and can have none…”
Iphigenie en Tauride
- To bring this conflict to a head, the directors of the Grand Opera convinced Gluck
and Piccinni to write an opera on the same subject
- Gluck’s was first : may 18, 1779
- Piccini's was second January 23, 1781
- Rival parties were much more antagonistic than probably necessary….