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Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century
opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied (sometimes specifically used in its French language equivalent grand opéra, ) to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850; 'grand opéra' has sometimes been used to denote the Paris Opéra itself. The term 'grand opera' is also used in a broader application in respect of contemporary or later works of similar monumental proportions from France, Germany, Italy, and other countries. It may also be used colloquially in an imprecise sense to refer to 'serious opera without spoken dialogue'.


Origins

Paris at the turn of the 19th century drew in many composers, both French and foreign, and especially those of opera. Several Italians working during this period including
Luigi Cherubini Luigi Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the gre ...
demonstrated that the use of recitative was suited for the powerful dramas that were being written. Others, such as Gaspare Spontini, wrote works to glorify
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
. These operas were composed on a suitably grand scale for the Emperor. Other factors which led to Parisian supremacy at operatic spectacle was the ability of the large Paris Opéra to stage sizeable works and recruit leading stage-painters, designers and technicians, and the long tradition of French
ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...
and stagecraft. The first theatre performance ever lit by gas, for example, was ''Aladin ou La lampe merveilleuse'' at the Opéra in 1823; and the theatre had on its staff the innovative designers Duponchel, Cicéri and Daguerre. Several operas by Gaspare Spontini,
Luigi Cherubini Luigi Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the gre ...
, and
Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards ...
can be regarded as precursors to French grand opera. These include Spontini's '' La vestale'' (1807) and ''
Fernand Cortez ''Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique '' (''Hernán Cortés, or The Conquest of Mexico'') is an opera in three acts by Gaspare Spontini with a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy and Joseph-Alphonse Esménard. It was first performed on 28 N ...
'' (1809, revised 1817), Cherubini's ''
Les Abencérages (English: ''The Abencerrages, or The standard of Granada'') is an opera in three acts by Luigi Cherubini with a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy, based on the novel ''Gonzalve de Cordoue'' by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. It was first performe ...
'' (1813), and Rossini's '' Le siège de Corinthe'' (1827) and '' Moïse et Pharaon'' (1828). All of these have some of the characteristics of size and spectacle that are normally associated with French grand opera. Another important forerunner was '' Il crociato in Egitto'' by Meyerbeer, who eventually became the acknowledged king of the grand opera genre. In ''Il crociato'', which was produced by Rossini in Paris in 1825 after success in
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
,
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
and London, Meyerbeer succeeded in blending Italian singing-style with an orchestral style derived from his German training, introducing a far wider range of musical theatre effects than traditional Italian opera. Moreover, ''Il crociato'' with its exotic historical setting, onstage bands, spectacular costumes and themes of culture clash, exhibited many of the features on which the popularity of grand opera would be based. What became the essential features of 'grand opéra' were foreseen by Étienne de Jouy, the librettist of '' Guillaume Tell'', in an essay of 1826:
Division into five acts seems to me the most suitable for any opera that would reunite the elements of the genre: ..where the dramatic focus was combined with the marvellous: where the nature and majesty of the subject ..demanded the addition of attractive festivities and splendid civil and religious ceremonies to the natural flow of the action, and consequently needed frequent scene changes.


France


The first grand operas (1828–1829)

The first opera of the grand opera canon is, by common consent, '' La muette de Portici'' (1828) by Daniel François Auber. This tale of revolution set in
Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...
in 1647 (and ending with an eruption of Mount Vesuvius into which the heroine precipitates herself), embodied the musical and scenic sensationalism which were to be grand opera's hallmark. The libretto for ''La muette'' was by Eugène Scribe, a dominant force in French theatre of the time who specialized in melodramatic versions (often involving extremes of coincidence) of historical topics which were well-tailored for the public taste of the time. This was his first libretto for the Opéra; he was to write or be associated with many of the libretti of the most successful grand operas which followed. ''La muette''s reputation was enhanced by its being the touchpaper for a genuine revolution when it was produced in
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
in 1830. In 1829 this was followed by Rossini's swan-song '' Guillaume Tell''. The resourceful Rossini, having largely created a style of Italian opera to which European theatre had been in thrall, recognized the potential of new technology, larger theatres and orchestras and modern instrumentation and proved in this work that he could rise to meet them in this undoubted grand opera. But his comfortable financial position, and the change in political climate after the
July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after French Revolution, the first in 1789. It led to ...
, persuaded him to quit the field, and this was his last public composition.


The golden age of grand opera: 1830–1850

After the Revolution, the new regime determined to privatize the previously state-run Opéra and the winner of the contract was a businessman who acknowledged that he knew nothing of music,
Louis-Désiré Véron Louis-Désiré Véron (1798 in Paris – September 27, 1867 in Paris) was a French opera manager and publisher. Biography Véron originally made his fortune from patent medicines. In 1829 he founded the literary magazine ''Revue de Paris'', a ...
. However he soon showed himself extremely shrewd at discerning public taste by investing heavily in the grand opera formula. His first new production was a work long contracted from Meyerbeer, whose premiere had been delayed by the Revolution. This was fortunate for both Véron and Meyerbeer. As Berlioz commented, Meyerbeer had "not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky." Meyerbeer's new opera '' Robert le diable'' chimed well with the liberal sentiments of 1830s France. Moreover, its potent mixture of melodrama, spectacle, titillation (including a ballet of the ghosts of debauched nuns), and dramatic arias and choruses went down extremely well with the new leaders of taste, the affluent bourgeoisie. The success of ''Robert'' was as spectacular as its production. Over the next few years, Véron brought on Auber's '' Gustave III'' (1833, libretto by Scribe, later adapted for Verdi's '' Un ballo in maschera)'', and Fromental Halévy's '' La Juive'' (1835, libretto also by Scribe), and commissioned Meyerbeer's next opera '' Les Huguenots'' (1836, libretto by Scribe and Deschamps), whose success was to prove the most enduring of all grand operas during the 19th century. Having made a fortune in his stewardship of the Opéra, Véron cannily handed on his concession to
Henri Duponchel Henri Duponchel (28 July 1794 – 8 April 1868) was in turn a French architect, interior designer, costume designer, stage designer, stage director, managing director of the Paris Opera, and a silversmith. He has often been confused with Cha ...
, who continued his winning formula, if not to such financial reward. Between 1838 and 1850, the Paris Opéra staged numerous grand operas of which the most notable were Halévy's ''
La reine de Chypre ''La reine de Chypre'' (''The Queen of Cyprus'') is an 1841 grand opera in five acts composed by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. Performance history ''La reine de Chypre'', first performed at the Salle Le ...
'' (1841) and '' Charles VI'' (1843), Donizetti's '' La favorite'' and '' Les martyrs'' (1840) and '' Dom Sébastien'' (1843, librettos by Scribe), and Meyerbeer's '' Le prophète'' (1849) (Scribe again). 1847 saw the premiere of
Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
's first opera for Paris, '' Jérusalem'', an adaptation, meeting the grand opera conventions, of his earlier ''
I Lombardi alla prima crociata ''I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata'' (''The Lombards on the First Crusade'') is an operatic ''dramma lirico'' in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, which was "very much a ...
''. For production statistics of grand opera in Paris, see List of performances of French grand operas at the Paris Opéra.


Ballet in grand opera

A notable feature of grand opera as it developed in Paris through the 1830s was the presence of a lavish ballet, to appear at or near the beginning of its second act. This was required, not for aesthetic reasons, but to satisfy the demands of the Opera's wealthy and aristocratic patrons, many of whom were more interested in the dancers themselves than in the opera, and did not want their regular meal-times disturbed. The ballet therefore became an important element in the social prestige of the Opéra. Composers who did not comply with this tradition might suffer as a consequence, as did
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
with his attempt to stage a revised '' Tannhäuser'' as a grand opera in Paris in 1861, which had to be withdrawn after three performances, partly because the ballet was in act 1 (when the dancers' admirers were still at dinner).


Grand operas of the 1850s and 1860s

The most significant development—indeed transformation—of grand opera after the 1850s was its handling by
Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
, whose '' Les vêpres siciliennes'' (1855), proved to be more widely given in Italy and other Italian language opera houses than in France. The taste for luxury and extravagance at the French theatre declined after the 1848 revolution, and new productions on the previous scale were not so commercially viable. The popular '' Faust'' (1859) by Charles Gounod started life as an opéra comique and did not become a ''grand opera'' until rewritten in the 1860s. '' Les Troyens'' by Hector Berlioz (composed 1856–1858, later revised), was not given a full performance until nearly a century after Berlioz had died—although portions had been staged before—but the spirit of this work is far removed from the bourgeois taste of the grand opera of the 1830s and 1840s. By the 1860s, taste for the grand style was returning. '' La reine de Saba'' by Charles Gounod was rarely given in its entirety, although the big tenor aria, "Inspirez-moi, race divine", was a popular feature of tenor recitals. Meyerbeer died on 2 May 1864; his late opera, '' L'Africaine'', was premiered posthumously in 1865.
Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
returned to Paris for what many see as the greatest French grand opera, ''
Don Carlos ''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Fried ...
'' (1867). Ambroise Thomas contributed his ''
Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' in 1868, and finally, at the end of the decade, the revised '' Faust'' was premiered at the Opéra in its grand opera format.


Late French grand operas

During the 1870s and 1880s, a new generation of French composers continued to produce large-scale works in the tradition of grand opera but often broke its melodramatic boundaries. The influence of Wagner's operas began to be felt, and it is a moot point whether these works can be simply called grand opera.
Jules Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and '' Werther ...
had at least two large scale historical works to his credit, ''
Le roi de Lahore ''Le roi de Lahore'' ("The king of Lahore") is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 27 April 1877 in costumes designed by Eugène Lacoste and setti ...
'' (Paris, 1877, assessed by ''Grove'' as "the last grand opera to have a great and widespread success.") and '' Le Cid'' (Paris, 1885). Other works in this category include ''
Polyeucte ''Polyeucte'' is a drama in five acts by French writer Pierre Corneille. It was finished in December 1642 and debuted in October 1643. It is based on the life of the martyr Saint Polyeuctus (Polyeucte).Charles Gounod and '' Henry VIII'' by Camille Saint-Saëns (Paris, 1883). Ernest Reyer had started to compose his ''
Sigurd Sigurd ( non, Sigurðr ) or Siegfried (Middle High German: ''Sîvrit'') is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon and was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovin ...
'' years before, but, unable to get it premiered in Paris, settled for La Monnaie in Brussels (1884). What may have been one of the last successful French grand operas was by an unfamiliar composer,
Émile Paladilhe Émile Paladilhe (3 June 1844 – 6 January 1926) was a French composer of the late romantic period. Biography Émile Paladilhe was born in Montpellier. He was a musical child prodigy, and moved from his home in the south of France to Paris to ...
: ''
Patrie! ''Patrie!'' is an 1886 French-language opera in five acts by Émile Paladilhe with a libretto by Victorien Sardou and Louis Gallet based on the play by Sardou about a 16th-century revolt of Flemish nobles in Brussels. The opera was Paladilhe's gr ...
'' (Paris, 1886). It ran up nearly 100 performances in Paris, and quite a few in Belgium, where the action takes place, but has since disappeared without a trace.


Decline of French grand opera

The expensive artifacts of grand opera (which also demanded expensive singers)—''Les Huguenots'' was known as ''the night of the seven stars'' because of its requirement of seven top-grade artistes—meant that they were economically the most vulnerable as new repertoire developed. Hence they lost pride of place at the Paris Opéra (especially when many of the original stage sets were lost in fire in the late 19th century). However, as late as 1917, the Gaîté-Lyrique devoted an entire season to the genre, including Halévy's ''
La reine de Chypre ''La reine de Chypre'' (''The Queen of Cyprus'') is an 1841 grand opera in five acts composed by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. Performance history ''La reine de Chypre'', first performed at the Salle Le ...
''.


French grand opera today

Some of these works – ''Guillaume Tell'', ''La favorite'', ''Les vêpres siciliennes'' and ''Don Carlos'', for instance, continue to have a place in the operatic repertoire. Even the pieces that are rarely staged are increasingly being resuscitated for compact disc recordings, and many are revived at opera festivals and by companies such as Palazetto Bru Zane. After virtually disappearing from the operatic repertory worldwide in the 20th century, Meyerbeer's major grand operas are once again being staged by leading European opera houses.


Grand opera outside France


Italy

French grand opera was generally well received in Italy, where it was always performed in Italian translation. Italian operas with their own ballet started to become relatively common in the late 1860s and 1870s. Some of these, such as '' Il Guarany'' by the Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes were designated as "opera ballo" (i.e. 'danced opera'). Others, such as '' La Gioconda'' by Amilcare Ponchielli were not, although they qualified for the description. They constituted an evolution of grand opera. Verdi's '' Aida'', despite having only four acts, corresponds in many ways to the grand opera formula. It has a historical setting, deals with 'culture clash' and contains several ballets as well as its extremely well known Grand March. It was a huge success, both at its world premiere in Cairo in 1871 and its Italian premiere in Milan in 1872. It led to an increase in the scale of some of the works by other composers that followed it. This was particularly noticeable in works by Gomes ('' Fosca'' in 1873, and his '' Salvator Rosa'' in 1874); Marchetti (especially ''Gustavo Wasa'' in 1875); Ponchielli: ('' I Lituani'' in 1874) and ''La Gioconda'' (Milan, 1876, revised 1880)); and Lauro Rossi (''La Contessa di Mons'', premiered in Turin in 1874). Other operas on this scale continued to be composed by Italian composers during the 1880s and even 1890s, but with less frequency; examples being Marchetti's ''Don Giovanni d'Austria'' (1880) and Ponchielli's ''Il figluol prodigo'' (also 1880).


Germany

French grand operas were regularly staged by German opera houses; an early article by
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
depicts German opera managers hurrying to Paris to try to identify the next hit. The Dresden performances of '' Le prophète'' (in German) in 1850 were the occasion for a series of articles by Wagner's disciple,
Theodor Uhlig Theodor Uhlig (15 February 1822 – 3 January 1853) was a German violin-player, composer and music critic. He was the illegitimate son of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony. Uhlig and Wagner Born in Wurzen, Saxony, and orphaned at a young age, Uhl ...
, condemning Meyerbeer's style and crudely attributing his alleged aesthetic failure to his Jewish origins, inspiring Wagner to write his anti-Jewish diatribe '' Das Judenthum in der Musik'' ("Jewishness in Music"). Meyerbeer himself was German by birth, but directed nearly all his mature efforts to success in Paris.
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's ''
Rienzi ' (''Rienzi, the last of the tribunes''; WWV 49) is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name (1835). The title is commonly shortened to ''Ri ...
'', the composer's first success (produced
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
, 1842) is totally Meyerbeerean in style. Wagner was at that time a sincere admirer of the older composer, who assisted him in arranging performances of ''Rienzi'' and '' Der fliegende Holländer'' in Dresden and Berlin. As described above, Wagner attempted in 1860/1861 to recast '' Tannhäuser'' as a grand opera, and this ''Paris version'', as later adapted for Vienna, is still frequently produced today. '' Götterdämmerung'', as noted by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
, shows clear traces of some return by Wagner to the grand opera tradition, and a case could also be argued for '' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''. Meyerbeer's only mature German opera, '' Ein Feldlager in Schlesien'' is in effect a Singspiel, although act 2 has some of the characteristics of grand opera, with a brief ballet and an elaborate march. The opera was eventually transformed by the composer to ''
L'étoile du nord ' (''The North Star'') is an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe. The work had its first performance at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 16 February 1854. Much of the material, incl ...
''. In many German-language houses, especially in Vienna, where Eduard Hanslick and later Gustav Mahler championed Meyerbeer and Halévy respectively, the operas continued to be performed well into the 20th century. The growth of anti-Semitism in Germany, especially after the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
obtained political power in 1933, spelled the end of the works of these composers on German stages until modern times when ''La Juive'', ''Les Huguenots'', ''Le prophète'' and ''L'Africaine'' have been revived.


North America

The first American grand opera, ''Leonora'', was written by the American composer William Fry for Ann Childe Seguin to take the title role in the 1840s.More Treasures from Tams
, Geri Laudati, University of Wisconsin Madison, retrieved 14 May 2015


Citations


General bibliography

* Bartlet, M. Elizabeth C.: "Grand opéra" in '' The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', 2: 512–517, ed.
Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was pub ...
, Macmillan Publishers, London, 1992 * Charlton, David: "On the nature of 'grand opera'", pp. 94–105 in ''Hector Berlioz:'' Les Troyens, ed. Ian Kemp, Cambridge University Press, 1988 * Charlton, David, editor: '' The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera'', Cambridge University Press, 2003 * Crosten, William Loren: ''French Grand Opera: an Art and a Business'', King's Crown Press, 1948. * Cruz, Gabriela: ''Grand Illusion: Phantasmagoria in Nineteenth-Century Opera'', Oxford University Press, 2020 * Gerhard, Anselm: ''The Urbanization of Opera: Music Theater in Paris in the Nineteenth Century'', University of Chicago Press, 1998 * Huebner, Steven: ''French Opera at the Fin de Siècle: Wagnerism, Nationalism, and Style'', Oxford University Press, 1999 * Pendle, Karin: ''Eugène Scribe and French Opera in the Nineteenth Century'', UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, 1979 * Soubies, Albert: ''Soixante-sept Ans a L'Opéra en une Page, 1826–1893'', Paris, 1893 * Warrack, John; West, Ewan, editors: "Grand Opera" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', Oxford University Press, 1992 * Wolff, Stéphane: ''L'Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962)'', Paris, Deposé au journal L'Entr'acte
962 Year 962 ( CMLXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * December – Arab–Byzantine wars – Sack of Aleppo: A Byzantine e ...
. Reprint: Slatkine, 1983 {{Historical fiction Opera genres Opera history Opera terminology