Warren Ertle The Development of American Opera in the Twentieth andTwenty-first Centuries
When most people imagine an opera, they likely think of large-scale works with full orchestra, chorus, an enormous set, and elaborate costumes. This was an accurate description of the genre for about two-hundred years and is still a reality for large houses such as the Metropolitan Opera or the War Memorial in San Francisco. Companies such as these often present full-scale productions of works by favorite canonical opera composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi, and Richard Wagner. In addition to historic works, these companies produce twentieth- century and contemporary operas on occasion, though it is more common to see such works performed in the academia or venues that more enthusiastically champion “new music,” such as New York City Opera and Houston Grand Opera. Since the turn of the twentieth-century, works for the American stage have seen a variety of developments. Opera became a somewhat less desired form of entertainment due to the growing popularity of the Vaudeville Circuit and Broadway musicals. This is perhaps still the case, if one were to poll a group of “theatre-goers” to find out their preference. Although some may hold the sentiment that opera, even contemporary, has become irrelevant and antiquated, the opposite is true. American opera has endured its own developments over the past century in terms of scope, musical composition, and staging. Though one clear definition of “contemporary opera” may not exist, there are certainly characteristics and evolutions over time that can assist in identifying the style. It could require an entire book to thoroughly dissect what has changed in opera over the past century, taking each decade into account and analyzing works by various composers to support these changes. For the purpose of this short essay, we will concentrate on the past seventy years and focus on a composer who was writing operas in the 1950s, Samuel Barber, and a composer who is working today, Mark Adamo. By examining these two composers, we will be able to follow a few of the genre’s developments and gain a better knowledge of contemporary American opera.
The first basic development to consider is scope. As opera progressed into the twentieth-century, the aforementioned traditional form became less of an expectation. Although one-act operas had been written before this time, they became a lot more common. The idea of shorter shows would continue to progress and result in operas such as Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge (1959), which takes a mere nine minutes to perform. Full lengthoperas have not disappeared, and composers continue to write “traditional length” operas. In 1998, Mark Adamo composed Little Women, a two-hour opera based on Louisa May Alcott’s novel. He also composed a ten-minute chamber opera in 1999 titled Avow. The development between the 1950s and 2000s has shown that opera hasbecome more versatile as a musical form. Composers are welcome to write almost any type, or length of story forstage, and it can be considered an opera. This would not have been the case in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies because opera was a fairly specific genre, often written for a very specific audience.
It is probably obvious that musical styles have changed drastically over the past few centuries. In America specifically, we have seen a variety of musical styles, whether one is considering popular or classical styles. With that being considered, the focus can shift to how music in operas has developed from Barber’s time (1950s) to Adamo’s (1990s-present). Barber is often remembered for his neo-romantic style in pieces such as his famous Adagio for Strings. This style of orchestration is present in his operas, but he had other influences as well. Briefly examining A Hand of Bridge, the “card theme” that keeps returning throughout the short show is influenced by the jazz music of the time. By the mid-1950s, America was beginning to move away from the big bands and into the be-bop music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and John Coltrane. It became more common to see a small trio or quartet of jazz musicians, as featured in A Hand of Bridge, rather than a full orchestra. This “card theme” is also “atonal” in construction due to Barber’s use of pitch-class sets rather than more traditionalharmonic or melodic techniques. This method of composition began earlier in the twentieth- century withcomposers like Alban Berg (1885-1935), and some composers still employ it today as a means of finding harmonies and melodies they might not otherwise have imagined.
American opera gained a new influence in the 1970s-1980s from a new genre of composers referred to as “minimalists.” Minimalism is an inherently American style whose core is musical patterns that repeat throughout anentire piece with occasional, but consistent, small changes leading to gradual development over time. Perhaps the best-known operas using this technique are Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach (1975) and John Adams’s Nixon in China (1987). There is no “straight-forward” answer to what the musical style of contemporary opera is. Perhaps the “best” answer is yes, all of the styles mentioned in this section.
Various influences tend to build upon and add to one another, creating a new style, or at least a new way of presenting and calling upon older styles. Some of this can be heard in the
operas of Mark Adamo. In “Have Peace, Jo” from Little Women, the orchestral accompaniment in the first half of the aria has a “neo-romantic” character even though the harmonies have extensions that would not have necessarily been used in earlier decades. The vocal melody also agrees with the harmonies that the orchestra presents. For the first half of the aria, the strings play an unwavering, undulating pattern that is not unlike what is heard in the music of Philip Glass (“Facades” from the Glassworks album comes to mind). Halfway into the aria, Jointerrupts with a recitative and the harmonies shift to much more dissonant “clusters.” I am unsure if Adamo employed post tonal techniques such as pitch-class sets to achieve these “clusters,” but they certainly resemble that type of sonority. Musical techniques used in this one aria can trace a line in American music all the way back to Barber. Many other contemporary composers call upon the same techniques today.
The final way in which this essay explores opera’s development is staging. Although large opera houses with substantial budgets often have elaborate set designs and esteemed directors for presenting large-scale works, this is not always the case anymore. Many composers and design teams have opted for a simpler approach when writing their operas. Once again, this was even the case with some of Barber and Menotti’s works. A Hand of Bridge only calls for four cast members, a card table, and cards. Menotti’s The Telephone (1947) works similarly with only two people in the cast and typically staged minimally, with a sofa and a telephone. If desired, one could put on a production of either show in their home with a pianist. Presenting Mozart’s Don Giovanni in a similar setting would be a much more difficult task, unless one owns the Biltmore Mansion. As with the previous topics, there is no single codified approach to staging as there typically was in Mozart, Verdi, or Wagner’s time.There are works such as Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra, or Adamo’s Little Women which are done with a large cast and elaborate staging choices. There are also shorter operas like A Hand of Bridge and Avow which are done on a much smaller scale in every way. The point remains that as American opera has continued to develop over the past century, composers no longer feel “chained” to the “grand spectacle opera” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is perhaps a positive thing since it makes opera more accessible to a much wider variety of companies, budgets, and audiences.
Opera in America has seen many developments over the past century, and substantial ones since the 1950s. One thing remains the same: opera is a way to connect with an audience and tell a story through music and drama. Although some may still conceive of it as “stuffy,” it has certainly become growingly less strict since its beginning. Now shows can be presented on a large scale or in a small chamber setting, and can include a variety of musical styles. Whether a listener prefers a long, slow developing story, or a “short and sweet” lesson, there is an opera out there that can oblige. Whichever show one decides to experience, if they listen closely, these developments can be recognized.
Bio: Warren Ertle is a composer, arranger, jazz pianist, and bandleader. He collects and archives original jazz orchestra scores from the 1920s-30s, and strives to perform them in the historically informed style with his orchestras: GreenLight Jazz Orchestra, which he founded in Boston, and Warren Ertle’s Angry Diamond Orchestra which has ensembles based in Jackson, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, Alabama. He also arranges and composes new works that are influenced by the early jazz style. Ertle has composed works for symphony orchestra, voice, solo instruments, andvarious chamber ensembles. Past commissions include The Forty-First Army Band, Delta State University Wind Ensemble, Hinds Community College Wind Ensemble, South African tenor, Thulani Mnisi, and the Mississippi Percussive Arts Society. Ertle is currently pursuing a D.M.A. in Composition at The University of Alabama and holds degrees in composition from The Boston Conservatory (M.M.) and Mississippi College (B.M.). He also serves as thepianist and staff arranger for the Forty-First Army Band in Jackson, Mississippi.