Rescue opera was a genre ofopera in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in France and Germany. Generally, rescue operas deal with the rescue of a main character from danger and end with a happy dramatic resolution in which lofty humanistic ideals triumph over base motives. Operas with this kind of subject matter became popular inFrance around the time of theFrench Revolution; a number of such operas dealt with the rescue of apolitical prisoner. Stylistically and thematically, rescue opera was an outgrowth of the French bourgeoisopéra comique; musically, it began a new tradition that would influence German Romantic opera and Frenchgrand opera. The most famous rescue opera isLudwig van Beethoven'sFidelio.
"Rescue opera" was not a contemporary term.[1]Dyneley Hussey used the term in English in 1927 as a translation of Karl M. Klob's 1913 reference toFidelio as "das sogenannte Rettungs- oder Befreiungsstück" inDie Oper von Gluck bis Wagner. David Charlton believes that rescue opera is not an authentic genre, and that the concept was coined to make what he believes is a nonexistent connection between Beethoven's work and French opera.[2] Patrick J. Smith, on the other hand, observes: "The 'rescue opera'...antedated the Revolution, but 'rescue opera' as a genre was a product of it."[3]
In French, this genre is referred to as thepièce à sauvetage oropéra à sauvetage,[4] while in German it is calledRettungsoper,Befreiungsoper (liberation opera), orSchreckensoper (terror opera).[5]
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Earlyopéras comiques with rescue themes includePierre-Alexandre Monsigny'sLe roi et le fermier (1762) andLe déserteur (1769), andAndré Grétry'sRichard Coeur-de-lion (1784). These are sometimes called early rescue operas, or conversely predecessors of the rescue opera.
Henri Montan Berton'sLes rigueurs du cloître (1790) has been described as the first rescue opera;[3][6]Luigi Cherubini'sLodoïska (1791) has also been named a founding work of the genre.[4][7] Other examples from the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the period when rescue opera flourished, areNicolas Dalayrac'sCamille ou Le souterrain (1791),Jean-François Le Sueur'sLa caverne (1793), and Cherubini'sLes deux journées (1800).
While the rescue opera was primarily a French genre, the two best-known operas in the genre are not French.Ludwig van Beethoven'sFidelio is by far the most famous example today, and was also influenced by the GermanSingspiel. A work which is similar toFidelio isRossini'sTorvaldo e Dorliska of 1815.
Bedřich Smetana'sDalibor (1868), which contains no spoken dialogue and which bears marks ofWagnerian influence, has nonetheless been called a rescue opera, in part because of its political themes.
Mikhail Glinka and his first operaA Life for the Tsar, premiered in 1836, used the French operatic form as inspiration for its formal structure.[8]
Rescue opera was primarily a product of theFrench Revolution. The social changes of the period meant that opera must now appeal to the masses, and post-aristocratic, patriotic, idealistic themes—such as resistance to oppression, secularism, the political power of individuals and of people working together, and fundamental changes to the status quo—were popular.[4][9][10] TheTerror influenced stories of fear and imprisonment; a number of plots, including that ofFidelio and other operas based on the same libretto as well as that ofLes deux journées, were taken from real life.[10][11]
Stylistically, rescue opera was an outgrowth of theopéra comique, a bourgeois genre.[9] Likeopéras comiques, rescue operas contained spoken dialogue, popular musical idioms, and bourgeois characters.[12] Works with libretti byMichel-Jean Sedaine were particularly influential.[13] The influx of suspenseful or tragic subjects intoopéra comique caused confusion in a system where tragedy was associated with through-composed scores and comedy with dialogue, precipitating a shift of musical theatre genres that paralleled the political shift which empowered the middle-class.Carl Dahlhaus writes, "No longer did the bourgeoisie function in comic casts merely as the butt of jokes; it demanded, and received, its part in the dignity of tragedy."[14]
Some scholars describe the plots as featuring adeus ex machina like the ones present inopera seria plots, though the resolution still bore a closer resemblance to the endings of domestic comedies.[13] However, others reject this term because the rescue is carried out through the actions of heroic people, rather than gods.[10] John Bokina describes such endings, rather than as a "deus ex machina," as a "populus ex machina," in which virtuous human beings save the day.[9]
These operas were also influenced bygothic fiction andmelodrama. A number of rescue operas were adaptations of British gothic literature.[13]
Rescue operas incorporated "local color" in the orchestra for operas set in exotic European locations.[12] Folk songs and "picturesque" arias were used to indicate a setting;[11]Lodoïska, for example, set in Poland, contains what may be the firstpolonaise in opera.[15][16] However, melodies as such were avoided.[11]
Dramatic and emotional intensity, as conveyed through music, became increasingly important. Thefortissimo directionsff and evenfff were often to be found in scores, and chromatic scales, tremolos, and intervals such as thediminished seventh heightened tension onstage.[11] Jean Le Sueur, whoseLa Caverne was one of the more influential rescue operas, wrote in his score forTélémaque that arias should be sung withvoix concentrée or in a manner that wastrès-concentrè. Long instrumental passages descriptive of storms or battles were also present.[12]
In its use of local color, heightened dramatic and emotional intensity, and inclusion of descriptive instrumental music, rescue opera preceded the works of German Romantics such asCarl Maria von Weber and, through him,Richard Wagner.[12][17] Grandiosity in music and scenery, influenced by the political spectacles of the French Revolution and French Empire, influenced grand opera and the works of composers likeGiacomo Meyerbeer.[12]
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