BLO Guide | La Cenerentola (Cinderella) by Boston Lyric Opera

A GUIDE TO THE OPERA BOSTON LYRICOPERA

LA CENERENTOLA (CINDERELLA)

BOSTONLYRICOPERA November 6, 2023 Dear Opera Curious and Opera Lovers alike, Boston Lyric Opera is pleased to welcome you to the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre as we present Rossini’s classic fairytale La Cenerentola (Cinderella). When young Angelina, Cinderella, momentarily escapes her ungrateful stepfamily to attend a royal ball, she meets Prince Ramiro in disguise, who vows to find her after she disappears into the night. Beautiful melodies and sparkling vocals weave this timeless story that trades the fairy dust for the wisdom of the human heart. Elegant and heartfelt, this opera set in present-day Boston is one where goodness is rewarded with satisfying joy. Opera is an art form that can contain big emotions. The experience of seeing and hearing live, professional opera is one of a kind, and we encourage you to explore the world of the opera outside the theater as well. We are proud to offer this Guide to support your engagement with this opera. Please note that this Guide describes plot details. Our intent is to provide support in historical as well as contemporary context, along with tools to thoughtfully reflect on the opera before or after you attend. Boston Lyric Opera inspires, entertains, and connects communities through compelling performances, programs, and gatherings. Our vision is to create operatic moments that enrich everyday life. As we develop additional Guides, we want your feedback. Please tell us about how you use this guide and how it can best serve your learning and engagement needs by emailing education@blo.org. If you’re interested in engaging with us further and learning about additional opera education opportunities with Boston Lyric Opera, please visit blo.org/education to discover our programs and initiatives. See you at the opera! Sincerely,

Rebecca Ann S. Kirk, M.Ed. Director of Community and Learning

TABLE OF CONTENTS SYNOPSIS

CHARACTERS

THE “ITALIAN MOZART” AND HIS HAPPILY EVER AFTER

BEFORE THE GLASS SLIPPER: ORIGINS OF THE CINDERELLA STORY ONSTAGE AND OFFSTAGE

BEAUTIFUL SINGING IN AN OPERA WITH JOKES

RAGS TO RICHES: A FAIRYTALE OF SOCIAL CLASS

A BOSTON LOVE STORY

LISTEN UP!

GUIDE TO LISTENING

RESOURCES

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

NOTES TO PREPARE FOR THE OPERA

LA CENERENTOLA (CINDERELLA) STUDY GUIDE SYNOPSIS

La Cenerentola tells the story of a kindhearted young woman, Angelina, who is forced to be a servant in her own home by her callous stepfather and two self-centered stepsisters. Act I Don Magnifico’s manor.

Buildings along the waterfront in the Seaport District of Boston, Massachusetts. Photo: Beyond My Ken. Wikimedia Commons.

The stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe, are arguing, while Angelina is taking care of the household. She is treated by her stepfather, Don Magnifico, and her stepsisters as a servant rather than as a family member. While she works, she sings about a king who married a commoner. A beggar knocks at the door (he is really the philosopher Alidoro in disguise). The stepsisters dismiss him, but Angelina kindly offers him bread and coffee. Then, courtiers arrive, telling the family that Prince Ramiro is searching for the most beautiful girl in the land to take as his bride, and there will be a ball this very night for that purpose. Don Magnifico is intent on the prince’s marrying either Clorinda or Tisbe to secure his family’s failing fortune. They begin to prepare for the ball. After the room clears, Ramiro arrives, disguised in his servant’s clothes so he can observe the family’s true nature. Alidoro has told him that there is a goodhearted woman in this house worthy of marriage. He meets Angelina briefly, and the two are quickly attracted to each other, but when he asks for her name, Angelina fears she’ll get in trouble and flees. Next, Dandini arrives, dressed as the prince, and Ramiro watches as Clorinda, Tisbe, and Magnifico fall all over themselves flattering him as he invites them to the ball. Angelina asks to be invited, but her stepfather refuses. Ramiro also notices how badly Angelina is treated. Alidoro inquires about the third daughter of the household, but Magnifico lies and says that she has died, with a veiled threat to Angelina that he will kill her should she reveal herself. Later, Alidoro, who has seen her kindness, promises Angelina that he will take her to the ball. At Ramiro’s country house, Dandini (still disguised as the prince) and Ramiro (still disguised as a servant) prepare for the ball and discuss Clorinda and Tisbe. They dislike them both and are confused as to which of Don Magnifico’s daughters Alidoro claimed had a good heart. Clorinda and Tisbe arrive for the ball early. As a test, Dandini offers the disguised Ramiro as a husband to whichever sister the prince does not

Act II Ramiro’s country estate. Magnifico worries that the arrival of the beautiful stranger will ruin his daughters’ chances with the prince. However, Angelina isn’t interested in the “prince,” and tells him she has fallen in love with his servant, Ramiro. Angelina must leave, but before she does, she gives Ramiro one of a pair of bracelets and tells him that if he truly cares for her, he will find her. Magnifico insists that the “prince” choose one of his daughters before the evening is over. Dandini confesses that he is really the prince’s servant in disguise. Disgusted, Magnifico immediately leaves with his daughters in tow. At home, they order Angelina to tend to them after their dreadful evening.

Burrage Mansion was built in 1899 as a winter home on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Today it is luxury condominiums. Photo: Billy Wilson. Wikimedia Commons.

marry. Both are outraged at the idea of marrying a servant. Guests continue to arrive, and Alidoro arrives with an unknown, beautiful woman who resembles Angelina. The banquet begins, and everyone feels as if they are in a dream.

Ramiro is determined to find his beloved and calls for the carriage that very night. In a sudden summer thunderstorm, his carriage breaks down right in front of Magnifico’s manor (in fact, Alidoro has engineered this little mishap), and he must wait out the storm there. Ramiro sees a glimmer on the servant’s wrist and recognizes it as the bracelet that matches the one he was given by Angelina. They are reunited and Don Magnifico is furious! Ramiro threatens him and his daughters out of anger, but Angelina begs Ramiro to forgive them, and he acquiesces. Angelina and Ramiro celebrate their wedding at the palace. Magnifico tries to win the favor of his stepdaughter at last, but all she wishes is for him to acknowledge her as his true daughter. Angelina is truly happy with Ramiro and shares her joy with her family, forgiving them for mistreating her. Acorn Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts. Photo: Daderot. Wikimedia Commons.

CHARACTERS Angelina (mezzo-soprano) – Nicknamed Cenerentola or Cinderella; lives with her stepfather and stepsisters, who treat her as a servant. Ramino (tenor) – The prince in search of his princess. Dandini (baritone) – Ramiro’s personal valet.

Alidoro (bass) – The prince’s former tutor, a wise philosopher. Clorinda (soprano) – Don Magnifico’s elder daughter. Tisbe (mezzo-soprano) – Don Magnifico’s younger daughter.

Don Magnifico (bass) – Father of Clorinda and Tisbe, stepfather to Angelina. Has money problems.

THE “ITALIAN MOZART” AND HIS HAPPILY EVER AFTER Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), who is most famous today for his opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), was a child of musical parents: Rossini’s father was a horn player and his mother was an opera singer. He began his musical studies very young — informally, by being around his parents’ rehearsing and performing. Rossini was a precocious boy, and by the time he was ten, he was playing piano and singing solos in church; by age 12, he had composed six sonatas. He briefly went to conservatory, where he showed tremendous promise, but dropped out in order to work and support his family. It is thought that this was one of the reasons he quickly became a prolific composer. He completed his first opera at age 13 and was internationally famous by age 21. Rossini was known to write very quickly and often borrowed from his previous compositions, turning out 39 operas in 24 years. The idea for an Italian opera buffa of the Cinderella fairy tale was born of a meeting between Rossini, librettist Jacopo Ferretti, and impresario (producer) Domenico Barbaia. The meeting took place two days before Christmas of 1816 – just over a month before the opera would have its premiere. Ferretti described the scene in one of his memoirs: The duo’s previous operatic subject had been rejected by a censor, and the three met to brainstorm a new subject. Following much conversation, Ferretti halfheartedly suggested that the opera’s subject be Cinderella. To his surprise, Rossini jumped at the idea. By the end of the following Composer Gioachino Rossini 1815, two years before he wrote La Cenerentola. Wikimedia Commons. Public day, Ferretti had written a libretto loosely inspired by the Domain. libretto Charles-Guillaume Étienne wrote for the opera Cendrillon, which had premiered in Paris seven years prior. Both operas were based on Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon, from his collection of fairy tales titled Histoires ou contes du temps passé (1679). Rossini’s twentieth opera, La Cenerentola, premiered in January of 1817 at Rome’s Teatro Valle. Even though he tended to compose music quickly, in order to meet this tight deadline, Rossini borrowed the overture from one of his earlier operas, La gazza ladra, as well as an aria from Il barbiere di Siviglia. The original score also contained several pieces written by musician Luca Agolini. Following the premiere, Rossini replaced Agolini’s pieces with his own compositions, and that early version is no longer performed. Rossini and Ferretti considered La Cenerentola a dramma giocoso, literally a “drama with jokes,” as the opera follows the conventions of an opera buffa (comedic opera), but with an overarching sense of sincerity not always characteristic of comic operas. Composer Gioachino Rossini 1862. The Art Institute

of Chicago. Public Domain. The premiere received mixed reviews, with one critic going so far as to call it a fiasco due to the poor performances of the singers. In fact, there were more boos than applause on opening night. (If Rossini composed the opera in only three weeks, how quickly must the singers have had to rehearse it?!) Rossini, however, was not daunted, and even predicted the opera would become highly successful. He was correct! Within a couple of months, La Cenerentola rivaled even Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), both throughout Italy and across the western world,

premiering in Barcelona (1818), Lisbon (1819), London and Vienna (1820), and New York and Buenos Aires (1826). In 1844, La Cenerentola became the first opera to ever be performed in Australia. An international rockstar of his era, Rossini retired from opera composing at the age of 37, having achieved comfortable wealth and fame by then. He settled in Paris and continued to compose other works over the course of his life on commission or for his own amusement, but never wrote another opera. In his later years, Rossini was known to be something of a bon vivant, enjoying the luxury of fine cuisine — both cooking and eating — and maintaining an active social life. He lived to be 76 years old and is often referred to posthumously as “The Italian Mozart,” giving weight to his enormous musical legacy. Following Rossini’s death in 1868, La Cenerentola faded from the repertoire for several decades, but saw a resurgence in the 1920s. Today, it is performed widely.

THE GOURMAND

Filet Mignon atop a crouton, crowned with pan-fried foie gras and sliced truffles and finished with a Madeira demi-glace. Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

Rossini was well known as a great amateur chef and lover of rich food, or “foodie,” in his later years living in Paris. It was common for famous Parisian chefs to name new dishes after him, or for dishes he created himself to be known as “alla Rossini.” He was particularly fond of truffles (as in the very expensive culinary mushrooms) and foie gras (goose liver paté), so many of his signature dishes included these ingredients! The most famous is called Tournedos Rossini.

DISCUSS: Rossini was known to “borrow” music from his earlier works and even use others’ compositions. Do you think this is cheating or plagiarism? Why or why not? How might it relate to today’s musical artists sampling other work in their own and remixing it?

BEFORE THE GLASS SLIPPER: ORIGINS OF THE CINDERELLA STORY ONSTAGE AND OFFSTAGE The story of Cinderella has inspired writers, poets, artists, playwrights, and composers for thousands of years. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BCE and 23 CE about an enslaved Greek woman who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known version of the Cinderella story. The Chinese fairy tale Ye Xian, in which the main character loses a shoe on her way home from a royal party, is included in a collection of folk tales by Duan Chengshi from the Tang Dynasty of China. While the first European literary version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in 1634, the version most of us know appeared in Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697. Another – much darker – version was later published as “Aschenputtel” by the Brothers Grimm in 1812’s Grimms’ Fairy Tales. 1899 Opera Poster by Émile Bertrand for Jules Massenet’s opera Cendrillon. Creative Commons.

Along with the many books, plays, and movies that tell this popular story from multicultural perspectives, generations of opera composers have also created their own versions, each with its own unique charms. Even as most of the composers were using Perrault’s iconic 1697 version as inspiration, there are variations in storytelling elements that each adapted for

assigned to specific characters, the instrumentation, and the overall musical mood. The full title of Gioachino Rossini’s 1817 opera is La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant), revealing the focus of this touching work. The supernatural elements that traditionally characterize the Cinderella story – think

THE INFAMOUS SHOE Many are familiar with a version of the Cinderella story where her prince identifies his true love with one of her shoes. In different versions of the story the shoes are made from different materials including gold, silk, glass, and leather. In other versions of the story, Cinderella is identified by a bracelet or by a shawl. Sculpture of Cinderella’s golden slipper at Moritzburg Castle in Dresden, Germany. Public Domain.

their opera. Variations include an emphasis on (or deemphasis of) the supernatural and the way in which the prince is able to identify Cinderella, as well as variations in musical elements, such as the voice types

magic pumpkins and mice turned into horses – are not present in this libretto. At the time, this was done for the ease of staging and production, but the result shifts the story’s focus to the power of kindness and

The story of Cinderella told in pictures by George Cruikshank 1894. New York Public Library. Public Domain.

the resilience of the human heart. In Rossini’s take on the fairy tale, the wicked stepmother is replaced by a stepfather, and the “Fairy Godmother” is instead Alidoro, a philosopher and tutor to the prince. In this variation, Cinderella is identified not by a glass slipper, but by a bracelet. Changing shoes onstage ran the risk of showing a singer’s ankle, and this was thought to be too scandalous for opera stages at the time. Jules Massenet’s opera Cendrillon (1899) is perhaps the most romantic take on this list, blending wit and sensitivity with tender emotion and passionate love. Massenet called Cendrillon an opéra féerie – a musical fairy tale fusing song, dance, and spectacle together into a fantastical, visually striking whole. The music itself plays a crucial part in establishing a magical atmosphere. Massenet uses high woodwinds, strings, and harp to create a shimmering, ethereal sound that transforms the everyday world into something more magical. The part of Prince Charming is what is known as a “trouser role,” a theatrical term used to denote a gender-bent role, typically a male-coded character

portrayed by a non-male-identifying performer. It’s not uncommon for treble voices – typically mezzosopranos – to portray younger male characters. Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and Hansel in Hansel and Gretel are familiar examples of this tradition. Massenet’s Prince was written to be sung by a Falcon soprano – a dark, dramatic, and characteristically French soprano voice. True Falcon sopranos are very rare; and today, mezzo-sopranos typically sing the role. French dramatic mezzo-soprano, composer, and pedagogue Pauline Viardot was one of the most influential figures in French Romanticism. Viardot began composing when she was young, but it was never her intention to become a professional composer. Her compositions were written mainly as private pieces for her students to help develop their vocal technique in their lessons. Those who heard her works, however, praised their quality and originality. Even Franz Liszt declared that the world had “finally found a woman composer of genius” in Pauline Viardot. Between 1864 and 1874, she wrote three salon operas and over fifty Lieder. Her last two salon operas – Le conte de fées (1879), and Cendrillon (1904) – used her own libretti. Written for a cast of seven with piano orchestration at just over an hour long, Cendrillon premiered in Viardot’s Paris salon on April 23, 1904, when she was 83, and was published later that year. It is unclear when the opera was actually

DISCUSS: If you were telling the Cinderella story through music and theater, what kind of music would you use? Where would it be set? How would you change the story to make it your own? 9

BEFORE THE GLASS SLIPPER... CONTINUED composed. The plot remains relatively faithful to Perrault’s original fairy tale but takes a much more lighthearted approach than the other operatic adaptations. The evil stepmother is replaced with a bumbling and clueless stepfather, and the Fairy Godmother (La Fée) appears as a guest at the party and entertains the guests with a song.

lovelorn poet. Cinderella finds one of his poems and is inspired to set it to music. Her work is stolen by her stepsisters and performed in a song competition, but they mess up the words. Cinderella sings the original lyrics, but flees the competition before it’s over. The prince searches for the talented beauty who brought his poem to life through her enchanting melody. A timeless classic with iconic themes, the story of Cinderella continues to inspire composers, playwrights, artists, and storytellers of all kinds to retell this romantic fairytale, continuing its 2,000year legacy across world cultures. It still captivates readers and audiences alike with its theme: the power of love to lift someone out of a terrible situation and connect two people against all odds.

Walt Disney’s animated Cinderella, 1950. Creative Commons.

Many adaptations and retellings of the Cinderella story continued to be produced throughout the 20th century in books and major motion pictures, including Walt Disney’s iconic 1950 animated film Cinderella, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1957 movie musical Cinderella, which was later mounted for the stage. In the 21st century, another composer decided to adapt the classic tale into a contemporary opera. Contemporary British musician, composer, and child prodigy Alma Deutscher set this timeless fairytale in her second opera, Cinderella, but with a personal musical twist. It took her 6 years to complete, and it premiered in Vienna in 2016 when she was 11 years old! It is set in Transylvanian, an imaginary land, and takes place in an opera house. Cinderella’s stepmother is the impresario, and her stepsisters are mediocre singers with diva personalities. Cinderella is a talented composer whose works are dismissed, as she works as a copyist for the theater. The prince is a Cinderella silent film poster 1914. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Composer Gioachino Rossini 1862. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain.

BEAUTIFUL SINGING IN AN OPERA WITH JOKES Opera buffa is an Italian comedic opera style

inspired by commedia dell’arte that emerged in the beginning of the 18th century as a response to opera seria. Italian opera seria was “highbrow,” with intricate, sophisticated musical patterning and flowery, poetic language that followed a strict form and convention with storylines typically involving mythical, royal, and supernatural themes. Opera seria was written almost exclusively for court theaters to entertain nobility, royalty, and aristocrats. Opera buffa was a response to opera seria that sought to bring opera to the common people. Opera buffa plots were inspired by popular culture, used everyday language, and often were performed in local Italian dialects. At first, they were short, oneact operas, but gradually became full-length evening affairs. Composers paid more attention to how the music told the story and wove the elements of theater more tightly into the music by using recitative in a new way: as a concise way to propel the storyline. With this new spoken-sung text, audiences could better understand the plot and feel more invested in the story.

Satire praising the originality, creativity, and modernism of Rossini and of the Théatre Italien by artist Eugène Delacroix. 1821. The Trustees of the British Museum. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Opera buffa style helped to popularize opera in Italy and beyond as it made the genre accessible to all. Mozart wrote a few opera buffa in the 1780s, including Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Half a century later, Rossini — the opera buffa king — composed all his operas this way, resulting in something that was simultaneously brand new and deeply familiar to audiences, helping to cement his operas as timeless classics. Rossini defined each of his

operas with a subgenre, as well. La Cenerentola is a dramma giocoso – literally a “drama with jokes,” or maybe what we’d consider today as a romantic comedy. This opera buffa subgenre includes the specific vocal role of the basso buffo – the lowest of the voice types who usually plays a comedic villain. This character is also often given a specific kind of aria with a style of singing called patter singing, which uses very fast, articulated notes and lots of words, often in rhyming verse. In addition to writing opera buffa, Rossini, a man of his time and a populist, is known for writing well for the voice. This Romantic-era style is known as bel canto, or beautiful singing. Arias showcase the expressive potential of each voice type by using long, smooth, melodic vocal lines. Singing bel canto arias also requires a very precise vocal technique involving expert control of the intensity of the vocal tone, as well as the agility, fluidity, and clear articulation of notes, words, and transitions between registers. Each singer has the opportunity to personalize their performance, showing off their unique talent with improvisational, melismatic passages with fast-moving vocal runs contrasted with long stretching passages and held notes. Rossini’s contemporaries, including Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini, also wrote bel canto opera buffa, although they had strong artistic differences and often did not get along. If Rossini was the opera buffa king, then Giuseppe Verdi, who came after him, mastered the bel canto style and infused it with Italian patriotism, adding a new element of verismo by setting the text to natural speech patterns for even more realistic drama, taking Italian opera into the 20th century.

DISCUSS: What influences of opera buffa and bel canto singing can you find in contemporary arts and culture? How has this legacy informed what inspires us in the arts today?

RAGS TO RICHES: A FAIRYTALE OF SOCIAL CLASS

An illustration of the Cinderella story circa 1900. New York Public Library. Public Domain.

There are approximately 3,000 different versions of the Cinderella story from many cultures worldwide, dating back over 2,000 years with roots in ancient Greece and China. In fact, it follows one of the seven major basic story arcs: “rags to riches.” In this archetype, analyzed in a book by Christopher Booker, the protagonist is “poor” in that they lack wealth, beauty, love, or power. They find what they seek, lose it, and then gain it back again. In the case of the Cinderella story specifically, the society within which the story is set is defined by a social stratification that makes the protagonist poor in wealth, love, and power. “Happily ever after” is defined by having achieved marriage: love and wealth, which would mean a higher social status.

Sociologists define social class as a stratification or grouping of people in a hierarchy based on certain characteristics including wealth, education, occupation, and income. Social class is also highly influenced by whether the person conforms to the dominant social norms, including gender expression, religion, political affiliation, etc. The organizing principles of social stratification have shifted and changed over the millennia; yet most civilizations have had social groupings that are in part divided by wealth, education, occupation, and income. For much of history in many cultures across the world, and certainly during Rossini’s day, women were considered property and obligated to be under the care of a man, usually their father, until they

married. Cinderella cannot amass personal wealth and her property is the property of her guardian. Her social class comes from her upbringing (which likely included an education, at least to the extent that women were educated), and her youth and beauty. Many versions of Cinderella, in the Western world at least, involve the character coming from a higher social class, being forced to live an impoverished life at the hands of a stepparent whose family is living beyond their means. Cinderella’s wealth has been squandered and she is essentially held captive. A message of Cinderella is that if women are beautiful, intelligent, patient, and kind, they will find their fortune through true love and a higher social class (financially Karl Marx (1818-1883), philo politician. Wikimedia Comm secure) marriage.

osopher and German mons. Public Domain.

character, he didn’t see German philosopher her as “marriage material” Karl Marx developed because she was not of a a social theory in th higher social class. In their the mid-19 century first meeting, Cinderella is during the Industrial ashamed of her social status Revolution attributing and tattered clothing. In and defining social the story, wealth and social class in relationship A map of Boston with the original shoreline in the 1600s overlaid by a status are equated to power to the economy. street map from 1880. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. and the ability to influence In his theory, the society. Therefore, when the prince does decide to working class is in inherent conflict with the owners and profiteers of industry, and the government exists to marry Cinderella, he has the power to quickly elevate her social status despite the lower status she was protect the wealthy over the common good. forced into by her stepfather. Many have applied his theories to literary analysis of BLO’s production is set in present-day Boston. Boston the Cinderella story, positing that the central conflict is one of the oldest cities in the United States and has of the story stems from classism. Marx was a strong its own long history with social class. The class systems supporter of the arts because they influenced culture have shifted over the centuries, yet some of the old and could incite revolution. Cinderella is poor even though she lives in a household with her family who are not poor. They WORKERS’ RIGHTS oppress her. As a woman, The history of immigrants arriving in Boston to work and live influenced the she has no claim to wealth beginning of the labor movement for workers’ rights with one of the first unions of her own, thus she is a being formed in 1833, and the first major demonstration held at Faneuil Hall member of the proletariat, in 1834 with a speech by Massachusetts Representative Frederick Robinson. while her stepfamily Although this first assembly only included white men, it laid a foundation for the future of labor rights in Boston and beyond. is bourgeois. The royal family has the highest social status in the story. structures remain. Much of Boston’s social class system Cinderella is in conflict with her stepfamily because they too want to improve their social status by marrying is defined by “who came first” in colonizing the land and building the city. into royalty. In Rossini’s opera, Cinderella must “fit in” by wearing the proper clothing when she attends the ball (which Marx would assert relates to commodification and consumerism) in order to be seen by the prince. Even though he already met her and recognized her good

“Boston Brahmin” is a term used to describe approximately 66 family lines, many of whom are recognizable because New England towns, buildings, businesses, streets, etc. are named after them. These “old money” Boston families were the first families 13

RAGS TO RICHES: A FAIRYTALE OF SOCIAL CLASS — who may have originally been bourgeois (middle-class) in Europe — who built their fortune as merchants and businessmen in Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill, Boston. Photo: Ivan Herman Creative the early days Commons. of Boston’s history and have since amassed much wealth in the city by owning land, buildings, and businesses; and holding much influence in the philanthropic and political sectors. These early white Protestant settlers also captured and enslaved Native Americans and brought captured Africans to Boston to be enslaved as early as 1638. These enslaved peoples labored to build wealth for the “Boston Brahmin” families. As Boston grew and new waves of immigrants arrived, they mostly began as poor proletariat or working class. They faced discrimination and worked for the upper classes through agricultural, service, and industrial labor. The Irish formed the first major wave of immigration in 1820, along with smaller groups of Canadians, Germans, and English, followed by the Portuguese and Cape Verdeans, and in the next 50 years by the Chinese, Italians, Russians, and Armenians. As generations became more established and amassed some generational wealth, those that had settled earlier slowly rose in social status, becoming more middle class – and in some cases upper-class – while newer immigrants filled poor working-class jobs and neighborhoods. Newer waves of immigration continued throughout the 20th century, making today’s Boston a very diverse city

made up of people from all over the world, including people from Syria, Lebanon, Haiti, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Jamaica, and many more places. Boston has been a sought-after destination as a welcome place of asylum for refugees worldwide since the 1600s, and especially since World War II which, in part, has contributed to the rich diversity we see today. Generally, those who live within the City of Boston today are middle-class, upper-middle-class, and wealthy residents known as the “Creative Class” and neighborhoods of “Service Class” residents who often work jobs that serve the “Creative Class.” Those who belong to the lower-middle and middle-class “Working Class” tend to live outside the city and commute, if necessary, as the cost of living has forced them outside the city limits. The story of Cinderella is still timely in today’s stratified cultural landscape, for while actual royalty is all but a thing of the past, the wealthy still hold power and influence.

DISCUSS: How does social class show up in other archetypal stories? How does social class affect how we tell stories and how we hear stories?

SOCIAL HIERARCHY IN WESTERN EUROPE ROYALTY: A family bloodline thought to be “ordained by God” to rule the lands and the peoples. RELIGIOUS LEADERS: Whether this is the Roman Catholic church’s Pope, the head of the Anglican Church, or others, the prominent leaders within the dominant religion(s) have high social status. ARISTOCRACY: This class, which has its origins in Ancient Greece, is comprised of those with high education and inherited wealth. By the Middle Ages, it was a defined social class. Aristocrats gained and held status through being gifted land by royalty in exchange for favor and compliance, thus using the concept of owning land or property (rather than just stewarding the land owned by the Crown or State) as a way of gaining and maintaining social status and wealth. BOURGEOISIE: A term originating in France, referring to a city-dweller, this educated middle-class with specialized professions that required training and apprenticeship (now known as “white collar”) included doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants, etc. By the Industrial Revolution, this class had amassed a certain amount of generational wealth as business owners. Today’s term “bourgeois” often refers to “old money” wealth or something akin to the aristocracy which doesn’t exist in the same way it used to (although aristocratic families still do exist!). PEASANT/PROLETARIAT: The peasant class consisted of the pre-industrial agricultural workers who lived and worked on the land owned by the aristocracy; while the proletariat was their industrial counterpart in the city, working in factories or in service jobs for a wage. They may have had some or little “formal” education, even as they were trained in skilled labor. This now correlates somewhat with what we refer to as “blue collar” workers. SLAVE LABOR & INDENTURED SERVITUDE: Enslavement and indentured servitude treated people as property. It’s important to point out that enslavement is always involuntary, while indentured servitude is at times voluntary and other times not. There have been many peoples stolen and enslaved across civilization. In the Western world, the most prominent examples were the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that stole people from Africa and the Caribbean islands, and similar acts done to Indigenous peoples. Western European, Chinese, and Indian peasants were also often brought to the Americas as indentured servants. 15

A BOSTON LOVE STORY Cinderella is a timeless fairytale that can be — and has been — set in various time periods and locations. Just consider how many versions of the story exist! This flexibility was surely to Rossini’s advantage, since he and librettist Ferretti wrote La Cenerentola in a whirlwind of just 24 days! To simplify the staging on such a tight schedule, they eliminated all magical elements from Charles Perrault’s version, which they were basing the opera on, and focused on the “kindness triumphs” theme of the story. Boston Lyric Opera’s version of La Cenerentola keeps this thematic focus central, even as we set the story in our own city, today, in 2023. Our Cinderella, Angelina, lives with her stepfather (Don Magnifico) and stepsisters (Clorinda and Tisbe) in the Seaport in a brand-new, sparkling glass high-rise condominium. While Angelina is forced to act as their (unpaid) housekeeper, the stepsisters spend their days as social media influencers, desperate to get “in” with the older, more established wealthy Boston families… like Ramiro’s. Don Magnifico encourages their behavior, hoping it will remedy the fact that they are living beyond their means. In contrast to Don Magnifico’s Seaport residence, Ramiro’s family home in Beacon Hill is a warm old brick house covered in ivy, complete with a beautiful, secluded courtyard. Romance blossoms in this courtyard when Angelina and Ramiro meet for a second time, and this is where Angelina ultimately makes her home with Ramiro, the person who sees her for who she is.

REFLECT Buildings along the waterfront in the Seaport District of Boston, Massachusetts. Photo: Beyond My Ken. Wikimedia Commons.

Where and how would you tell the story of Cinderella?

Burrage Mansion was built in 1899 as a winter home on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Today it is luxury condominiums. Photo: Billy Wilson. Wikimedia Commons.

Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill, Boston. Photo: Ivan Herman Creative Commons.

 LISTEN UP! 1

The Musical Introduction Listen to the overture to La Cenerentola. This is the musical introduction to the opera. Just from listening to this, can you hear the introduction of different parts of the story? Which instruments do you hear? Rossini: La Cenerentola - Overture - YouTube

The tempo during this excerpt of patter singing is marked as Allegro meaning fast. Public Domain.

Patter Singing A staple of the 18th-19th century opera buffa style is patter singing. Patter songs are very quick, often with one note per syllable and with words flying by at an incredible speed. Patter songs were most often written to highlight comedic moments in the story when the character gets very excited or nervous about something. In this Act II aria, “Sia qualunque delle figlie” (“Whichever of the daughters”), Don Magnifico imagines what his life would become if one of his daughters were to marry the prince. At what points do you hear patter singing? What is being said in this moment? Does this align with what you’ve learned about the use of patter singing? Have you heard similar, fast-paced singing in different, more contemporary genres of music? How does it sound the same or different from operatic patter singing? Sia qualunque delle figlie - Alessandro Corbelli (Rossini La Cenerentola) MET 2009 - YouTube

3 The “Rossini Crescendo” Gioachino Rossini is known for a compositional technique dubbed the “Rossini crescendo.” Rossini did not invent the crescendo, an Italian term meaning a gradual increase in volume; rather, a “Rossini crescendo” refers to how Rossini would apply a crescendo in his operas. His signature method combined an increase in volume with an increase in tempo, or speed, while also gradually shortening the musical and textual phrases. The effect created a slowly building musical frenzy across many measures, even across pages of music! Watch and listen to the Act I Finale, which includes “Signor… Altezza, è in tavola” (“Highest of High, dinner is served”) and “Mi par d’essere sognando” (“I feel as if I am in a dream”). When do you hear the “Rossini crescendo” appear? Can you hear where it begins and ends? (Hint: it may appear more than once.) An alternative name for the “Rossini crescendo” is the “Rossini Rocket”. Which term do you prefer? Cenerentola - Act 1 Finale - YouTube

Opera Storms! If you wanted to mimic the sound of a thunderstorm, which instruments would you use? How fast or slow would the music be? How loud or soft? Would the sounds be sharp, gentle? Watch and listen to the Act II musical number “Temporale” (“Thunderstorm”). How does Rossini create the sound of a storm using the orchestra? How do you feel listening to this musical “storm”? La Cenerentola: ‘Temporale’ (‘The Storm’) – Glyndebourne – YouTube

GENERAL QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOUR LISTENING • What instruments do you hear? • How fast is the music? Are there sudden changes in speed? Is the rhythm steady or unsteady? • Key/Mode: Is it major or minor? (Does it sound bright, happy, sad, urgent, dangerous?) • Dynamics/Volume: Is the music loud or soft? Are there sudden changes in volume (either in the voice or orchestra)? • What is the shape of the melodic line? Does the voice move smoothly, or does it make frequent or erratic jumps? Do the vocal lines move noticeably downward or upward? • Does the type of voice singing (baritone, soprano, tenor, mezzo, etc.) have an effect on you as a listener? • Do the melodies end as you would expect, or do they surprise you? • How does the music make you feel? What effect do the above factors have on you as a listener? • What is the orchestra doing in contrast to the voice? How do the two interact? • What kinds of images, settings, or emotions come to mind? Does it remind you of anything you have experienced in your own life? • Do particularly emphatic notes (low, high, held, etc.) correspond to dramatic moments? • What type of character (romantic, comic, serious, etc.) fits this music?

RESOURCES Other Study Guides Artsbridge Foundation/Atlanta Opera. (2019). La Cenerentola -Field Trip Educator Guide. www.atlantaopera.org. https://www.atlantaopera.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/TAODaily-101920.pdf Bob Jones University. (2016). Rossini’s La Cenerentola. www.bju.edu. https://www.bju.edu/events/fine-arts/concert-opera-drama/archive/la-cenerentola/ Leahy, J. (n.d.). La Cenerentola (Cinderella). www.pittsburghopera.org. https://www. pittsburghopera.org/files/file/Study%20Guide%20for%20La%20cenerentola.pdf The Metropolitan Opera. (n.d.-a). La Cenerentola. www.metopera.org. https://www.metopera. org/globalassets/discover/education/educator-guides/cenerentola-la/lacenerentola_2223_ web.pdf The Metropolitan Opera. (n.d.). What to Expect from La Cenerentola - Metropolitan Opera. www.metopera.org. https://www.metopera.org/globalassets/discover/education/educatorguides/cenerentola-la/cenerentola.13-14.guide.pdf Vancouver Opera. (2019, April 15). La Cenerentola Study Guide. Issuu. https://issuu.com/yvropera/docs/la-cenerentola-study-guide

Videos Rossini - La Cenerentola (1817) with double subs it-eng. YouTube. (2018, October 11). https://youtu.be/-Uq-Ez_Oyak?si=puv2yHVuYVznEFgh

Podcasts Botello, K., & Duncan Wilson, E. (2023, September 17). Classical sprouts: Rossini’s “La Cenerentola.” www.interlochenpublicradio.org. https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/ podcast/classical-sprouts/2022-08-29/classical-sprouts-rossinis-la-cenerentola Fuentes, A. (2021, November 16). Behind the Curtain: La Cenerentola Scene-By-Scene. www.laopera.org. https://www.laopera.org/discover/podcasts/behind-the-curtain-lacenerentola-scene-by-scene/

The Metropolitan Opera and WQXR. (2020, February 5). Rossini’s La Cenerentola: Opera’s Cinderella story: Aria code. www.wcnystudios.org. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/aria-code/episodes/ aria-code-rossini-cenerentola-joyce-didonato

Articles Bond, C. (2022, March 15). The original Cinderella story was a whole lot darker than the Disney version. www.thevintagenews.com. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2022/03/15/originalcinderella-story/ Dyhouse, C. (2021, April 19). The real meaning of the cinderella story’s popularity. www.time.com. https://time.com/5956136/cinderella-story-meaning/ Kid World Citizen. (2018, January 26). Cinderella Around the World: Stories from 17 Cultures. www. kidworldcitizen.org. https://kidworldcitizen.org/cinderella-story-around-the-world/ Lemish, L. (2023). The Chinese Cinderella Ye Xian - Shen Yun performing arts. www. shenyunperformingarts.org. https://www.shenyunperformingarts.org/blog/view/article/e/ xrTKMldX-tg/ye-xian-the-chinese-cinderella.html McKinney, K. (2015, March 15). Disney didn’t invent Cinderella. her story is at least 2,000 years old. www.Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/2015/3/15/8214405/cinderella-fairy-tale-history Panttaja, E. (1993). Going up in the World: Class in “Cinderella.” Western Folklore, 52(1), 85–104. https://doi.org/10.2307/1499495 Tatar, M. (2012, March 16). Cinderfellas: The Long-Lost Fairy Tales. thenewyorker.com. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/cinderfellas-the-long-lost-fairy-tales

THE HISTORY OF OPERA People have been telling stories through music for millennia throughout the world. Opera is an art form with roots in Western Europe that is over 400 years old. Here is a brief timeline of its lineage.

RENAISSANCE

1500-1620

BAROQUE

1600-1750

CLASSICAL

1730-1820

ROMANTIC

1790-1910

20th CENTURY

1900-2000

RENAISSANCE (1500-1620)

1573 The Florentine Camerata was founded in Italy, devoted to reviving ancient Greek musical traditions, including sung drama.

1607 Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) wrote the first opera to become popular, L’Orfeo, marking him as the premier opera composer of his day and bridging the gap between Renaissance and Baroque music. His works are still performed today.

1598

Jacopo Peri, a member of the Camerata, composed the world’s first opera – Dafne, reviving the classic myth.

Toccata from L’Orfeo. Claudio Monteverdi Favola in musica. Reprint of the First Edition of the Score, Venice 1609 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1637 The first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, was built in Venice, Italy.

BAROQUE (1600-1750)

1673 Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), an Italian-born composer, brought opera to the French court, creating a unique style, tragédie en musique, that better suited the French language. Blurring the lines between recitative and aria, he created fast-paced dramas to suit the tastes of French aristocrats.

1689 Henry Purcell’s (1659-1695) simple and elegant chamber opera, Dido and Aeneas, premiered at Josias Priest’s boarding school for girls in London.

1712 George Frederic Handel (1685-1759), a German-born composer, moved to London, where he found immense success writing intricate and highly ornamented Italian opera seria (serious opera). Ornamentation refers to stylized, fastmoving notes, usually improvised by the singer to make a musical line more interesting and to showcase their vocal talent.

Dido and Aeneas, 1747, Pompeo Batoni [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1805 Ludwig van Beethoven

CLASSICAL (1730-1820)

(1770-1827), although a prolific composer, wrote only one opera, Fidelio. The extremes of musical expression in Beethoven’s music pushed the boundaries in the late Classical period and inspired generations of Romantic composers.

1750s

1816

A reform movement, led by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), rejected the flashy ornamented style of the Baroque in favor of simple, refined music to enhance the drama.

The Magic Flute playbill for the premiere, 30 September 1791 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1767

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Posthumous painting by Barbara Krafft in 1819 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote his first opera at age 11, beginning his 25-year opera career. Mozart mastered, then innovated, in several operatic forms. He wrote opera serias (serious operas), including La Clemenza di Tito, and opera buffas (comedic operas) like Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). He then combined the two genres in Don Giovanni, calling it dramma giocoso (comedic drama). Mozart also innovated the Singspiel (German sung play), featuring a spoken dialogue, as in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) composed Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), becoming the most prodigious opera composer in Italy by age 24. He wrote 39 operas in 20 years. A new compositional style created by Rossini and his contemporaries, including Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini, would, a century later, be referred to as bel canto (beautiful singing). Bel canto compositions were inspired by the nuanced vocal capabilities of the human voice and its expressive potential. Composers employed strategic use of register, the push and pull of tempo (rubato), extremely smooth and connected phrases (legato), and vocal glides (portamento).

1853 Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) completed La Traviata, a story of love, loss, and the struggle of average people, in the increasingly popular realistic style of verismo. Verdi enjoyed immense acclaim during his lifetime, while expanding opera to include larger orchestras, extravagant sets and costumes, and more highly trained voices.

ROMANTIC (1790-1910)

Giuseppe Verdi, by Giovanni Boldini, 1886 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Golden Age of Opera 1842 Inspired by the risqué popular entertainment of French vaudeville, Hervé created the first operetta, a short comedic musical drama with spoken dialogue. Responding to popular trends, this new form stood in contrast to the increasingly serious and dramatic works at the grand Parisian opera house. Opéra comique as a genre was often not comic, rather realistic or humanistic. Grand opera, on the contrary, was exaggerated and melodramatic.

1865 Richard Wagner’s

1871 Influenced by French operetta, English librettist W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) began their 25-year partnership, which produced 14 comic operettas, including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Their works inspired the genre of American musical theater.

(1813-1883) Tristan und Isolde was the beginning of musical modernism, pushing the use of traditional harmony to its extreme. His massively ambitious, lengthy operas, often based in German folklore, sought to synthesize music, theater, poetry, and visuals in what he called a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). The most famous of these was an epic four-opera drama, Der Ring des Nibelungen, which took him 26 years to write and was completed in 1874.

Richard Wagner. Photo taken 1871 in Munich via Wikimedia Commons

1927 American musical

theater, commonly referred to as Broadway, was taken more seriously after Jerome Kern’s (1885-1945) Show Boat, words by Oscar Hammerstein, tackled issues of racial segregation and the ban on interracial marriage in Mississippi.

Mikado theatre poster, Edinburgh, 1885 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

ROMANTIC (1790-1910)

1874 Johann Strauss II, (1825-1899) influenced largely by his father, with whom he shared a name and talent, composed Die Fledermaus, popularizing Viennese musical traditions, namely the waltz, and shaping operetta.

1896 Giacomo Puccini’s (1858-1924) La Bohème captivated audiences with its intensely beautiful music, realism, and raw emotion. Puccini enjoyed huge acclaim during his lifetime for his works.

A scene from a 19th-century version of the play The Barber of Seville by Pierre Beaumarchais. Its origins in the commedia dell’arte are shown in this picture which portrays Figaro dressed in the costume and mask of Harlequin. 1884 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1922

Scott Joplin. Public Domain.

1911 Scott Joplin, (1868-1917) “The King of Ragtime,” wrote his only opera, Treemonisha, which was not performed until 1972. The work combined the European lateRomantic operatic style with African American folk songs, spirituals, and dances. The libretto, also by Joplin, was written at a time when when African Americans in the southern United States rarely had access to literacy resources and education.

Alan Berg (1885-1935) composed the first completely atonal opera, Wozzeck, dealing with uncomfortable themes of militari and social exploitation. Wozzeck is in the style of 12-tone music, o serialism. This new compositiona style, developed in Vienna by composer Arnold Schoenberg (18 1951), placed equal importance o each of the 12 pitches in a chrom scale (all half steps), removing the sense of the music being in a particular key.

Porgy and Bess by the New York Harlem Theatre 2009. Courtesy of New York Harlem Theatre

ism

or al

874on matic

1987 1945 British composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) gained international recognition with his opera Peter Grimes. Britten, along with Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), was one of the first British opera composers to gain fame in nearly 300 years.

20TH CENTURY

John Adams (b. 1947) composed one of the great minimalist operas, Nixon in China, the story of Nixon’s 1972 meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Musical minimalism strips music down to its essential elements, usually featuring a great deal of repetition with slight variations.

Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary composer Ellen Reid. Photo courtesy of Ellen Reid

1935

American composer George Gershwin (1898-1937), who was influenced by African American music and culture, debuted his opera, Porgy and Bess, in Boston, MA with an allAfrican American cast of classically trained singers. His contemporary, William Grant Still (1895-1978), a master of European grand opera, fused that with the African American experience and mythology. His first opera, Blue Steel, premiered in 1934, one year before Porgy and Bess.

1986

Leonard Bernstein via Creative Commons

1957 Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), known for synthesizing musical genres, brought together the best of American musical theater, opera, and ballet in West Side Story—a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet in a contemporary setting.

Anthony Davis (b. 1951) premiered his first of many operas, X, The Life and Time of Malcom X, which reclaims stories of Black historical figures within the theater space. He incorporated both the orchestral and vocal techniques of jazz and classical European opera in his score for a distinctly American sound, and a fully realized vision of how jazz and opera are in conversation within a work.

Today Still a vibrant, evolving art form, opera attracts contemporary composers such as Philip Glass (b. 1937), Jake Heggie (b. 1961), Terence Blanchard (b. 1962), Ellen Reid (b. 1983), and many others. Composers continue to be influenced by present and historical musical forms in creating new operas that explore current issues or reimagine ancient tales.

Terence Blanchard. Six-time Grammy award-winning jazz musician an composer Terence Blanchard. Creativity Commons

Photograph of William Grant Still taken by Carl Van Vechten Creativity Commons

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

So Young Park as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Photo: Eric Antoniou

WHY DO OPERA SINGERS SOUND LIKE THAT? Opera is unique among forms of singing in that singers are trained to be able to sing without amplification, in large theaters, over an entire orchestra, and still be heard and understood! This is what sets the art form of opera apart from similar forms such as musical theater. To become a professional opera singer, it takes years of intense physical training and constant practice — not unlike that of a ballet dancer — to stay in shape. Poor health, especially respiratory issues and even allergies, can be severely debilitating for a professional opera singer. Let’s peek into some of the science of this art form.

How the Voice Works

Singing requires different parts of the body to work together: the lungs, the vocal cords, the vocal tract, and the articulators (lips, teeth, and tongue). The lungs create a flow of air over the vocal cords, which vibrate. That vibration is amplified by the vocal tract and broken up into words by consonants, which are shaped by the articulators.

BREATH:

VIBRATION:

Any good singer will tell you that good breath support is essential to produce quality sound. Breath is like the gas that goes into your car. Without it, nothing runs. In order to sing long phrases of music with clarity and volume, opera singers access their full lung capacity by keeping their torso elongated and releasing the lower abdomen and diaphragm muscles, which allows air to enter into the lower lobes of the lungs. This is why we associate a certain posture with opera singers. In the past, many operas were staged with singers standing in one place to deliver an entire aria or scene, with minimal activity. Modern productions, however, often demand a much greater range of movement and agility onstage, requiring performers to be physically versatile, and bringing more visual interest, authenticity of expression, and nuanced acting into the storytelling.

If you run your fingers along your throat, you will feel a little lump just underneath your chin. That is your “Adam’s Apple,” and right behind it, housed in the larynx (voice-box), are your vocal cords. When air from the lungs crosses over the vocal cords it creates an area of low pressure (Google The Bernoulli Effect), which brings the cords together and makes them vibrate. This vibration produces a buzz. The vocal chords can be lengthened or shortened by muscles in the larynx, or by changing the speed of air flow. This change in the length and thickness of the vocal cords is what allows singers to create different pitches. Higher pitches require long, thin cords, while low pitches require short, thick ones. Professional singers take great pains to protect the delicate anatomy of their vocal cords with hydration and rest, as the tiniest scarring or inflammation can have noticeable effects on the quality of sound produced.

RESONANCE:

Without the resonating chambers in the head, the buzzing of the vocal cords would sound very unpleasant. The vocal tract, a term encompassing the mouth cavity, and the back of the throat, down to the larynx, shapes the buzzing of the vocal cords like a sculptor shapes clay. Shape your mouth in an ee vowel (as in eat), then sharply inhale a few times. The cool sensation you feel at the top and back of your mouth is your soft palate. The soft palate can raise or lower to change the shape of the vocal tract. Opera singers often sing with a raised soft palate, which allows for the greatest amplification of the sound produced by the vocal cords. Different vowel sounds are produced by raising or lowering the tongue, and changing the shape of the lips. Say the vowels: ee, eh, ah, oh, oo and notice how each vowel requires a slightly lower tongue placement and slightly rounder lips. This area of vocal training is particularly difficult because none of the anatomy is visible from the outside!

ARTICULATION:

The lips, teeth, and tongue are all used to create consonant sounds, which separate words into syllables and make language intelligible. Consonants must be clear and audible for the singer to be understood. Because opera singers do not sing with amplification, their articulation must be particularly good. The challenge lies in producing crisp, rapid consonants without interrupting the connection of the vowels (through the controlled exhale of breath) within the musical phrase.

Perfecting every element of this complex singing system requires years of training and is essential for the demands of the art form. An opera singer must be capable of singing for hours at a time, over the powerful volume of an orchestra, in large opera houses, while acting and delivering an artistic interpretation of the music. It is complete and total engagement of mental, physical, and emotional control and expression. Therefore, think of opera singers as the Olympic athletes of the stage, sit back, and marvel at what the human body is capable of! 33

Different Voice Types

Opera singers are cast into roles based on their tessitura (the range of notes they can sing comfortably). There are many descriptors that accompany the basic voice types, but here are some of the most common ones:

Tenor:

Baritone:

Bass

Baritone

Tenor

Contralto

Mezzo-Soprano

Soprano

Bass:

The lowest voice, basses often fall into two main categories: basso buffo, which is a comic character who often sings in lower laughing-like tones, and basso profundo, which is as low as the human voice can sing! Doctor Bartolo is an example of a bass role in The Barber of Seville by Rossini.

A middle-range lower voice, baritones can range from sweet and mild in tone, to darker dramatic and full tones. A famous baritone role is Rigoletto in Verdi’s Rigoletto. Baritones who are most comfortable in a slightly lower range are known as Bass-Baritones, a hybrid of the two lowest voice types.

The highest of the lower-range voices, tenors often sing the role of the hero. O of the most famous tenor roles is Romé in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliet. Sometim singers with lower-range voices also cultivate much higher ranges, singing in range similar to a mezzo-soprano or so by using their falsetto register. Called t Countertenor, this voice type is often f in Baroque music. Countertenors repla castrati in the heroic lead roles of Baro opera after the practice of castration w deemed unethical.

One éo es,

Each of the voice types (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass) also tends to be sub-characterized by whether it is more Lyric or Dramatic in tone. Lyric singers tend toward smooth lines in their music, sensitively expressed interpretation, and flexible agility. Dramatic singers have qualities that are attributed to darker, fuller, richer note qualities expressed powerfully and robustly with strong emotion. While its easiest to understand operatic voice types through these designations and descriptions, one of the most exciting things about listening to a singer perform is that each individual’s voice is essentially unique, thus each singer will interpret a role in an opera in a slightly different way.

Soprano: Mezzo-Soprano:

Contralto:

The lowest of the higher treble voices have a low range that overlaps with the highest tenor’s range. This voice type is less common.

Somewhat equivalent to an alto role

in a chorus, mezzo-sopranos (mezzo translated as “middle”) are known for their full and expressive qualities. While they don’t sing frequencies quite as high as sopranos, their ranges do overlap, and it is a “darker” tone that sets them apart. One of the most famous mezzosoprano lead roles is Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen.

The highest voice. Some subtypes of the soprano voice include coloratura, lyric, and dramatic sopranos. Coloratura sopranos specialize in being able to sing fast-moving notes that are very high in frequency, often referred to as “color notes.” One of the most famous coloratura roles is The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

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The Physics of Opera Singers What is it about opera singers that allows them to be heard above the orchestra? It’s not that they simply singing louder. The qualities of sound have to do with the relationship between the frequency (pitch) of a sound, represented in a unit of measurement called hertz, and its amplitude, measured in decibels, which the ear perceives as loudness. Only artificially produced sounds, however, create a pure frequency and amplitude (these are the only kind that can break glass). The sound produced by a violin, a drum, a voice, or even smacking your hand on a table, produces a fundamental frequency as well as secondary, tertiary, etc. frequencies known as overtones, or as musicians call them, harmonics.

The orchestra tunes to a concert “A” pitch before a performance. Concert “A” has a frequency of about 440 hertz, but that is not the only pitch you will hear. Progressively softer pitches above that fundamental pitch are produced in multiples of 440 at 880hz, 1320hz, 1760hz, etc. Each different instrument in the orchestra, because of its shape, construction, and mode in which it produces sound, produces different harmonics. This is what makes a violin, for example, have a different color (or timbre) from a trumpet. Generally, the harmonics of the instruments in the orchestra fade around 2500hz. Overtones produced by a human voice—whether speaking, yelling, or singing— are referred to as formants. As the demands of opera stars increased, vocal teachers discovered that by manipulating the empty space within the vocal tract, they could emphasize higher frequencies within the overtone series—frequencies above 2500hz. This technique allowed singers to perform without hurting their vocal cords, as they are not actually singing at a higher fundamental decibel level than the orchestra. Swedish voice scientist Johan Sundberg observed this phenomenon when he recorded the world-famous tenor Jussi Bjoerling in 1970. His research showed multiple peaks in decibel level, with the strongest frequency (overtone) falling between 2500 and 3000 hertz. This frequency, known as the singer’s formant, is the “sweet spot” for singers so that we hear their voices soaring over the orchestra into the opera house night after night. 36

Prof. Tecumseh Fitch, evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna, explains the difference between a fundamental frequency and formant frequency in the human voice. For an opera singer, the lower two formants (peaks on a graph) determine the specific vowel sound. The third formant and above add overtones that are specific to each particular singer’s voice, like a fingerprint. When two people sing the same note simultaneously, the high overtones allow your ear to distinguish two voices.

A Resonant Place

The final piece of the puzzle in creating the perfect operatic sound is the opera house or theater itself. Designing the perfect acoustical space can be an almost impossible task, one which requires tremendous knowledge of science, engineering, and architecture, as well as an artistic sensibility. The goal of the acoustician is to make sure that everyone in the audience can clearly understand the music being produced onstage, no matter where they are sitting. A perfectly designed opera house or concert hall (for non-amplified sound) functions almost like gigantic musical instrument.

Boston Opera House, Photo by John Wolf

Boston Symphony Hall, opened in 1900, with acoustical design by Harvard physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, was the first concert hall to be designed with acoustic principles in mind. Each seat was mathematically designed and placed for acoustical perfection. .

Reverberation is one key aspect in making a singer’s words intelligible or an orchestra’s melodies clear. Imagine the sound your voice would make in the shower or a cave. The echo you hear is reverberation caused by the large, hard, smooth surfaces. Too much reverberation (bouncing sound waves) can make words difficult to understand. Resonant vowel sounds overlap as they bounce off hard surfaces and cover up quieter consonant sounds. In these environments, sound carries a long way but becomes unclear or, as it is sometimes called, wet, as if the sound were underwater. Acousticians can mitigate these effects by covering smooth surfaces with textured materials like fabric, perforated metal, or diffusers, which absorb and disperse sound. These tools, however, must be used carefully, as too much absorption can make a space dry – meaning the sound onstage will not carry at all and the performers may have trouble even hearing themselves as they

perform. Imagine singing into a pillow or under a blanket. The shape of the room itself also contributes to the way the audience perceives the music. Most large performance spaces are shaped like a bell – small where the stage is and growing larger and more spread out in every dimension as one moves farther away. This shape helps to create a clear path for the sound to every seat. In designing concert halls or opera houses, big decisions must be made about the construction of the building based on acoustical needs. Even with the best planning, the perfect acoustic is not guaranteed, but professionals are constantly learning and adapting new scientific knowledge to enhance the audience’s experience.

NOTES TO PREPARE FOR TH You will see a full dress rehearsal – an insider’s look into the final moments of preparation before an opera premieres. The singers will be in full costume and makeup, the opera will be fully staged, and an orchestra will accompany the singers, who may choose to “mark,” or not sing in full voice, to save their voices for the performances. A final dress rehearsal is often a complete run-through, but there is a chance the director or conductor will ask to repeat a scene or section of music. This is the last opportunity the performers have to rehearse with the orchestra before opening night, and they therefore need this valuable time to work. The following will help you better enjoy your experience of a night at the opera:

THE PERFORMANCE:

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Arrive on time! Latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks in the performance and often not until intermission.

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Dress in what you are comfortable in so that you may enjoy the performance. For some, that may mean dressing up in a suit or gown, for others, jeans and a t-shirt is fine. Generally “dressy-casual” is what people wear. Live theater is usually a little more formal than a movie theater.

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At the very beginning of the opera, the concertmaster of the orchestra will ask the oboist to play the note “A.” You will hear all the other musicians in the orchestra tune their instruments to match the oboe’s “A.”

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After all the instruments are tuned, the conductor will arrive. You can applaud to welcome them!

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Feel free to applaud or shout Bravo at the end of an aria or chorus piece if you really liked it. The end of a piece can be identified by a pause in the music. Singers love an appreciative audience!

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It’s OK to laugh when something is funny or gasp at something shocking!

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When translating songs, and poetry in particular, much can be lost due to a change in rhythm, inflection, and rhyme of words. For this reason, opera is usually performed in its original language. In order to help audiences enjoy the music and follow every twist and turn of the plot, English supertitles are projected. Even when the opera is in English, there are still supertitles.

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Listen for subtleties in the music. The tempo, volume, and complexity of the music and singing depict the feelings or actions of the characters. Also, notice repeated words or phrases; they are usually significant.

HE OPERA THE PERFORMERS: The singers, orchestra, dancers, and stage crew are all hard at work to create an amazing performance for you! Here’s how you can help them. •

Lit screens are very distracting to the singers, so please keep your phone out of sight and off until the house lights come up.

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Due to how distracting electronics can be for performers, taking photos or making audio or video recordings is strictly forbidden.

EACH OTHER: The theater is a shared space, so please be courteous to your neighbors! •

Please do not take off your shoes or put your feet on the seat in front of you.

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Respect your fellow opera lovers by not leaning forward in your seat so as to block the person’s view behind you.

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Do not chew gum, eat, or drink while the rehearsal is in session. Not only can it pull focus from the performance, but the ushers are not there to clean up after you.

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If you must visit the restroom during the performance, please exit quickly and quietly.

Otherwise, sit back, relax, and let the action onstage pull you in. As an audience member, you are essential to the art form of opera — without you, there is no show!

Have Fun and Enjoy the Opera!