What do you think?
Rate this book
History of the Opera
6 x 9 paperback
350 pages, Paperback
First published December 18, 2012
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 26, 2025
This History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time by Henry Sutherland Edwards was published in 1862. Its subtitle - with anecdotes of the most celebrated composers and soloist of Europe - neatly encapsulates what the reader may expect from the book. This is - for its time - a comprehensive survey of the state of an art form and presents both a history and a gossip column.
Much of the material is clearly drawn from the author’s firsthand experience of performance of the works in question. It is worth remembering that no matter how old or new a piece of music or theatre might be, a current performance happens now, in whatever style is currently in vogue, with built-in assumptions that come from contemporary life. Those that might have pertained when an older work was written can only be imagined, not reproduced. And it is in this frame of mind that we must approach Sutherland Edwards’s text.
The author was a journalist, reporting on things Russian and central European. He was also a music critic and seemed to know several prominent people, who are often quoted throughout his writing. One thus gets the impression that Henry Sutherland Edwards seems keen to touch the forelock and share the opinions of, especially, titled English gentleman. This deference towards one social betters suffuses his approach to criticism.
Henry Sutherland Edwards was only in his 30s when he wrote this book. He must have spent considerable time visiting the opera, because he certainly seems to have heard many of the works he cites in performance. He is, however, very much a man of his time, and, in the era he describes, Rossini is very much the international superstar, very much the pinnacle of the art form’s achievement. Rossini’s William Tell was already more than thirty years old and its composer was effectively in retirement. Wagner does get a mention, but there are no descriptions of his works. Berlioz is also mentioned and summarily dismissed.
The author traces opera’s beginnings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy. Here, one feels, he is ploughing through historical reports of the performances. There is a description of Monteverdi’s scoring for Orfeo, but no mention of the Coronation of Poppea. Cavalli is completely absent.
The author reminds us that opera needs a libretto but seems rather uninterested in the genre. He writes: “The words of an opera ought to be good and yet need not necessarily be heard.” The author seems to have a great deal of sympathy with those opera goers who want lots of memorable tunes and a little noise as possible. Recitatives, one presumes, would provide an opportunity for audience conversation.
The real history begins with Handel. Unfortunately, the composer’s early works are clearly also unknown to the author. “Addison was only acquainted with the earliest of Handel’s operas, and these are forgotten, as indeed are most of his others, with the exception, here and there, of a few detached airs.” But there is quite a lot of material on Handel, largely because he was of interest to potential English readers.
But then we do get the survey of some of Mozart operas, and then through Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini in Italy, Weber and Beethoven in Germany, though the author never really gets into any critical analysis of plot. He does, however, remind us of the enduring fact that audiences tend to like what they know and resist anything new. “…while neither Verdi, nor Bellini, nor Donizetti were at all justly appreciated in this country when they first made their appearance, Rossini was – not merely sneered at and poo-poohed; he was for a long time condemned and abused every where, and on the production of some of his finest works was hissed and hooted in the theatres of his native land.”
Throughout this history, however, it is the portraits of the singers, the stars of the stage, that form the principal interest. The book is replete with mini biographies, with their triumphs, failures, and eventual deaths. These famous names sang before the assembled elite of Europe. He is not afraid to be frank, as these two anecdotes illustrate. “As for the husband (of Catalani), Valabreque, he appears to have been mean, officious, conceited (of his wife’s talent) and generally stupid.” And then “Madame Pisaroni was not only not beautiful, she was hideously ugly; I have seen her portrait, and am not exaggerating.”
Particularly interesting is the history of performance in London, including the prices that were charged. These were high enough, of course, to ensure that the hoi polloi never got through the doors. And it is worth remarking that the subject of Beaumarchais’s Figaro that became operas by Mozart and Rossini was a servant getting the better of an aristocratic master. This was an era of revolution, of regicide and Napoleon’s attempt to export Republican ideals, such as liberty, equality and fraternity. Mozart Figaro was not performed in London until 1812, from 26 years after it was written. This political aspect of such a work is now completely lost on audiences, but it was still much to the fore in the 1850s.
Henry Sutherland Edwards continues to touch the forelock of deference to the upper classes, even when reviewing Don Giovanni. ““Leporello”, however, is a burlesque character, and a buffoon throughout; cowardly, superstitious, greedy, with all possible low qualities developed to a ludicrous extent, and thus presenting a fine dramatic contrast to his master, who possesses all the noble qualities, except faith – this one great flaw rendering all the use he makes of Valois, generosity, and love of woman, an abuse. “Leporello” is always thinking of the bad end, which he is sure awaits him unless he quits the service of a master whom he is afraid to leave; always thinking, too, of maccaroni, money, and the wages which “Don Juan” certainly will not pay him, if he is taken to the infernal regions before his next quarter is due.” He might be a lecher, a murderer and a deceiver, but he is still a cut above the servant class, despite finishing in Hell.
There is much to enjoy in this text, much that will stay in the memory, such as the judgment that Rossini’s music was much too loud and too modern, though he did not employ 123 trombones! (As was believed by a librarian in Bergamo…) But the most enduring aspect will be how the author embedded his own assumptions into his critique. One wonders how contemporary opinion might be red in 200 years.
Much of the material is clearly drawn from the author’s firsthand experience of performance of the works in question. It is worth remembering that no matter how old or new a piece of music or theatre might be, a current performance happens now, in whatever style is currently in vogue, with built-in assumptions that come from contemporary life. Those that might have pertained when an older work was written can only be imagined, not reproduced. And it is in this frame of mind that we must approach Sutherland Edwards’s text.
The author was a journalist, reporting on things Russian and central European. He was also a music critic and seemed to know several prominent people, who are often quoted throughout his writing. One thus gets the impression that Henry Sutherland Edwards seems keen to touch the forelock and share the opinions of, especially, titled English gentleman. This deference towards one social betters suffuses his approach to criticism.
Henry Sutherland Edwards was only in his 30s when he wrote this book. He must have spent considerable time visiting the opera, because he certainly seems to have heard many of the works he cites in performance. He is, however, very much a man of his time, and, in the era he describes, Rossini is very much the international superstar, very much the pinnacle of the art form’s achievement. Rossini’s William Tell was already more than thirty years old and its composer was effectively in retirement. Wagner does get a mention, but there are no descriptions of his works. Berlioz is also mentioned and summarily dismissed.
The author traces opera’s beginnings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy. Here, one feels, he is ploughing through historical reports of the performances. There is a description of Monteverdi’s scoring for Orfeo, but no mention of the Coronation of Poppea. Cavalli is completely absent.
The author reminds us that opera needs a libretto but seems rather uninterested in the genre. He writes: “The words of an opera ought to be good and yet need not necessarily be heard.” The author seems to have a great deal of sympathy with those opera goers who want lots of memorable tunes and a little noise as possible. Recitatives, one presumes, would provide an opportunity for audience conversation.
The real history begins with Handel. Unfortunately, the composer’s early works are clearly also unknown to the author. “Addison was only acquainted with the earliest of Handel’s operas, and these are forgotten, as indeed are most of his others, with the exception, here and there, of a few detached airs.” But there is quite a lot of material on Handel, largely because he was of interest to potential English readers.
But then we do get the survey of some of Mozart operas, and then through Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini in Italy, Weber and Beethoven in Germany, though the author never really gets into any critical analysis of plot. He does, however, remind us of the enduring fact that audiences tend to like what they know and resist anything new. “…while neither Verdi, nor Bellini, nor Donizetti were at all justly appreciated in this country when they first made their appearance, Rossini was – not merely sneered at and poo-poohed; he was for a long time condemned and abused every where, and on the production of some of his finest works was hissed and hooted in the theatres of his native land.”
Throughout this history, however, it is the portraits of the singers, the stars of the stage, that form the principal interest. The book is replete with mini biographies, with their triumphs, failures, and eventual deaths. These famous names sang before the assembled elite of Europe. He is not afraid to be frank, as these two anecdotes illustrate. “As for the husband (of Catalani), Valabreque, he appears to have been mean, officious, conceited (of his wife’s talent) and generally stupid.” And then “Madame Pisaroni was not only not beautiful, she was hideously ugly; I have seen her portrait, and am not exaggerating.”
Particularly interesting is the history of performance in London, including the prices that were charged. These were high enough, of course, to ensure that the hoi polloi never got through the doors. And it is worth remarking that the subject of Beaumarchais’s Figaro that became operas by Mozart and Rossini was a servant getting the better of an aristocratic master. This was an era of revolution, of regicide and Napoleon’s attempt to export Republican ideals, such as liberty, equality and fraternity. Mozart Figaro was not performed in London until 1812, from 26 years after it was written. This political aspect of such a work is now completely lost on audiences, but it was still much to the fore in the 1850s.
Henry Sutherland Edwards continues to touch the forelock of deference to the upper classes, even when reviewing Don Giovanni. ““Leporello”, however, is a burlesque character, and a buffoon throughout; cowardly, superstitious, greedy, with all possible low qualities developed to a ludicrous extent, and thus presenting a fine dramatic contrast to his master, who possesses all the noble qualities, except faith – this one great flaw rendering all the use he makes of Valois, generosity, and love of woman, an abuse. “Leporello” is always thinking of the bad end, which he is sure awaits him unless he quits the service of a master whom he is afraid to leave; always thinking, too, of maccaroni, money, and the wages which “Don Juan” certainly will not pay him, if he is taken to the infernal regions before his next quarter is due.” He might be a lecher, a murderer and a deceiver, but he is still a cut above the servant class, despite finishing in Hell.
There is much to enjoy in this text, much that will stay in the memory, such as the judgment that Rossini’s music was much too loud and too modern, though he did not employ 123 trombones! (As was believed by a librarian in Bergamo…) But the most enduring aspect will be how the author embedded his own assumptions into his critique. One wonders how contemporary opinion might be red in 200 years.
Displaying 1 of 1 review