ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday December 2, 2007
Vol. 42 - No 27
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For the first time an opera at your doorstep

By Madhushala Senaratne

‘The Pearl Fishers’ by George Bizet, a French, Indian and Sri Lankan production which is to be performed at the BMICH on January 9 and 11, next year, will give local music lovers an opportunity to witness a full length opera, and interestingly, one which was actually set in Ceylon. The opera will be performed in French, with subtitles in English with the programme containing Sinhalese and Tamil translations.

Opera has always been considered something different from ordinary drama, music and song. “To put it simply, opera is a drama set to music. It is a huge dramatic production, which combines aspects such as singing, music, drama as well as dance,” says Menaka de Fonseka Sahabandu, Chorus Director of the Sri Lankan choir at the Pearl Fishers.

“The choir forms the backbone of the opera. There are the soloists and the chorus and it is they who would convey the message of the whole drama, its emotions and excitement to the audience,” Menaka explains.

Opera began at the end of the 16th century in the courts of Northern Italy. There had been plenty of plays with music before, such as the Greek dramas, but in the late 16th century, a group of people in Florence began experimenting with Greek plays by reading them aloud while adding a few musical chords as accompaniment. This practice led to singing the words or ‘recitativo’ (as it was later called) and gradually as music grew more complex, musicians became interested in this combination of music, song and drama.

The first real opera ‘Dafne’ (1597) by Jacob Peri was performed to a select audience at the palace of Jacopo Corsi, Italy. The delighted audience witnessed singers enact an entire drama, with music throughout telling the story of Daphne who is changed into a laurel to escape the attentions of Apollo.

However it was Claudio Monteverdi who is often regarded as the first great composer of the new art form. The resident composer at the Court of Mantua, he expanded the opera, adding slowly complicated songs called ‘arias’ which allowed the singers to express the emotions of their characters and to show off their singing abilities.

His first opera ‘Orfeo’ was produced in 1607. Throughout the years opera continued to change and grow as composers added chorus parts, dances and instrumental interludes. While some struck to tradition, others deviated from them. From Italy, the popularity of opera spread throughout Europe to countries such as France, Germany, Spain, England and Portugal. Though at first operas were written in Italian (as it was considered an Italian art form), composers gradually began writing in their own language.

The most influential figure of the late 18th century opera was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. “Mozart was probably one of the greatest composers of opera,” says Menaka. The 19th century saw the rise of the ‘bel canto’ (beautiful singing) style, emphasised by composers such as Gioachino Rossini (‘Barber of Seville’, 1816), Gaetano Donizetti (‘The Elixir of Love’) and Vincenzo Bellini (‘Norma’, 1831). Often considered as the golden age of opera, the mid 19th century saw the likes of Richard Wagner in Germany and Guiseppe Verdi in Italy (‘Rigoletto’, 1851, ‘La Traviata’, 1853) who began writing operas of tremendous length with music and stories that demanded huge, expensive productions, mature singers with big voices, large choruses, large orchestras and complicated scenery and costumes.

“Music plays an integral part in the opera,” says Ajith Abeysekera, Assistant Conductor of the orchestra for Pearl Fishers. “The introduction is given by the orchestra and throughout the production, the musicians contribute greatly towards everything that is happening on stage.

“For almost all the Sri Lankan singers and musicians who are part of ‘The Pearl Fishers’, it would be their first experience of a full length opera,” Menaka says. “Many of us have participated in operettas (light opera) and also sung ‘arias’, but not a complete opera.” Undoubtedly, both performers and local audiences are eagerly awaiting this grand production.

 
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