Is Mozart Greater Than Wagner in Opera ?

[M forever]

Sorry to extract this one sentence from your lengthy post, which I admit I haven't read through yet

Well, you should, because it's really good and deep and all that  0:)

The success of these composers in overcoming this inherent 'strangeness', in pitching the music-speech relationship perfectly, is one reason why I think their works are amongst the greatest achievements of opera.

But they are still singing rather than speaking in a "normal" way, so that doesn't really matter. It's still not speaking, it's just a different style of singing. Besides, singing instead of speaking may be a little strange, but that doesn't mean it's wrong and that it's not a lot of fun and can't express a lot of things that can't be expressed in merely spoken words. So that certain styles of vocal writing are closer to spoken texts doesn't necessarily make that "better" or "greater". It's just a different style of expression.

[M forever]

Actually this is something for which I'm happy to give Wagner credit, for I think he was far more prescient than most and foresaw rather clearly the probable legacy of industrialization.  "Twilight of the Gods," indeed. 

I knew you were going to say that! I could have said that myself - it would have seemed logical in that context - but it's not really true. I decided to leave that out and let you step into the trap. Yes, that's how mean I am. 

The reality is, no he didn't foresee anything really. The whole idea of Götterdämmerung, indeed the idea that the world will eventually collapse in some kind of gigantic final conflict, predates Wagner by millenia. We don't even know who first came up with that.

Sure, it appears convenient to read what happened afterwards into his work. And it is the nature of all complex works of art that they contain content beyond their immediate context - they are vague and speculative anyway. But Wagner didn't really foresee that much either. Reading that into his work is just as wrong as blaming him for Nazis and all that.

[lukeottevanger]

Well, you should, because it's really good and deep and all that  0:)

Yeah, I did. It was profound in the extreme. 

But they are still singing rather than speaking in a "normal" way, so that doesn't really matter. It's still not speaking, it's just a different style of singing.

It's a kind of half-way house, and so has a particular expressive potential, that was my point.

Besides, singing instead of speaking may be a little strange, but that doesn't mean it's wrong and that it's not a lot of fun and can't express a lot of things that can't be expressed in merely spoken words. So that certain styles of vocal writing are closer to spoken texts doesn't necessarily make that "better" or "greater". It's just a different style of expression.

I hope my post didn't suggest that I would disagree with any of that - not at all. But I would suggest that one area which opera has the greatest potential in exploring is human character, and so exploring this line which has speech at one end and full-blown aria at the other, with all the implications that entails, is rewarding. Of course, the divisions of (say) Italian opera - with its recits, ariosi, arias, cabalettas and so on - are geared towards moving forwards and back along this line too, but in a different way to that effected by Debussy etc.

[paulb]

Yeah, no. That post tacitly avers to a fairly grievous misunderstanding of Wagner's intent, which was to surpass the Italianate form of opera (with a heavy emphasis on clear arias, recitative, and choruses) and arrive at a comprehensive setting of drama to music. He wasn't writing "potential [hits]," so the fact that he doesn't succeed by your standards should surprise no one. Despite the fact that some of his works are extremely catchy, that is.

Well, Mozart and Wagner seem to have earned for themselves, regardless of other opinion, the position of twin peaks. Dale Cooper has done quite a bit of work on the subject.

Nice post, well expressed.
Thats the thing i've heard too often in the past, when asked the LP store salesman should I try Wagner "Well yeah , but keep in  mind  with the Ring you gotta sludge through all the less interesting passages which can strain the nerves". That may have been my reaction even as 6 or 7 yrs ago, but lately I've matured and now I have no such feelings about any part of Ring. Music strikes the listener at different levels. Being that i takea   interest in psychology, Wagner brings up issues , which M and others< longears, 'industrial revolution, Twlight Of The Gods> have touched upon, that affects us even today.  These myths, legends that Wagner weaves his own take  and sets them in operatic form, are still alive in man's consciousness today. I am reading  the complete libretto of The Ring right now. Pretty amazing stuff in there.  Ideas that we should best be paying attention to. Niethzsche is still out of most average man's intellectual reach, so he's not a  practical source of accessible insight.

[M forever]

Niethzsche is still out of most average man's intellectual reach

Indeed, as is the correct spelling of his name.

[PSmith08]

Thats the thing i've heard too often in the past, when asked the LP store salesman should I try Wagner "Well yeah , but keep in  mind  with the Ring you gotta sludge through all the less interesting passages which can strain the nerves". That may have been my reaction even as 6 or 7 yrs ago, but lately I've matured and now I have no such feelings about any part of Ring.

That's the thing. Wagner's "less-interesting passages" would be longueurs if he were writing traditional operas. The drama, in this case, an archetypal drama played out on a cosmic scale, is an equally important part of the work. Indeed, the music and the drama work together so beautifully and so seamlessly as to make music-drama after Wagner unnecessary. There is little upon which to improve. For example, Siegfried, which is not everyone's favorite evening of the Ring, is extremely dramatic and contains a lot of important action, as it is all needed to get from Walküre to Götterdämmerung. That is, to borrow the language of mathematics, a highly non-trivial operation, as it's fairly non-obvious how Siegfried - existing unseen inside Sieglinde - and Brünnhilde's imprisonment lead to the return of the Rheingold to the Rheintöchter and the end of the world. In other words, if Wagner were writing traditional operas - think Rigoletto (which I still love very much) or Aida - he would have written works that are so bloated as to be failures, assuming that he would have written the same works in the same way. As it stands, given Wagner's intent, he was tremendously successful.

Now, I could make a similar case for Mozart's operatic supremacy, working in the context of opera as opposed to music-drama, along many analogous lines.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Woher willst *Du* das wissen? Du verstehst höchstwahrscheinlich keine fünf Worte deutsch

Oh come on, you don't know that for sure, now you are speculating.
(Sorry, I can only read a little but can't put a complete sentence in German together).

[longears]

Well, you should, because it's really good and deep and all that  0:)

But they are still singing rather than speaking in a "normal" way, so that doesn't really matter. It's still not speaking, it's just a different style of singing. Besides, singing instead of speaking may be a little strange, but that doesn't mean it's wrong and that it's not a lot of fun and can't express a lot of things that can't be expressed in merely spoken words. So that certain styles of vocal writing are closer to spoken texts doesn't necessarily make that "better" or "greater". It's just a different style of expression.

Yep.  Everything about the stage is artificial.  Dialogue is neither conversation nor speechmaking.  Much of the artistry in successful representational art lies in making the artifice disappear, unless calling attention to itself serves a purpose.  Wagner, of course, was not trying to write dialogue nor to imitate conversational speech.  The Ring, for instance, was very self-consciously dramatic and artificial, to add weight and the other-worldliness of myth to his allegory.  The artifice of P&M may have a very different underlying sensibility, but clearly follows the Ring in its effort to establish and maintain an aura of other worldliness.

Both of these works are very different in intent and method from the operas of Mozart or Verdi or Puccini.  To judge them all by the same standards is a category error.  As works of art they must be judged by their own internal standards--and to some extent, especially since each of these composers were so innovative, by the standards of success relative to their creators' aims (at least insofar as those aims are knowable).  As M suggested, it will not do to judge the merits of a mid-19th Century central European artwork solely from the vantage point of, say, a 21st Century Escondido, CA high school student whose worldview is conditioned almost exclusively by iTunes and YouTube.

By the way--thanks Luke & M & Knight & PSmith & others for joining in and raising the level of discourse in this thread to something far more interesting that the banal mudslinging the OP had in mind.

[PSmith08]

Oh come on, you don't know that for sure, now you are speculating.
(Sorry, I can only read a little but can't put a complete sentence in German together).

What's more, if that's the case, then he'll have no idea the he's just been called out in German.

(Confession: I had to look some of it up myself. Latin's my thing.)

[M forever]

Oh come on, you don't know that for sure, now you are speculating.

Nee, das ist ziemlich offensichtlich. Herr Corkin schreibt sowieso eine ganze Menge totalen Schwachsinn über Dinge, von denen er offensichtlich nicht die allergeringste Ahnung hat. Manche Leute sind einfach sehr leicht zu durchschauen.

[M forever]

By the way--thanks Luke & M & Knight & PSmith & others for joining in and raising the level of discourse in this thread to something far more interesting that the banal mudslinging the OP had in mind.

There is nothing wrong with a little mudslinging here and there, though. It can be quite fun, too.

[longears]

I knew you were going to say that! I could have said that myself - it would have seemed logical in that context - but it's not really true. I decided to leave that out and let you step into the trap. Yes, that's how mean I am. 

The reality is, no he didn't foresee anything really. The whole idea of Götterdämmerung, indeed the idea that the world will eventually collapse in some kind of gigantic final conflict, predates Wagner by millenia. We don't even know who first came up with that.

Sure, it appears convenient to read what happened afterwards into his work. And it is the nature of all complex works of art that they contain content beyond their immediate context - they are vague and speculative anyway. But Wagner didn't really foresee that much either. Reading that into his work is just as wrong as blaming him for Nazis and all that.

Oh, really?  It's not the idea of Armegeddon that I'm referring to.  I referred specifically to the influence of industrialization and the social, moral, and economic changes it was bringing and would bring to the old order.  I'm sure no Wagner-weenie, but his antipathy toward industrialization is no secret, and the underlying subtext in the Ring is pretty clear.  That the rampant materialism of a rising capitalist middle-class would wreak spiritual havoc in the world as the new Golden Rule supplanted the old ("He who has the gold makes the rules"), and that the end of the rule of the Gods and their Valhalla (how did Ludwig see Neuschwanstein, by the way?) would eventually come to pass, seems like a pretty straightforward and self-evident reading of the text, even without any knowledge of the creator's life or intentions.

[longears]

There is nothing wrong with a little mudslinging here and there, though. It can be quite fun, too.

Of course!     It's the banal mudslinging to which I object.  And the self-righteous, pompous, humorless, drearily repetitive mudslinging, too.   

[knight66]

Yes, M but a little goes a long way.

Now, perhaps someone can put me right on this on. I was under the impression that the way Debussy set P&M is distinctly conversational. Clearly not replicating normal conversations, but certainly emulating the speech rhythms of French and moving often at a conversational speed.

Now I have thought about it; there are quite a few intelligent libretti; Bluebeard's Castle is certainly one of them.

Mike

[lukeottevanger]

Now, perhaps someone can put me right on this on. I was under the impression that the way Debussy set P&M is distinctly conversational. Clearly not replicating normal conversations, but certainly emulating the speech rhythms of French and moving often at a conversational speed.

Absolutely. It tends to patter along on repeated notes, often oscillating in thirds and triads, and with great sensitivity to verbal rhythm. Of course, at this point, mention ought to be made of Mussorgsky and (particularly) Janacek's even more 'scientific' exploration of this area, but I've already mentioned it, and the horse is looking well-enough flogged. 

Now I have thought about it; there are quite a few intelligent libretti; Bluebeard's Castle is certainly one of them.

Tippett's much-maligned libretti are an interesting case - often used as a stick with which to beat him, as they are not great poetry, but they are deeply intelligent and original. What is missed by their critics is that they were never designed to be poetry, but rather to work when sung, specifically when sung to Tippett's own music. Seen from this POV, the composer-as-libretist, writing words for his own music, is a peculiarly powerful combination. BTW, Tippett followed TS Eliot's advice in writing his own libretti, and in the way he approached them, and advice doesn't come from a much better source!

[Sarastro]

Du verstehst höchstwahrscheinlich keine fünf Worte deutsch

Er weiss nicht. Andere wissen aber.

Nee, das ist ziemlich offensichtlich. Herr Corkin schreibt sowieso eine ganze Menge totalen Schwachsinn über Dinge, von denen er offensichtlich nicht die allergeringste Ahnung hat. Manche Leute sind einfach sehr leicht zu durchschauen.

Das war jetzt nicht sehr höflich.  Aber Ich bin einverstanden. 

[paulb]

There is nothing wrong with a little mudslinging here and there, though. It can be quite fun, too.

Yeah we all had those free-for-all mud fights aftera   hard rain when we were kids. Man that was a  blast! We'd even stop the flinging and just start smearing globs of mud in each others face. Yall know those days.
But last time I was here the soft mud turned clay, then pebbles, then it got so bad rocks were heard whizzing over my head, took a  direct hit and
I knew that was the time to scram.
Not that i didn't ask for it. ,,,but now I'm back and  i've got this heavy armor suit on, feel free to fire away, i need to test it out


LUKE you havea   much broader understanding of Janacek, I said nothing in comparison.disregard my comments.
The passage I was refering to was in Jenufa, where the 3 main characters come together and sing in unison, like in Puccini's Turandot.
Does Janacek get the idea from Puccini.
When i said Janacek has 2 operas, i meant the best 2 of his operas. His others i find a  bit weak = attention strays.

[Wendell_E]

Although I admire Pelleas, my opinion as to why it is not as popular as Verdi or Wagner is its lack of obvious tunes. Can you whistle any of it? NO!

Only because I'm a really bad whistler.  I can, however, hum quite a bit of it.

[paulb]

Well, you should, because it's really good and deep and all that  0:)

But they are still singing rather than speaking in a "normal" way, so that doesn't really matter. It's still not speaking, it's just a different style of singing. Besides, singing instead of speaking may be a little strange, but that doesn't mean it's wrong and that it's not a lot of fun and can't express a lot of things that can't be expressed in merely spoken words. So that certain styles of vocal writing are closer to spoken texts doesn't necessarily make that "better" or "greater". It's just a different style of expression.

nice post. But really, there's not this dull monotone vocal parts in Wagner as some would assume. I mean how mnay operatic stars are there in this modern world that can perform like the casting on the Furtwangler 53, Keilberth 52/53 ? I'd seriously doubt if Bayreith assembled its ideal cast from the stars of today, it would  not match these 3 recordings. Which attests to the tremendous demands of the vocal parts along with   a  larger than usual  assembly of singers. Since the vocal parts are not as bellacanto, this places even more deamnds on the vocalists. Wagner's Ring is a  puts to the supreme test any would be opera star.

Now as to Wagner;'s Ring not as consistently exciting , riviting  as say Puccini's Turnadot,  a  case can be made. Had the subject matter of Wagner's Ring been something other, like Verdi or Janacek's themeatic material, a  story  about everyday life of a  broken  love affair, its doubtful the music would sustain my interest. The mythological material of the Ring lives is an ever living reality,  and the Ring may have hinted at the future political  conditions which would overtake germany.
Refer to longears introspection on the subject matter involved in the Ring, speaking about the effects of the industrial age upon modern society.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Well, as it has been pointed out, Wagner would likely say "Yes, Mozart is greater than me in opera." It does not really need, though it shall receive it, repeating that Wagner was writing music-dramas, which are discrete entities that have some things, but not all things, in common with opera as Mozart would have understood it.

I know you want to make a distinction between "opera" (as apparently practiced by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, et al.) and "music drama" in the Wagnerian sense, but I prefer to use the word "opera" to refer to the works of all the above composers. Yes, Wagner attempted a synthesis in which music, words, and staging were to be co-equal, and he turned away from the spectacular grand operas of Meyerbeer and the coloratura warblings of the Italian bel canto composers like Bellini. But remember that the terms "music drama" and "Gesamtkunstwerk" were Wagner's own, and we are in no way bound to accept Wagner's terminology at face value. As D.H. Lawrence said, "never trust the teller, trust the tale." My problem with ascribing music drama only to Wagner while other composed produced only "opera" is that this implies that drama can be achieved only through Wagnerian methods. But the idea of "dramma per musica" was present in opera from the beginning; and there are other means of achieving music drama than the Wagnerian synthesis with its Leitmotivs and orchestra-as-commentator. Gluck, too, conceived of himself as a reformer, reacting against the vocal excesses of the 18th-century opera seria. And Gluck even anticipated some of the devices most characteristic of Wagner. Certainly as well a proto-Wagnerian use of the orchestra can be found in Oreste's arioso, "Le calme rentre dans mon coeur" from Iphegnie en Tauride, where Gluck's orchestra with its pulsating viola syncopations demonstrates that Oreste's heart is in fact anything but calm.

The other point to consider is whether Wagner in fact remained true to his own theories, as expostulated primarily in "Opera and Drama." I would say that in some respects he did not. Although among Wagner's innovations were to dispense with choral singing, ensembles, and separable numbers, Wagner quite obviously relaxed these strictures as he came to compose Tristan and Die Meistersinger. Already in Tristan and Act 3 of Siegfried we find Wagner allowing his tenor and soprano to sing together, and Meistersinger (with its glorious quintet) also returns to the role of the chorus as commentator and has many numbers that can be easily extracted from the whole. Shaw enjoyed pointing out that Goetterdaemmerung returned to many of the conventions of Meyerbeerian grand opera, and in his "Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the Arts" (1960), Jack Stein of Harvard University argued that in the later theoretical writings Wagner reverted to a concept of opera in which music was no longer co-equal but the dominant element.

I would not assume either that "dramma per musica" can be achieved only through Wagnerian means, and is absent in the work of non-Wagnerian composers. Mozart's operas are predominantly comic rather than epic as in Wagner, and he uses the vocabulary of late 18th-century classicism. Yet within this vocabulary he is able to create stunning dramatic characterizations (as for example in the distinctions he draws in Don Giovanni between the haughty and aristocratic Donna Anna, the intense and slightly unbalanced Donna Elvira, and the peasant minx Zerlina), and he is able to develop deft shifts in relationships between characters - an outstanding example of this being the sextet in Act 3 of Figaro, where he uses a miniature sonata form to construct a dramatic action in which the relationships among all six characters are permanently transformed. And in much less time than it would have taken Wagner in one of his music dr operas.