Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/281

 CHAPTER XVI

THE CULMINATION OF THE EARLY ITALIAN OPERA

124. The Completed Art-Form.—In spite of undeniable genius on the part of several opera-writers in the 17th century, with their hundreds of works, that century was little more than a time of experimentation. It was only toward its close that the form of the opera became definitely settled by a consensus of usage. The particular form chosen was due to a variety of considerations, partly artistic from a really dramatic or musical point of view, and partly due to the demand of the public for an exciting entertainment, whether highly artistic or not. Out of these combined influences a strangely rigid set of rules for procedure was developed by which both librettists and composers were governed, sometimes in defiance of dramatic sense and truth. The observance of these rules was general during the early 18th century, and certain features resulting from them continued into the 19th. It must be admitted that the plan adopted had points of practical effectiveness, however it may be judged as a type of strict dramatic art. At all events, as a popular form it was enormously successful for the time.

The musical elements contributed by the 17th century were the recitative as the best method of developing active situations and expressing trains or sequences of feeling, the aria as the lyrical embodiment of moments of peculiar interest or states of intense emotion on the part of individual characters, and the orchestral accompaniment, lending color and vividness of characterization and enhancing the interest of all vocal numbers, besides occasionally enriching the plot by purely instrumental numbers. The chorus remained almost unutilized except in a subordinate and artificial fashion, and ensemble effects of many voices were for the time rare. Scenery and costuming, with many stage accessories and devices, were employed lavishly, often with more spectacular singularity than the highest taste could approve.