What recitatives owe to the airs: a look at the dialogue scene, Act I scene 2 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie – version with airs

The oft-cited observations of Italian librettist Carlo Goldoni as he described his first visit to the Académie Royale de Musique in 1763 are usually presented with an emphasis on what Goldoni missed. Accustomed as he was to eighteenth-century Italian opera, he could not hear a single aria in the Fre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cambridge opera journal 1999-07, Vol.11 (2), p.103-134
Main Author: Verba, Cynthia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Arias
Baroque music
Cadences
Composers
Composing
Compositional structure
Compositional Techniques
Duets
French Music
Love
Monologues
Musical keys
Musical Settings
Opera
Rameau, Jean-Philippe
Recitatives
Tonal centrism
Tonal harmony
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:The oft-cited observations of Italian librettist Carlo Goldoni as he described his first visit to the Académie Royale de Musique in 1763 are usually presented with an emphasis on what Goldoni missed. Accustomed as he was to eighteenth-century Italian opera, he could not hear a single aria in the French opera: “I waited for the aria … The dancers appeared: I thought the act was over, not an aria. I spoke of this to my neighbor who scoffed at me and assured me that there had been six arias in the different scenes which I had just heard. How could this be? I am not deaf; the voice was always accompanied by instruments … but I assumed it was all recitative.”
ISSN:0954-5867
1474-0621
DOI:10.1017/S0954586700004973