This is just incredible. A wonderful satire of the workings of early 18th century opera. If you liked this, you'll definitely love Berlioz's Evenings with the Orchestra, which is basically "how (not) to produce an opera in 1840s Paris". Now it's absolutely great there's an 18th century counterpart to that funny book, and a good one at that. Thanks!
I know Marcello's music, I play some of it myself and I like it but I never knew he was so funny. I think I will try to read the original text. Thank you for this video.
As a professional musician who has played her fair share of operas all I can say is that the more things change the more they stay the same. Hilarious but oh so true take on the “real” world of opera!
@@dankmemesdeaddreams2309 Not so much about "new stuff," the quality of opera productions seems to have declined in some ways during the early 18th century because of the demands of singers and the structure of the companies involved. Gluck and other composers of the early Classical period famously attempted to reform opera performance by addressing the very things mentioned in this satirical text.
matches up so closely to my experience working on low budget movie sets, lol. though the impresario is just an additional prima donna instead, the director.
Bravo! Great presentation. What a treat to hear such rich and 'modern' satire from centuries ago. Certainly we still struggle with 'spectacle versus art' in opera and musical theater. This could have been written about much of Broadway today. (Violins should never get the pitch from the harpsichord! How terrible it must have sounded to our modern trained ears.)
I read an excerpt of that years ago, in translation, and have wondered multiple times over the years the original source. Thanks describing the full satire!
All, and I mean ALL of that applies to today's pop music. - Singers being treated as more important than composers: Check - Composers having to write huge quantities of low quality music in short time: Check - "Noise is what counts in modern music": Check - Singers using sickness as an exuse for performing badly, or not performing at all: Check
Right now, I am working on an electronic-opera for the hire, as a composer, and I feel completely called out I guess some things never change, am I right? ;O
This sounds familiar. Is this basically the traps that everyone fall into about any movies, anime, novels, manga, cartoons production, singers, poet, musicians, composer, voice actors etc.
Well, to be fair, most opera productions (especially singers) would benefit if stage directors went totally absent. And audiences would be thankful too.
From what the author says, one can deduct that the ancient modes collapsed into just two, major and minor, just because composers didn't know them or how to use them. I wonder if there is some truth in this deduction.
An even more vicious satire could easily be written about nowadays opera practice. Especially concerning the power of directors who disfigure the operas in order to exhibit their own postmodernistic obsessions.
Contractual demands of a certain pop singer soloist: water bottles-specific brand, specific size, specific amount, all at a specific temperature plus only blue M & Ms!
The biggest conclusion to take here is that complaining about "music getting worse" is about as old as humanity itself. ... but nah, the music of *TODAY* is truly worse! Everything was perfect in the past.
It is always the same. Now he could say to the singer Make sure you dominate, never mind the crudity of tone, intonation and articulation that necessarily goes with it. You are going to be recorded. Make sure you are miked so that only you can be heard. Mozart took far too much trouble with the orchestra, as if they were telling the story! Only you must be heard, with perhaps a feathery twittering from the orchestra as backing for your self. I don't know whether there are any tunes in Fidelio. The last production I saw had the heavy singing described above, with the result that it could have been Wagner.
Secondo me, come succede anche a Galilei (c'è un bel video su di lui, in questo canale) o a Plinio il Vecchio, non si vuole veramente e unicamente criticare le Opere, ma un gusto che si ritiene fasullo e degradato... Nel caso di Marcello poi, ho idea che i veri obbiettivi della sua Satira, non fossero solo la Musica o l'Opera, ma la Società del tempo, che non si mostrava degna di salire sul Palco della Storia...
Senz'altro Vivaldi fu un grande musicista, genuinamente innamorato delle ampie e liete sonorità delle Orchestre venete, allora giustamente famose in tutta Europa... Secondo me però, forse anche per questo aspetto della sua musicalità (tanto gradita a Bach fra gli altri) non fu un grande Operista in senso moderno. Per questo Marcello lo considerava un alfiere del cattivo gusto...
