Nationalist Opera

Nationalism was an important new influence in the later 19^th Century. There were two kinds of nationalism:

· Defending nationalism

• Countries or regions that had previously been absorbed by large empires (e.g. Austro-Hungarian) now fought for and won independence
• Other countries or regions that had previously been dominated culturally by external forces struggled to regain local identity

· Aggressive nationalism

• Some imperialistic areas still attempted to dominate weaker countries and impose their cultural ideas

Nationalism in Music

· Composers in areas affected by nationalism often sought to incorporate local elements in an effort to create a stronger national identity

· Dance step patterns and rhythms

· Folk song tunes

· Programmatic representations of local legends

Nationalism in Opera: General Characteristics

· Above elements were used

· Stories were often about local history or legends

· Sometimes themes of liberation from oppressive foreign domination were also present

Russian Opera

· European opera and other European music had been present at court during Catherine the Great’s life (1729-1796), but the music was by European composers, opera texts in European languages

· Mikhail Glinka (1804-57) had a goal of writing opera in the Russian language.

· He had very little formal musical training

· Learned western music conventions through travel

· His opera A Life for the Tsar (1836) had a plot from Russian history, intended to arouse patriotic feelings. The main characters are peasants or popular heroes; the music is in folksong style. The warring factions (Russians and Poles) are depicted through their native music (e.g. Polonaise and Mazurka for Polish characters, Russian folk song for Russian characters)

· “The Mighty Handful” (or “The Russian Five”) Five composers, roughly contemporary, ideologically descended from Glinka; most wrote operas; some examples:

· Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) achieved a speech-dominated musical language: clear text declamation (in Russian) without sacrificing melodic interest. An example is Boris Godounov

· Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) had the most formal musical training of the Russians of his generation. His The Golden Cockerel is an example of his preference for exotic fairy tales as plots. He also included folklore and folk ritual in his stories. He was influenced by Wagner, and employed Leitmotives in this and other operas

· Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Though usually not considered a Nationalist, his operas had some similarities to those of the Mighty Handful. He had much more musical training than the Mighty Handful and his music was conceived in a more western language. His best known operas are based on literary works of Pushkin:

· Mazeppa based on a poem by Pushkin; the plot is about a Ukrainian separatist, and therefore superficially follows the plot tendencies of the Five, but is less about politics than personal issues

· Eugene Onegin based on Pushkin’s novel, but despite the “native” connection with the author, the plot has little to do with regional history

· The Queen of Spades is loosely based on a novella by Pushkin but has little in it that the Mighty Handful would consider nationalist

Bohemia/Czechoslovakia

· Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) is the main composer of Czech nationalist operas, particularly The Bartered Bride (1866) was a comedy about Czech traditions, using Czech melodies, dances, etc., and a libretto in Czech.