In Defense of Bel Canto
The Barber of Seville

"Should harmony attract notice on its own account, distracting our attention from the melody; or should it merely increase the effect of melody?" -Stendhal

In the mid-19th century, Liszt and Wagner liberated harmony from the "shackles" of melody. Later, Stravinsky in turn unleashed rhythm from (and on) all of it. The genies were out of their bottles. Such is the nature of things: development of one element modifies and obscures another. Like conquering armies, harmony and rhythm gradually weakened, even destroyed its victim.

The ironies of history show, however, that the conquered (themselves once conquerors) as often as not embodied values that shouldn't be lost to subsequent generations. The art of composition continues to transform itself ad infinitum. While the aesthetics of art may change, civilization is well served by the conservation of great works created in the past, complete with their own universes of aesthetics and artistic logic. Preserving those works and keeping the standard of their performance is an important aspect of devotion to the "classic" in classical arts.

Literature from that period, reflecting on that art, is part of that overall landscape. A shining example is The Life of Rossini by the great exponent of French realism, Stendhal (1783-1842). It is an important document of the era when bel canto opera flourished, in addition to being an eloquent endorsement of the genius of the young Italian composer.

Stendhal reveals the nucleus within today's ambivalence toward bel canto opera. The "division of labor" between the dominance of harmony and counterpoint (in the German-speaking world) and melody (in the Italian) exacerbated the cultural divide in the 19th century, and intensified it in the next. Stendhal preferred that harmony serve melody, observing: "The really superb effects are produced through one medium of extreme beauty, and not by a whole series of manifestations in separate media, each one in itself of mediocre beauty. Human emotions tend to remain obstinately tepid when their reactions are interrupted by the necessity of choosing between two different categories of pleasure, each of a different quality."

In their history of philosophy, Will and Ariel Durant observed that German attitudes historically showed a preference for truth over beauty, and Italian the contrary. Theirs is a vast generality, but there is more than a grain of truth in this. The Germans philosophize through their music, in search of meaning and clarity, rarely settling for trivialities or allowing "beauty" alone to suffice. Italian opera in the 19th century rarely strayed from the basic human passions: love, desire, jealousy. Massimo Mila, a leading 20th-century Italian musicologist, saw in the Romeo and Juliet myth the defining conflicts of Italian opera, whether viewed through a tragic or comic lens: love overcomes, or is defeated by, human obstacles. In Italy and Italian music, beauty is of paramount importance. The "truth"-seeking Germans are willing to overlook vocal imperfections if interpretive values are communicated, often accepting an ugly voice or distorted singing in the service of dramatic plausibility. Conversely the Italian public is open to many things, but not to bad singing or an unattractive voice. Italian composers of the 19th century never sanctioned distortion of vocal values. Even the extreme example of Verdi's exhortation that Lady Macbeth should have an ugly voice did not absolve her from having to sing demanding coloratura or treacherous pianissimi.

Stendhal elucidates: "[Mozart's] music does not reflect the temperamental characteristics induced by the Italian climate; it is emotive music, destined above all to evoke images in a vein of tender melancholy, which fill the soul with memories of sadness and echo the dying languor of the sweetest of passions…love in Italy is far more dynamic, more impatient, more violent, less dependent upon dreams and imagination…it takes the whole being by storm and its invasion is the work of an instant…a frenzy-but frenzy knows nothing of melancholy…[which] springs from a lack, a failing of energy." Italy's operatic music embodies the immediacy of passionate emotions, as opposed to the recollection, regretted absence, or unfulfilled yearning of the Germanic world. Melody is to Italianate immediacy what harmony is to Germanic reflection.

With this background it is not surprising that bel canto operas have suffered from lack of academic attention in our time. Discussing "truth" is easier than arguing "beauty." Beautiful or not, Italian opera lacks gravitas, according to its detractors.

Melody was not, and is still not, studied today with equal weight and thoroughness. Though the melodic writing of Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn constitutes a fundamental part of their genius, it has not been regarded in some academic circles with the same importance as harmonic and formal elements. Lyricism and melodic inspiration have been devalued, and its greatest practitioners demoted. Thus Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Bizet, Verdi and Puccini have been downgraded, and Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, if mentioned at all, reduced to footnotes.

Within this environment of intellectual snobbery, melody has increasingly been equated with the popular. If a tune is recognizable or singable, it is not great art. The complex is equated with the profound; simplicity is for the simpleminded. In America, socio-ethnic prejudices also came into play; Italians were seen as second-class citizens. Such distinctions and stereotyping contributed to a reluctance to seriously study Italian music after the Renaissance.

In the mid-20th century, the revival of bel canto opera was driven by singers such as Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne and Beverly Sills (to name just a few of its greatest exponents), coupled with the advent of the recording explosion. Important musical and historical scholarship (Philip Gossett and the Chicago University Press in particular) built on that wave of popularity. Conservatories and academic institutions must now redress the imbalance in their approaches to 19th-century studies. Rather than viewing the bel canto operas from premises that are either posterior or foreign, these works should be analyzed on the basis of their intrinsic characteristics and aesthetic values. Rossini's popularity should not serve as a pretext upon which to dismiss his music as lightweight, but to view its durability as a sign of inherent viability.

Works of art that stand the test of time need not prove themselves to present day prejudices. There are times when academia must catch up to the popular. Wagner adored Bellini's Norma. When Rossini's Barber of Seville took Europe by storm almost 200 years ago, it evoked the admiration of, among others, the greatest living exponent of "German" music of his time, Beethoven. If it was good enough for him…

James Conlon is the Richard Seaver Music Director of LA Opera.