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Not to be confused with The Mad Scene.

A mad scene is an enactment of insanity in an opera, play, [1] or the like. It may be well contained in a number, appear during or recur throughout a more through-composed work, be deployed in a finale, form the underlying basis of the work, or constitute the entire work. They are often very dramatic, representing virtuoso pieces for singers. Some were written for specific singer, usually of a soprano Fach.

Many notable examples were composed for either opere serie or semiserie, as in those of Georg Frideric Handel.

They were a popular convention of French and especially Italian opera in the early 19th century, becoming a bel canto staple. Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor is the most famous example. As composers sought more realism ( verismo), they adapted the convention and better integrated the scene into the opera.

With the rise of psychology (and advances in psychiatry), modernist composers revived and transformed the mad scene in expressionist operas and similar genres (e.g., melodramas, monodramas). Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and Alban Berg depicted madness in new and dissonant idioms in the early 1900s. Berg and Britten wrote mad scenes for male roles.

The modern musical theatre was also influenced by the operatic mad scene, as in Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard or Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Some ballets contain similar scenes, most notably Adam's Giselle. [1]

Notable examples

Francesco Cavalli

Jean-Baptiste Lully

  • Roland, Act 4, Scene 5, "Je suis trahi! Ciel!"

George Frideric Handel

  • Orlando, "Ah! stigie larve... Vaghe pupille"
  • Hercules, "Where shall I fly?"

Johann Adolph Hasse

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Gioachino Rossini

Gaetano Donizetti

Vincenzo Bellini

  • I puritani, "O rendetemi... Qui la voce sua soave... Vien, diletto, e in ciel la luna"
  • Il pirata, "Col sorriso d'innocenza... Oh, Sole! ti vela di tenebra fonda"
  • La sonnambula, "Oh! se una volta sola... Ah! non credea mirarti... Ah! non giunge uman pensiero"

Giuseppe Verdi

Richard Wagner

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Ferenc Erkel

Ambroise Thomas

  • Hamlet, "Partagez-vous mes fleurs"

Modest Mussorgsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Richard Strauss

Arnold Schoenberg

Max von Schillings

Alban Berg

  • Wozzeck, Act 1, Scene 2, "Du [Andres], der Platz ist verflucht!" [a]
  • Wozzeck, Act 3, Scene 4, "Das Messer! Wo ist das Messer?" [b]
  • Lulu, Act 2, Scene 1, "Du Kreatur, die mich durch den Strassenkot zum Martertode schleift!" (Dr. Schön's five-strophe aria)

Sergei Prokofiev

Benjamin Britten

Igor Stravinsky

Francis Poulenc

Hans Werner Henze

Peter Maxwell Davies

Leonard Bernstein

  • Mass, XVI. Fraction: "Things get broken"

Dominick Argento

John Corigliano

André Previn

Daniel Catán

Comparable examples

Francesco Sacrati

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Giuseppe Verdi

Arnold Schoenberg

Giacomo Puccini

Milton Babbitt

Luciano Berio

Olga Neuwirth

Michael Finnissy

Parodies

Jacques Offenbach

  • Le pont des soupirs, "Ah! le Doge, ah! Les plombs, le canal Orfano l'Adriatique, c'est fini je suis folle"

Gilbert & Sullivan

  • Ruddigore, "Cheerily carols the lark"
  • The Grand Duke, "I have a rival! Frenzy-thrilled, I find you both together!"

Benjamin Britten

Leonard Bernstein

Notes

  1. ^ "You [Andres], this place is cursed!"
  2. ^ "The knife! Where is the knife?"

See also

References

  1. ^ a b McCarren, Felicia M. (1998). Dance Pathologies: Performance, Poetics, Medicine. Stanford University Press. pp. 106–107. ISBN  978-0-8047-3524-7.
  2. ^ a b Albright 2021, 150, 165.
  3. ^ Albright 2021, 150.

Bibliography

  • Albright, Daniel. 2021. Music's Monisms: Disarticulating Modernism, fwd. Alexander Rehding. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN  978-0-226-79136-4 (ebk). ISBN  978-0-226-79122-7 (hbk). doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226791364.001.0001.
  • Anderson, James (1993) The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta, New York
  • Arias, Enrique. 1999. "Reflections from a Cracked Mirror: Madness in Music and Theory of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries—An Overview". In A Compendium of American Musicology: Essays in Honor of John F. Ohl, eds. Enrique Arias, Susan M. Filler, William V. Porter, and Jeffrey Wasson, 133–154. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN  978-0-8101-1536-1 (hbk).
  • Ewen, David (1963) Encyclopedia of the Opera, New York
  • The Top 10 Mad Scenes in Opera WQXR Operavore retrieved 13-08-13
  • Любимов, Д.В. Осторожно, сумасшествие! // Оpera musicologica. 2021. Т. 13. № 4. С. 172–178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26156/OM.2021.13.4.008.
  • Любимов, Д.В., Кром, А.Е. «Сцена безумия» в опере: проблемы дефиниции // Музыкальный журнал Европейского Севера. 2022. № 2 (30). С. 60–74. URL: http://muznord.ru/images/issue/30/30_Lubimov_Krom.pdf
  • Любимов, Д.В. Лючия и Марфа: безумные невесты в оперном театре XIX века // Opera musicologica. 2022. Т. 14, № 3. С. 30–45. DOI 10.26156/OM.2022.14.3.002.
  • Любимов, Д.В. Феномен безумия в европейской опере и его научное осмысление: к проблеме периодизации // Музыкальная академия. 2022. № 4. С. 180–195. DOI: 10.34690/278.
  • Любимов, Д.В.Лючия и Жизель: безумные героини в музыкальном театре XIX века. DOI 10.24412/2658-7858-2023-33-61-69 // Музыка в системе культуры: Научный вестник Уральской консерватории.–2023.–Вып. 33.–С. 61–69.
  • Любимов, Д.В. Сюжетный мотив безумия в театральном творчестве А.Е.Варламова // Вестник Саратовской консерватории. Вопросы искусствознания. 2023. №4 (22). С. 65-72. URL: https://sarcons.ru/image/publikacii/vestnik_sgk/%D0%92%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%20%D0%A1%D0%93%D0%9A.2023%20%E2%84%964(22).pdf
  • Любимов, Д. В. Уберто и Мельник: безумные отцы в оперном театре XIX века // Опера в музыкальном театре: история и современность. Тезисы VI Международной научной конференции, 11–15 марта 2024 г. / ред.-сост. Н.В. Пилипенко, под ред. И.П. Сусидко, Н.В. Пилипенко, А.И. Масловой / Российская академия музыки имени Гнесиных. — М.: Издательство «Российская академия музыки имени Гнесиных», 2024. - С. 120-121. URL: https://gnesin-academy.ru/upload/iblock/8c7/45titr0z13o7jvzvuuwjnvtpr2gm2xcp/AbstractsBook_Conf_Opera_2024.pdf
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