Overtures As A Composure’s Obsession Or A Curse?

Question

There are a number of operatic overtures that have become world renown, considered classics into themselves, apart from the opera they were written for. The overtures are well-loved but the operas themselves are rarely, if ever, performed.

Case in point: Poor old Franz Von Suppe. He wrote more than 30 operas that have all pretty much sunk into oblivion. And yet several of his overtures are among the more famous classical works in the world. And even renowned composers, like Beethoven, have their overture performed regularly but not the opera itself. 

I’ve often wondered about composers like Von Suppe. Were his operas that bad? Did he spend all his musical creativity and originality on the overture first, leaving little left over for the opera? Did he simply love writing the overtures more and wrote the operas only for the money? This is a question that has been suggested of many of Rosssini’s operas, too, by the way.

Or has fate and happenstance played a great deal in what becomes famous and what doesn’t in regards to classical taste and fame?

geekchick · Accepted Answer

Unfortunately, it's mostly marketing. In the USA, audiences want to hear the "warhorse ABC" (Aida, Boheme, Carmen) and don't like to be exposed to new material. In Dallas the public practically rioted when the Symphony announced a program of 20th-century material, until they pointed out that the audience had already heard of the composers.

And unfortunately, the musical poverty of one generation gets passed on to the next, and each generation knows fewer and fewer composers and their works, until some performing musicologist blows the dust off some stuff on the back shelf in the storage room, and brings some lost gem to the public's attention. After all, that's how I got to be the world authority on Baroque French drinking songs!

rdenig_male · Answer

This is an interesting question to which I don't know the answer. I've been listening to classical music for nearly 50 years now and don't think I've heard a note of an opera or operetta by von Suppé, other than the overtures. They can't all have been that bad, can they? The problem might be one that is common with the numerous operettas of Johann Strauss - the music is great but the 'book' is dreadful - Fledermaus apart. It could also be a question of taste changing. Another couple of composers in the same genre are Lehar - what do we hear these days apart from The Merry Widow - and Kalman. Is it that the Viennese operetta tradition was taken over by, and virtually killed by, the Broadway musical? As a type another name comes to mind and that is Offenbach. Only 3 or 4 of his numerous works are ever heard. 

Another thought comes to mind and that is that most of the works have a great deal of spoken dialogue which can be tedious for non German speaking (or non French speaking in the case of Offenbach) audiences.As against this, one Englishman who has suffered a similar fate is Lionel Monckton, an Edwardian writer of light operas continuing the tradition of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Rossini is, I think a different matter. Many of his operas fell out of fashion because the voices they demanded were not there. A new generation of singers in the 20th century rediscovered these works and many of the operas have been recorded (I think particularly of the work done by Opera Rara in the UK). Also, the Rossini Festival at Pesaro has mounted many less well known works.

One final thought. Opera houses exist to make money. They need bottoms on seats and therefore continue, by and large, to mount well known works to ensure they draw the punters in.

suhwahaksaeng · Answer

I don't know about von Suppe, but the problem with "William Tell" is that it lasts too long.
I've known a couple of people who have seen or listened to "WilliamTell" and they say it's a great opera; it just takes too much patience.

At the time Rossini wrote the opera, he decided that he had catered to public taste for too long, and that everything he had written until then was junk.  This time, he was going to write something more profound.  When the audience failed to respond, Rossini retired in protest of the poor musical taste of the public.

Wagner's "Rienzi" is another such case.  Wagner got even more long-winded than usual with that one, and it created some problems.  Wagner offered to make cuts, but the tenor objected on the grounds that the music is "too heavenly."  

After the premiere performance, the audience hung around talking about how great it was.

Unfortunately, nobody today would believe that it is worth the time and effort.

Sorry, I don't know about von Suppe, and I don't know about "The Thieving Magpie."

I guess the moral of this story is, "brevity is the soul of wit."

OpernKatz · Answer

I think most of the operas that are only survived by their overture now are ones that we haven't got enough singers who can sing the opera's music (like the baroque and bel canto stuff before Callas and Horne and Sutherland came along to jump start them)...

or ones that have a problematic structure that makes them hard to stage (like Weber's Oberon or Purcell's King Arthur)...

or ones that are too costly to stage (like the French grand operas and Rossini's Guillaume Tell)...

? · Answer

I'm sure it will end she is just what's "in" after a while I'm sure she'll be a has-been but she will probably still have many fans (that is until she gets pregnant and mothers don't want their children to watch a young girl who posts disgusting pix of herself on the Internet and wears dirty clothes.) i think she has lost fans to the Jonas Brothers and some more because she is supposedly dating Nick Jonas ( don't see what they see in him.) All and all yes I do get sick of all the Miley (Hannah Montana) questions, I see more of them than Jonas Brother questions, but it is getting on my nerves. I agree with you so you get a star. And like you *I'm expressing my opinion*

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Overtures As A Composure’s Obsession Or A Curse?

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