Comparing Theater Genres: Tragedy and Sung-Through

The first piece of theatre I will be discussing is Hamilton, which premiered on Broadway during early 2015. It follows the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton but brings a modern twist of rap and hip-hop styles throughout. The entire musical is comprised of songs and sung dialogue with occasionally spoken exchange between characters in between musical numbers hence suiting it most to the ‘sung-through’ genre. This genre evolved from the traditional opera which is a musical where the story is portrayed through song and there is no spoken dialogue, it is only sung.

However, there is a stigma attached to the ‘classic opera’ nowadays which deters modern audiences from sitting through a few hours of sung foreign language. Opera was born in Italy over 400 years ago during the Renaissance. ‘Dafne’ by Jacopo Peri was understood to be the earliest opera ever written (1598), however the score has been lost since composition. It was written after a group of Florentine intellectuals called the Camerata decided to recreate a form of Greek drama, which they, wrongly, believed was sung-through. The original operatic performances were written, not with the intention of telling a story, but on expressing an emotion or experience through mythological allegory. They had a prerequisite of monody, which is a solo vocal style which is distinguished using an instrumental accompaniment under a melodic line. They consisted of two types of song: aria and recitative. Aria is defined as a long song that accompanies a solo voice where the singer expresses his or her feelings and had more musical interest than the recitative. The recitative is a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflection of speech and would have been used during the dialogue and narrative in an opera. In Hamilton, examples of some arias are in Eliza’s solo ‘Burn’ where she sings about the devastation she feels after it is uncovered that her husband was unfaithful to her and also in ‘What Comes Next? ’, one of the solos of the English King, George III, where he expresses his emotions following the song where the British surrender at the Battle of Yorktown and end the American Revolutionary War.

The first opera for which the musical score has survived is called ‘Eurydice’ and was performed at the wedding of Henry IV of France in 1600. It recounted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and therefore attracted Claudio Monteverdi because Orpheus – the demi-god of music- was extremely popular. Monteverdi was very keen on having a strong relationship between the music and the words. His operas included large orchestras, numerous choruses influenced by the manner of Greek tragedy, and recitatives to make it livelier than any pre-existing operas. Opera soon spread throughout Italy and developed vastly in Rome. They became very dramatic and the idea of fixing the lines of the recitative, rather than having them flow freely as our speech does, soon became popular for operas being performed. A revolution in opera came when it reached Venice and here, an opera house opened. Opera was no longer aimed at the rich aristocrats and was affordable for the commercial world. Many opera houses opened all over the city following the popularity of the first and thrived during the carnival seasons. In order to save money, small orchestras were employed, and the largest part of the budgets were spent on the main attractions: the castrato and the leading lady. The theme of history continued to be consistent even with the venetian operas which drew on Roman history or legends about Troy. A contrast to earlier operas was that instead of consisting of five acts, they consisted of three. Opera spread abroad to Warsaw in 1628 where it became very popular and to France in the 1640’s where the reaction wasn’t quite the same.

The French much preferred the ballets that were inserted in between acts. In the 18th century, opera took a more serious turn and a new form called ‘opera seria’ was born. It dominated in Italy and most of Europe. Life in Italy during this period was heavily influenced by poetic and aesthetic ideas by the members of ‘Accademia dell’Arcadia’. The changes that this new influence brought about were a simplification of the plot, the removal of comedic elements and a reduction in the number of arias. Another form of opera was introduced during the 1700’s and this was ‘opera buffa’. It was a much more comedic genre and was born in Naples then soon spread throughout Italy. The two new types were distinguished in several different ways. Buffa differed from seria by characteristics such as; music following the changes in the drama to emphasise the words, singers being chosen who could also perform the drama convincingly, a more minimalistic approach to the set and a reduced cast size. Comic opera owed its success in the second half of the 18th century to a partnership between the playwright Carlo Goldoni and the composer Baldassare Galuppi. They made significant changes such as including serious figures as opposed to exaggerated misrepresentations of characters and introduced plots dealing with political matters. Goldoni also collaborated with Niccolo Piccinni to create another genre within opera called ‘opera semiseria’ which had two comic characters, two nobles and two ‘in between’ characters.

Opera seria wasn’t entirely successful, it had weaknesses. Christoph Willibald Gluck advocated that it had to return to basics and that all the art forms involved (singing, staging and dancing) should not be too overpowering to the drama. Gluck composed an opera called ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ in 1762 which complied to all the suggestions he had made for the future. The next development was during the romantic period where the French revolution had a huge impact. New operas that extolled the idea of liberty became popular although mythological ideas continued to be explored in Russia. Three writers – Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini – composed scores that were praised for highlighting the expressive power of the human voice in what is now known as the ‘bel canto’ singing style (meaning beautiful singing). By the end of this century, opera had become the perfect combination of the arts. Yet, opera began to falter in Italy and France during the 1900’s. Britain was the only place where opera was still proving triumphant. Peter Grimes written in 1945 marked the inauguration of another major career which indirectly spurred on more composers to go in a more contemporary direction. Contemporary opera began in the US where, following the events in China in 1987, there was an emergence of CNN opera which was based on recent historical events. Examples of this type of opera include The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) and Dr Atomic (2005). It is often difficult to distinguish the differences between an opera and a sung-through’ genre musical. The best way to explain this is that a musical in the ‘sung-through’ genre involves some spoken dialogue.

For example, in Hamilton this can be seen during ‘Laurens Interlude’ where Laurens and Hamilton sing to each other and Eliza reads a letter aloud to her husband. The sung-through genre evolved from opera towards the middle-end and was pioneered by Andrew Lloyd Webber with Jesus Christ Superstar written in 1970. This musical began as a rock opera concept album before its Broadway debut in 1971. Webber popularised the genre with Evita and Cats. Shows such as Les mis which premiered in 1980 followed the direction of Webber and modern day shows such as Hamilton still promote the sung-through genre. These shows are proving to be very popular as three of the top ten longest running west end shows are sung through. These are: Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables. The next piece of theatre I will be discussing is Macbeth written by William Shakespeare. Macbeth is an example of tragedy, Elizabethan tragedy to be exact. A tragedy can be defined as a play which deals with tragic events and has an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. It must have a tragic hero who is tempted to perform a deed after encountering a fortune but then falls to their ruin as their fatal flaw overcomes them. In Macbeths’ case, it is his ambition that gets the better of him after he discovers that he is destined to be king and after committing regicide, he drives himself crazy. The origins of tragedy lie with the Greeks and the rituals that were performed during the worship of the god of theatre, Dionysus. These rituals include the sacrifice of goats whilst singing a song called trag-ódia and wearing a mask. It is thought that the name of the song, is the origin of the name of the genre. The first aspects of theatre were poems and lyrics performed in an underground cave called a theatron.

As theatre popularity grew in Greece they began to be staged at the City Dionysia festival. They would wear masks to re-enact the stories of the world around them and to help them be more easily identifiable to the audience. The Latin word for ‘mask’ is ‘persona’ and an actor aims to metaphorically put on a mask or adopt a different persona and become someone else. At the City Dionysia (a spring festival in Athens), playwrights would compete with either a piece of comedic theatre or a tragedy. It would usually be in a trilogy and each would be performed for the day before judging at the end. The winners would receive the financial backing for a rehearsal and chorus. The plots of these plays were always inspired by Greek mythology and therefore heavily linked to religion, hence why there was no violence allowed onstage, instead it happened offstage so not to anger the gods. Someone significant to the history of tragedy is Thespis. He is credited as the first actor in Greek drama, and first person to stage a tragedy at the Great Dionysia circa 534 BC. Originally tragedies had only one performer who would perform in costume and wear a mask. The first development saw them being able to interact with the leader of the chorus, a group of up to 15 people who did not speak but sang and danced. Thespis is also credited for this change. Aeschylus was the first of the great tragedian poets. He wrote the first surviving trilogy of plays called the Oresteia which followed the story of the members of the ‘House of Atreus’ family and consisted of: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and Eumenides. Other great poets include Sophocles - who added more actors to the plays and began to explore scenery- and Euripides who was known for realism in his text. Elizabethan tragedy started in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I – 1558-1603.

All throughout history, women were not allowed to act on stage and this didn’t change until after the Elizabethan Era, so the female parts would have been played by boys or men dressed as women. Some of the main differences between Greek and Elizabethan tragedies include the plot. In a Greek tragedy there would only be one main plot but in an Elizabethan, there would often be many individual plots inside a main plot. The characters also differed as in earlier tragedies there would be few characters but with greater power and a chorus, and in Elizabethan, there were a huge variety of characters and often actors would take on multiple roles in a performance. Another difference is that, whilst Greek tragedies would focus on political and religious matters, Elizabethan tragedies took many sources of inspiration and tended to mix comedy and tragedy together. An example of how this is seen in Macbeth is through the Porter, who is a character that adds some comedy to the deep mood throughout the play. He is a character added to lighten the mood and really highlights the contrast between the comedy moments and the tragic theme throughout.

The staging was different too. Tragedies such as Macbeth would have been performed in more permanent structures such as The Globe, as opposed to being performed at religious festivals and outdoors. Elizabethan tragedies didn’t make use of masks as much as the Greeks and instead utilised costumes and wigs. Some characteristics of an Elizabethan tragedy include: soliloquies, blank verse, iambic pentameter, asides and monologues. Nowadays the definition of tragedy has become less precise. George Steiner wrote ‘The Death of Tragedy’ in 1961 which outlined the characteristics of a Greek tragedy and compared that with the traditions that developed from that period. He also settled that the dramas of Shakespeare are a rejection of the absolute tragic model. He was concluding that, when compared to the Greek drama and French classicism, Shakespeare’s plays are richer, but hybrid. Despite the fact that it may appear as though these two genres are entirely different, there are in-fact some similarities. Both tragedy and opera/sung-through would have aspects of both comedy and tragedy in their works. I mentioned the significance of the Porter in Macbeth, but the evidence of this in Hamilton isn’t through the use of a character but by the lyrics in the songs. After a series of sad events, the line “can we get back to politics, please? ” is sung which lightens the sombre mood that was created.

As well as this, for an early tragedy, the actors would take on multiple roles and not only is this true for Hamilton, where some of the characters in act one play different roles for act two, it is also true for opera, whereby the men would take on the female roles. Another similarity is that the shows written in this genre are still very popular nowadays. Andrew Lloyd Webber has produced some of the longest running musicals in the west end, and most schools across England study plays by Shakespeare such as ‘Macbeth’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Macbeth is also regularly performed professionally. One more similarity between tragedy and opera is that both use a large member of people who, are not the main roles, but are very significant to the piece. Although called different names, the chorus and the ensemble are essentially characters/people used to support the production. The Greek chorus were used to describe and give commentary on the main action of the play through song, dance and recitation which is essentially what a modern-day ensemble would do.

In Hamilton the ensemble is in almost every number and they give a running commentary on the events happening when the characters themselves cannot tell the audience. On the other hand, these two genres can be contrasted in the fact that one has little-to-no spoken word whereas the other is made up completely of it. Not only this, women would have been the stars of the show in an opera but in drama they were not allowed to be on the stage. This did change thanks to the restoration in 1660 that allowed them to be on the English stage. The production of Macbeth that I saw was the 2013 Globe performance directed by Eve Best. The actors put on an amazing performance and they made excellent use of minimalism in both the set and the staging. The set was designed by Mike Britton. Natasha Tripney describes it as The only props used were letters and instruments such as drums which were used in the opening and were played by all the actors making this an extremely powerful moment. My favourite actor was Samantha Spiro who was playing Lady Macbeth as she put on a very convincing performance and expressed her role in Macbeth’s downfall very cleverly. Her actions were never too flamboyant, and although emphasised for the big audience, she had a clear driving force behind everything she did. The costumes made it clear to distinguish between characters as the masks would have done in earlier tragic plays. The only aspect of it I did not like was that some characters interacted with the audience for example they would run through the audience as their exit or entry to the stage.