Patrick Bade
Viennese Operetta, Part 1
Summary
Patrick Bade discusses the operatta’s that came out of Vienna from 1870 to 1920 and explains why the lines are so blurred between operetta, grand opera, opera comic, musical comedy, and musicals. Part 1 of 2.
Patrick Bade
Patrick Bade is a historian, writer, and broadcaster. He studied at UCL and the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was a senior lecturer at Christie’s Education for many years and has worked for the Art Fund, Royal Opera House, National Gallery, and V&A. He has published on 19th- and early 20th-century paintings and historical vocal recordings. His latest book is Music Wars: 1937–1945.
Well, there isn’t really and you know, there are certain pieces that are really on the borderline, I mean, even Fledermaus, which is regularly done by opera singers in opera houses. But by and large, of course opera is much more serious, and operetta is more lighthearted, and usually operetta incorporates spoken dialogue, but not always. Actually, there are really no very hard and fast rules.
Well, do you know, it’s interesting, at the time, Offenbach demands very, very high vocal skills, I mean, there are trills all over the place, coloratura and so on, but also nobody I think ever said that Hortense Schneider was a great singer in an operatic sense. Operetta singers had… It was more important that they could put across the text, so they tended to be singing actors, rather than trained opera singers, but Die Fledermaus for instance, it was in Covent Garden in 1930 with the greatest opera singers of the period, Lotte Lehmann, and Elizabeth Schuman.