Artigos sobre coro e wagner

 1- THE CHORUS AS A DRAMATIC FORCE IN WAGNER'S OPERAS
YUNN - SHAN MA
The Choral Journal
Vol. 60, No. 11 (June & July 2020), pp. 20-33

- Chorus master at the theater in Würzburg during his early career.

- Wagner’s aim was not to completely exclude “group vocal singing,” but rather the traditional commenting feature of the “chorus” de- rived from Greek drama. p. 22
- double-choir style


- Wagner’s choral technique is unique: he preferred to arrange in multi-chorus style and to predominanty use Männerchöre (men’s chorus).
By highlighting the individualities of the grouped singers, Wagner created what is likely the most complex vocal ensemble passages in opera up to that time.p.22

- In fact, Wagner’s music dramas post-1852 all include choruses or passages in which several characters sing together chorally.7 It seems highly unlikely that Wag- ner’s ideal music drama should exclude choruses entirely. p. 22      

 - In other words, the choruses may exist if the characters forming the choir are mandatory to the plot and their narrative is crucial to delivering the action of the story. 23

-  Wagner objected to choruses that focused on individual characters who were subsidiary to the main drama,12 and he determined that such choruses should be eliminated if their sole purposes was to harmonize the melodies of the main characters, or if they merely strengthened the identification of dramatic scenes. 23
- or Wagner, every role in the drama— even several characters forming a chorus—needed to contribute to the plot and the meaning of the story 23
- The only “chorus” in the Ring cycle is created by the men and women of the Gibichung tribe, occurring in the latter half of Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods, 1876). 23
- Thus, the Rhinemaidens are treated both as three individuals and as one set of characters with the same nature—the small ensemble who narrates the story together. 24.
- Wagner’s execution of choral writing in Parsifal, together with the choral moments in his earlier operas, shows his preference for composing voices in cori spezzati (split choirs), which are choirs separated by physical space. 27

- Here, Wagner demonstrates his ability to compose theatrical music with a clear understanding of stage direction: the three-dimensional space of the stage allows a stage director to have different ideas on how to place the singers/actors of the choir in the scene. Cori spezzati was most notably used by Renaissance and Baroque composers in Venice, who adapted music to the architectural features of St. Mark’s Basilica. As a master of music drama, it is reasonable to assume that Wagner was fascinated by this compositional style, which naturally creates a stereo sound effect. Placing the unseen voices to sound from different heights in the temple, perhaps symbolizing angels or saints, Wagner transformed the theater into a convincing representation of a sanctuary. 30
- Another prominent feature in the choruses of Wagner’s music dramas is the use of separate men’s and women’s ensembles. The proportion of passages with full SATB choruses is relatively small. Adding to this, Wagner uses more grouped male voices than female. 30
- Most of Wagner’s music dramas make more use of the tradition of the German Männerchor, an ensemble that was popular in the nineteenth century. 30

- The ensembles and choruses in Wagner’s music dramas after 1852, including the Ring cycle, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal, may be regarded as the composer’s only legitimate choral moments, approved by Wagner himself. Wagner not only entrusted each singing role with the most difficult and independent parts, but also grouped and placed these roles in a three-dimensional stage design to heighten the theatrical impact of his Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art, a complete integration of music and drama). Wagner’s output does not include extensive passages exclusively for choirs, but the passages he did produce clearly illustrate his intentions when including voices in his stage works. They stand as examples of Wagner’s belief that the chorus must be a dramatic force in an opera.

2- Ryan Minor, “Wagner’s Last Chorus: Consecrating Space and Spectatorship in Parsifal”, Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March, 2005),

3- Laurence Dreyfus Dreyfus, Laurence, 'Sunk in the ‘Mystic Abyss’: The ‘Choral’ Orchestra in Wagner’s Music Dramas'. In Joshua Billings, Felix Budelmann, e Fiona Macintosh (eds). Choruses, Ancient and Modern. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 225- 242, 2013.

Why anyone in the nineteenth century bothered to ask about Wagner and the Greeks is not entirely obvious. p.     226.

Wagner’s appreciation of the Hellenist chorus proves an interesting case, precisely because it has nothing to do with German völkisch superiority, but everything to do with the composer’s mature theories of music and drama. The Greek choral ideal in Wagner’s writings, as I shall try to show, has been less than precisely understood, and gave rise to one of the most exciting developments in the history of opera. For, in enthusing over the Aeschylean chorus, Wagner was able to change the face of opera, thereby reconfiguring fundamental issues relating to music and drama.

The stage chorus had featured in opera from its beginnings in the seventeenth century, and Wagner was prolific in deploying large choral forces in early works such as Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi in which he aped all the conventions of contemporary Franco-Italian works. By the end of the 1840s, though, he became increasingly scathing about opera’s inadequacies and started to work out a more unified poetic conception of a staged and sung drama indebted to a choral ideal invoking Antiquity. From his new critical perspective, the stage chorus was an index of opera’s dramatic inadequacy. How to rethink the Greek chorus was a theme on which he expended considerable effort, though the solution was not immediately clear. p. 227

A apreciação de Wagner pelo coro helênico é um caso interessante, justamente porque não tem nada a ver com a superioridade völkisch alemã, mas tudo a ver com as teorias maduras do compositor sobre música e drama. O ideal coral grego nos escritos de Wagner, como tentarei mostrar, não foi compreendido com precisão e deu origem a um dos desenvolvimentos mais emocionantes da história da ópera. Pois, ao entusiasmar-se com o coro de Ésquilo, Wagner foi capaz de mudar a face da ópera, reconfigurando assim questões fundamentais relativas à música e ao drama.

O coro de palco apareceu na ópera desde o início no século XVII, e Wagner foi prolífico em implantar grandes forças corais em obras iniciais como Das Liebesverbot e Rienzi, nas quais imitou todas as convenções das obras franco-italianas contemporâneas. No final da década de 1840, porém, ele tornou-se cada vez mais severo com as inadequações da ópera e começou a elaborar uma concepção poética mais unificada de um drama encenado e cantado em dívida com um ideal coral invocando a Antiguidade. De sua nova perspectiva crítica, o coro de palco era um índice da inadequação dramática da ópera. Como repensar o coro grego foi um tema sobre o qual ele despendeu um esforço considerável, embora a solução não fosse imediatamente clara. 

Wagner’s view of the Greek chorus was even more idealized and abstract than Schiller’s, and it was this ability to engage with a distant apparition that helped him diagnose what was wrong with modern opera. 228

A visão de Wagner sobre o coro grego era ainda mais idealizada e abstrata do que a de Schiller, e foi essa capacidade de se envolver com uma aparição distante que o ajudou a diagnosticar o que havia de errado com a ópera moderna.

While there could be no question of reviving the Greek chorus in an unmediated form, Wagner’s new dramatic theory cast the modern Beethovenian orchestra in the role of the chorus. With the chorus transposed into the orchestra pit and its voice admirably suited to expressing a collective sentiment, there was not much need for an actual chorus of persons on stage. 228

Embora não pudesse haver a possibilidade de reviver o coro grego de forma não mediada, a nova teoria dramática de Wagner colocou a moderna orquestra beethoveniana no papel do coro. Com o coro transposto para o fosso da orquestra e sua voz admiravelmente adequada para expressar um sentimento coletivo, não havia muita necessidade de um coro real de pessoas no palco.

The point is that Wagner allows a return to the stage chorus only after he is able to transmutate its ideal Greek function into the instrumental orchestra. One could equally assert that the stage chorus no longer posed an aesthetic threat but became a place to experiment further with new dramaturgical impulses.229

A questão é que Wagner só permite um retorno ao coro de palco depois de conseguir transmutar sua função grega ideal para a orquestra instrumental. Pode-se igualmente afirmar que o coro de palco não mais representava uma ameaça estética, mas tornou-se um lugar para experimentar novos impulsos dramatúrgicos.

a vision of music that transfixes the listener by an oracular communication. 233

Like the ancient chorus, the modern orchestra was uniquely placed to voice the ‘unutterable’, both by ‘instrumental motives’ or ‘melodic moments’ in their foreshadowing and recollection of the experience underlying events, but also in the embodiment of choral gesture, which disclosed the sense and emotive framework behind actions. 235

Como o coro antigo, a orquestra moderna foi colocada de maneira única para dar voz ao 'indizível', tanto por 'motivos instrumentais' ou 'momentos melódicos' em seu prenúncio e lembrança da experiência subjacente aos eventos, mas também na personificação do gesto coral, que revelou o sentido e a estrutura emotiva por trás das ações.

Like Schiller, Wagner splits the ancient chorus into two, though with a radically different division of labour. The chorus’s dramatic agency is invested in individual protagonists seen onstage, while its signifying affects and danced gestures are hidden from view in the mystic abyss. The singing actors maintain their relationship with the new orchestral chorus, but no longer turn their back to the chorus to put into practice the oracular pronouncements now heard in the orchestra. 235

Como Schiller, Wagner divide o coro antigo em dois, embora com uma divisão de trabalho radicalmente diferente. A agência dramática do coro é investida em protagonistas individuais vistos no palco, enquanto seus afetos significativos e gestos dançados são escondidos no abismo místico. Os atores cantores mantêm sua relação com o novo coro orquestral, mas não mais voltam as costas para o coro para colocar em prática os pronunciamentos oraculares agora ouvidos na orquestra. 

The new Wagnerian choral orchestra shuns extraneous spectacle and superfluous ‘interludes’, but is a vehicle for striking metaphors, tragic allegories, and deciphering gestures expressed in surging flows and hyper-rhythmic swirls. The orchestra’s ‘melodic moments’ are fundamentally ‘guides to feeling’ (Gefühlswegweiser), music that also supports words sung onstage ‘according to its illustrative capacity’ (nach seinem verdeutlichenden Vermögen).39 At least that was the plan. A tall order to be sure.

Wagner was imprudent enough to outline his new compositional practice long before he wrote a note of music for the Ring, and it has become customary to call him harshly to account, showing how his subsequent practice departs dramatically from his theory. 237

A nova orquestra coral wagneriana evita espetáculos estranhos e ‘interlúdios’ supérfluos, mas é um veículo para metáforas impressionantes, alegorias trágicas e gestos decifrados expressos em fluxos crescentes e redemoinhos hiper-rítmicos. Os “momentos melódicos” da orquestra são fundamentalmente “guias para o sentimento” (Gefühlswegweiser), música que também suporta palavras cantadas no palco “de acordo com sua capacidade ilustrativa” (nach seinem verdeutlichenden Vermögen).39 Pelo menos esse era o plano. Uma tarefa difícil para ter certeza.

Wagner foi imprudente o suficiente para delinear sua nova prática composicional muito antes de escrever uma nota musical para o Anel, e tornou-se costume chamá-lo duramente para prestar contas, mostrando como sua prática subseqüente se afasta dramaticamente de sua teoria.

Wagner aims to speak, as does Aeschylus, ‘like a priest in the midst of a community’, and he marshals his orchestral forces as Aeschylus deployed his chorus. One may disparage Wagner’s temple and dismiss the devotion of the assembled congregants, but what is undeniable is a reclamation of Athenian tragedy in a remarkably original form.242

Wagner pretende falar, assim como Ésquilo, “como um pregador no meio de uma comunidade”, e comanda suas forças orquestrais enquanto Ésquilo desdobra seu coro. Pode-se menosprezar o templo de Wagner e descartar a devoção dos fiéis reunidos, mas o que é inegável é uma recuperação da tragédia ateniense de uma forma notavelmente original.