Metaopera

Speranza

--

meta-opera, or, metaopera. K. Johnston, in his DPhil dissertation,
available online, on the Intermezzo,
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/.../Johnston_Keith_J_201111_PhD_...
happens to refer, interestingly, to a rather VERY interesting (I find)
author, Dällenbach.Johnston relies on Bellini, whom he quotes. And Johnston
throws in Dällenbach for good measure!

Johnston writes: "In order to clarify what is going on here, I will refer
to the literary theorist Lucien Dällenbach."

[re:
Antonio Salvi, intermezzo "Burlotto e Brunetta", Rome, della Pace, carn
1724]

"His work describes the use of the "mise-en-abyme", which he refers to as
"the mirror in the text."".
--- speculatory, etymologically.
Johnston goes on:
"Dällenbach defines the "mise-en-abyme" as
"any internal mirror that reflects
the whole of the narrative by simple,
repeated or "specious" (or paradoxical)
duplication.""
"These three types require some explanation," Johnston agrees.
""Simple duplication” is the use of a play within a play
which bears some connection to the play itself (as in Hamlet)."
--- metaopera: opera-within-opera.
"This is the type which occurs throughout most of Part II, in which

"Brunetta and Burlotto" enact a fiction within their existing fictional
frame."

Then, there's "indefinite duplication" -- (or “repeated” duplication).
This is "the recursive appearance of a play within a play which itself has
a play in it."
Finally, "aporetic duplication” -- i.e. the specious or paradoxical
duplication -- is the "third type, in which the play within the play turns out to
be, in fact, the play itself." !
As when some people go overboard and utter, "ALL opera is metaopera" (with
a slightly pretentious accent to "meta").
Johnston writes:
"Alice Bellini describes Carlo Goldoni's metatheatrical comedy La bella
verità (1762) as one of the few examples of such metatheatre in the
repertory."
Johnston then goes on to refer to the VISUAL parallel. (Since we prefer to
refer to an opera SPECTATOR, never a HEARER, or a mere AUDIENCE).
As Johnston notes:
"Alice Bellini's reference to the art of Maurits Escher helps illuminate
Dällenbach‟s concept."
"Escher's [well-known -- Speranza] "Drawing Hands" (1948) shows two hands
on paper holding pencils drawing the other hand."
"We have a theatrical [metaoperatic -- Speranza] version of that occurring
in the Part II finale duet of "Brunetta and Burlotto"".
"Two actors pretending to be characters pretend to be the actors they
actually are." (! -- echoes of Borges: "The original ended to be a bad copy, in
comparison").
Johnston:
"But whereas Escher‟s drawing shows two perfectly formed hands, our
intermezzo reveals the seams between the various layers."
"By having Burlotto become
confused and switch between characters
Salvi reveals the
various levels at which the scene is operating."
"In these instances the scene reverts to the
first type in which there is
simply one embedded performance."
Dällenbach accounts for this occurrence and suggests that the three types
of mise en abyme are “trinitary” in nature."
"The concept is not compromised by the switching back and forth between
types."
"There is yet one more level on which this scene enacts the third “aporetic
” type of mise en abyme."
The metaopera by Salvi:
"Brunetta and Burlotto are
pretending to perform a finale duet,
which, of course, they are in fact
performing."
"As we noticed above, their ability to stay in character was only partial
and so we do not have a complete example of the “aporetic” variety."
"But formally, as a finale duet, the scene which is supposed to be
embedded does enclose itself."
"It also pokes fun at its own convention by having the participants agree
verbally to perform the "da capo"."
"What is fascinating is that in the moments in which Brunetta and Burlotto
step back into their original
characters the music essentially breaks down."
"In the embedded performance -- the one in which they are pretending to
perform as themselves -- the strings hurriedly accompany the vocal line."
"But at the points mentioned above (at the ends of sections A and B when
they return to “Brunetta” and “Burlotto”) the music is stripped bare and
the continuo only lumbers along."
"This is remarkable because on the dramatic level the audience is able to
keep track of the stacked levels of fiction (at least for the most part)."
"They are aware that the characters are performing the roles of other
people."
"On the MUSICAL level, however, the audience is not able to discern a
similar stacking of levels."
"Brunetta and Burlotto do not sing with a different musical language than “
Corrado” and “Marchesina.”"
"When the actors revert back to the level of the characters of Brunetta
and Burlotto there appears to be no musical activity at all."
"This is [meant as -- Speranza] humorous because it draws attention to the
fact that Burlotto is silly enough to believe what his “Marchesina” is
saying."
"The musical action stops as the dramatic action pauses and the characters
step out of character."
"But it is ironic that when they sing as themselves (as Corrado and
Marchesina) they sing an aria, but when they sing as their characters they sing
in something more closely resembling recitative."
"The further away they get from actual speech, the closer they get to
being themselves."
"Corrado and Marchesina -- the performers -- therefore appear to be as
much a performance as the characters they perform on the stage."
"Returning to Abel‟s dictum, the world is a stage and their lives as
performers are a dream."
"The music, in this capacity, does frame our perception of the scene."
"It helps clarify the various metatheatrical levels that we pass through
in the course of their duet."
"Though the music is not overly sophisticated, it nevertheless assists the
libretto in its complex treatment of several levels of fiction." [Much
more of interest in Johnston's preceding and following sequences to that --
but I just felt like illustrating his reference to Dällenbach].

References:

Lucien Dällenbach,
"The Mirror in the Text",
translated by Jeremy Whiteley with Emma Hughes (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1989), p. 35.

Alice Bellini, “Aspects of Metatheatre in Eighteenth-Century Italian Opera,
” p. 114.