PERFORMING AFFECT IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY OPERA: PROCESS, RECEPTION, TRANSGRESSION

Abstract

It was not only Athanasius Kircher who, in his Musurgia universalis of 1650, raised the question of whether, why, and in way music has the power to move the human soul (Kircher 1650 [Volume 1]: 549).1 The discussion about the musical and theatrical representation of affect, as well as its transference to the listener was the central theme of the newly emerging performance genre around 1600: opera. The first reflections on the new style of composing have proved in hindsight to be formulations of an explicit theory of reception, which accompany the history of opera to this day. Inasmuch as the transfer of affect occurs as a process between performers and perceiving listeners/spectators, it pertains to the paradigmatic moments of opera's performative dimension.In the following, I would like to shed light on this performative core of opera from two directions. To begin with, from an historical perspective, from which I would like to reconstruct the supposed mechanisms for the transfer of affect and the transgression of these rules, focusing on seventeenth-century physiological and anatomical knowledge. Secondly, by means of two examples from recent productions (Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, staged by Klaus Michael Gruber, conducted by Marc Minkowski, in Aix-enProvence 1999; and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, staged by Sasha Waltz, conducted by Attilio Cremonesi, in Berlin 2005), I would like to attempt to identify the causes as to why, at present, an increased interest in the performance of the affect-oriented music of the seventeenth century can be observed.Now to proceed with the particular theories of reception and affect in music theatre at the turn of the seventeenth century; which is to say, let us regard the theory of the newly emerging operatic genre. Claudio Monteverdi had this to say about music and affect:I know that it is the contradictions (of affects), which greatly move our soul- good music must have the goal of moving the soul. (Monteverdi 1638)2The Jesuit priest, polymath, and authority on and above all things relating to affect, Athanasius Kircher, similarly formulated his view in 1650 in his Musurgia Universalis, specifying his interest as to whether, why, and in way music has the power to move the human soul (quoted in Scharlau 1969: 549).3 In the phrases uad animos hominum commouendos or movere Vanimo nostro, a crucial change manifests itself in the concept of musical aesthetics from that of the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Music is no longer only about representing affect in the sense of demonstratio, iirepraesentatio, or significado (demonstration, representation, signification) (Dammann 1995: 221, 225). In lieu of exprimere (expression) {ibid. : 227), there is excitement (excitare in Kircher, quoted in Scharlau 1969: 218), the stimulation of affect in the listener and spectator. Music intends to put people off balance, to put them beside themselves (Kircher 1650 [Volume 2]: 202).4 Athanasius Kircher reports incidents of very successful audience responses in this respect in Rome's music theatre scene: what theatrical music today in Rome has in terms of miraculous effects / is indescribable: the movement is often so great and severe / that the stentorially begin to scream / sigh / weep / particularly in casibus tragicis [...] (Kircher ibid. : 546).5 He further writes that the auditors could often not control themselves (contineri nescij), breaking out into screams (clamores), wails (gemitus), sighs (suspiria), and tears (lachrymas). He observes bodies erupting into strange movements (exoticos corporum motus erumpentes) and inner stimulation (interiorum affectuum) displaying external signs (lisignis extrinsecis, Kircher 1650 (Volume 1): 546).Federico Follino, artistic director of the 1608 festivities in Mantua, reports something very similar on the occasion of Francesco Gonzaga's marriage with Margaret of Savoy, for which Monteverdi composed his opera Arianna which has been lost to us except for one piece:The Lament was performed with so much affect and in such pitiable fashion that each listener found his heart softened and each lady spilled tears at Arianna's beautiful lamentation. …