Die italienischen Opern Ferdinando Paërs

Ferdinando Paër (1771–1839), one of the most celebrated and successful opera composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, quickly disappeared from the minds of the musical public after his death. In studies of music history his name is usually mentioned only in connection with Beethoven’s Fidelio (due to his composition of a Leonora based on the same French opéra-comique) or with Rossini’s rise and work in Paris (the two men jointly managed the Théâtre italien from 1824–1826), or else he is remembered as the composer of the Maître de chapelle, an opéra-comique which continued to be performed in Paris throughout the 19th century.

This first full-length study of Paër’s work examines his Italian operas (1792–1816). The analysis focuses on two formal elements which were of the utmost importance in the development of opera during this period but which have long been neglected by scholars: the introduction and the rondò as a particular form in the two-part aria. In the foreground of the study of Paër’s introductions are genre-specific elements (opera buffa, opera semiseria and opera seria), the exposition of a given opera’s action, and the relationship between the textual exposition and the musical introduction.

The analysis of Paër’s rondò-arias is based on the questions of how far textual structures are reflected in the musical form and to what extent we can identify Paër’s own musical solutions in the context of the existing type of rondò form. Against the background of numerous rondò arias by Paër’s contemporaries, a development is traced from the single-subject ritornello to the two-part rondò, which in its turn became the starting-point for the cantabile-cabaletta, the widespread standard form in the 19th century. A short biographical sketch completes the study.