Mad scene

A mad scene (French: ; German: ; Italian: ) is an enactment of insanity in an opera, play, or the like. It may be well contained in a number, appear during or recur throughout a more through-composed work, be deployed in a finale, form the underlying basis of the work, or constitute the entire work. They are often very dramatic, representing virtuoso pieces for singers. Some were written for specific singer, usually of a soprano .

History

The mad scene first appeared in s, especially those of Francesco Cavalli, most notably in L'Egisto (for a male ). More notable examples were composed for opere serie or semiserie, as in those of Georg Frideric Handel (e.g., Orlando, farcically in Imeneo). They were a popular convention of French and especially Italian opera in the early nineteenth century, becoming a staple. Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor is the most famous example; it was likely modeled on Vincenzo Bellini's earlier example in I puritani. Gilbert and Sullivan satirized this convention via Mad Meg in Ruddigore. As composers sought more realism (), they adapted the scene, better integrating it into the opera. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky often deployed these scenes as finales.

With the rise of psychology (and advances in psychiatry), modernist composers revived and transformed the mad scene in expressionist operas and similar genres (e.g., melodramas, monodramas). Richard Strauss (Salome and Elektra), Arnold Schoenberg (Erwartung), and Alban Berg (Wozzeck and Lulu) depicted madness in new and dissonant idioms in the early 1900s. Berg, Igor Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress), and Benjamin Britten (Peter Grimes) wrote these scenes for male roles. The latter wrote a mad scene parody in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The modern musical theatre was also influenced by the operatic mad scene, as in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard or Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Some ballets contain similar scenes, most notably Adolphe Adam's Giselle.

Selected examples

Baroque

Francesco Cavalli

Didone, Act 2
L'Egisto, Act 3
Giasone

Alessandro Stradella

Il Trespolo tutore

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Roland, Act 4, Scene 5, "Je suis trahi! Ciel!"

George Frideric Handel

Orlando, "Ah! stigie larve... Vaghe pupille"
Hercules, "Where shall I fly?"

Johann Adolph Hasse

Artaserse, "Pallido il sole"

Classical

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Idomeneo, "D'Oreste, d'Ajace"

Ferdinando Paer

Agnese

Romantic

Gioachino Rossini

Ermione, "Essa corre al trionfo"
Semiramide, "Deh! Ti ferma"

Gaetano Donizetti

Lucia di Lammermoor, "Il dolce suono... Ardon gl'incensi... Spargi d'amaro pianto", the
Linda di Chamounix, "Linda! Ah che pensato"
Maria Padilla
Torquato Tasso
Anna Bolena, "Piangete voi... Al dolce guidami... Coppia iniqua"

Vincenzo Bellini

I puritani, "O rendetemi... Qui la voce sua soave... Vien, diletto, e in ciel la luna"
Il pirata, "Col sorriso d'innocenza... Oh, Sole! ti vela di tenebra fonda"
La sonnambula, "Oh! se una volta sola... Ah! non credea mirarti... Ah! non giunge uman pensiero"

Giuseppe Verdi

Nabucco, "Chi mi toglie"
Macbeth, "Una macchia"
Attila, "Mentre gonfiarsi l'anima"

Richard Wagner

Die Feen, Act 3, "Halloh! Halloh! Lasst alle Hunde los!"
Tristan und Isolde

Giacomo Meyerbeer

L'ÃÂ©toile du nord, Act 3
Dinorah (originally Le Pardon de PloÃÂ«rmel), "Ombre lÃÂ©gÃÂ¨re"

Ferenc Erkel

BÃÂ¡nk bÃÂ¡n, Act 3, "Tudsz-e madÃÂ¡rrÃÂ³l ÃÂ©neket?"

Ambroise Thomas

Hamlet, "Partagez-vous mes fleurs"

Modest Mussorgsky

Boris Godunov, "Oi! Duschno, Duschno"

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Oprichnik, finale
Mazeppa, finale
The Enchantress, finale

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

The Tsar's Bride, "Ivan Sergeyich, khochesh' v sad poydem"

Since 1900

Richard Strauss

Salome, finale
Elektra, finale

Arnold Schoenberg

Erwartung

Max von Schillings

Mona Lisa, Act 2, "So! so! Hab' ich dich!"

Alban Berg

Wozzeck, Act 1, Scene 2, "Du [Andres], der Platz ist verflucht!"
Wozzeck, Act 3, Scene 4, "Das Messer! Wo ist das Messer?"
Lulu, Act 2, Scene 1, "Du Kreatur, die mich durch den Strassenkot zum Martertode schleift!" (Dr. SchÃÂ¶n's five-strophe aria)

Sergei Prokofiev

Semyon Kotko

Benjamin Britten

Peter Grimes, "Steady. There you are, nearly home"
Curlew River

Igor Stravinsky

The Rake's Progress

Francis Poulenc

Hans Werner Henze

Elegy for Young Lovers

Peter Maxwell Davies

Eight Songs for a Mad King

Leonard Bernstein

Mass, XVI. Fraction: "Things get broken"

Dominick Argento

Miss Havisham's Fire, finale

John Corigliano

The Ghosts of Versailles, "They are always with me"

AndrÃÂ© Previn

A Streetcar Named Desire

Since 2000

Daniel CatÃÂ¡n

' (2004), Act 3, Scene 3, "GuzmÃÂ¡n, GuzmÃÂ¡n, ayÃÂºdame" (General GarcÃÂa)

Comparable examples

Francesco Sacrati

La finta pazza, Act 2, Scene 10 (Deidamia)

Henry Purcell

"From rosy bow'rs" from The Comical History of Don Quixote, described by Edward Joseph Dent as a "mad song"

Jean-Philippe Rameau

PlatÃÂ©e, Air de la Folie

Giuseppe Verdi

La traviata, "ÃÂ strano! ... Sempre libera"

Arnold Schoenberg

Pierrot lunaire

Giacomo Puccini

Suor Angelica, arguably

Milton Babbitt

Philomel

Luciano Berio

Sequenza III

Olga Neuwirth

Lost Highway, Scene 5.4, "There's no smoking here"

Michael Finnissy

', IV. "Quel 'no' crudel"

Parodies

Jacques Offenbach

Le pont des soupirs, "Ah! le Doge, ah! Les plombs, le canal Orfano l'Adriatique, c'est fini je suis folle"

Gilbert and Sullivan

Ruddigore, "Cheerily carols the lark"
The Grand Duke, "I have a rival! Frenzy-thrilled, I find you both together!"