“Ancients” versus “Moderns”: the dispute between the 18th Century singing schools according to musical satire

Abstract

At the beginning of the 18th century, little more than a century after the birth of opera, critics, theorists and enthusiasts were already proclaiming its decadence. For most of these critics, the responsibility for this state of affairs fell on the singers, who would have failed to respect the content of the works to introduce, in the midst of the performance, a series of vocal ornamentations out of context with the sole purpose of showing off their habilities. This shifting of the focus from the text to the performance operated a transformation of taste in the genre. Those who remained faithful to the precepts of the past were called “ancient”, lovers of a style described as expressive, stripped down and profound, while the adherents of the new flourishing style on the rise were called “modern”. The growing popularity of opera at that time also led to the proliferation of the first musical satires and parodies of the genre, with the particularity of having been produced by their own authors and protagonists (composers, librettists and even singers) which portrayed, hidden under the veil of comedy, the backstage of opera making. The dispute between “ancient” and the “modern” is also represented in the satires, casting, with humor and vivacity, a new light on the musical practices of the first half of the 18th century.