Mad scene


A mad scene 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 Fach.

History

The mad scene first appeared in seventeenth-century Venetian operas, especially those of Francesco Cavalli, most notably in L'Egisto. More notable examples were composed for opere serie or semiserie, as in those of Georg Frideric Handel. They were a popular convention of French and especially Italian opera in the early nineteenth century, becoming a bel canto 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, modernist composers revived and transformed the mad scene in expressionist operas and similar genres. Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and Alban Berg depicted madness in new and dissonant idioms in the early 1900s. Berg, Igor Stravinsky, and Benjamin Britten 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
Alessandro Stradella
Jean-Baptiste Lully
George Frideric Handel
Johann Adolph Hasse

Classical

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ferdinando Paer

Romantic

Gioachino Rossini
Gaetano Donizetti
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
Richard Wagner
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Ferenc Erkel
Ambroise Thomas
  • Hamlet, "Partagez-vous mes fleurs"
Modest Mussorgsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Since 1900

Richard Strauss
Arnold Schoenberg
Max von Schillings
Alban Berg
  • Wozzeck, Act 1, Scene 2, "Du, 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!"
Sergei Prokofiev
Benjamin Britten
Igor Stravinsky
Francis Poulenc
Hans Werner Henze
Peter Maxwell Davies
Leonard Bernstein
  • Mass, XVI. Fraction: "Things get broken"
Dominick Argento
John Corigliano
André Previn

Since 2000

Daniel Catán

Comparable examples

Francesco Sacrati
Henry Purcell
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Giuseppe Verdi
Arnold Schoenberg
Giacomo Puccini
Milton Babbitt
Luciano Berio
Olga Neuwirth
Michael Finnissy
  • Gesualdo: Libro Sesto, IV. "Quel 'no' crudel"

Parodies

Jacques OffenbachLe pont des soupirs, "Ah! le Doge, ah! Les plombs, le canal Orfano l'Adriatique, c'est fini je suis folle"
Gilbert and SullivanRuddigore, "Cheerily carols the lark"The Grand Duke, "I have a rival! Frenzy-thrilled, I find you both together!"
Benjamin BrittenA Midsummer Night's Dream, the Pyramus and Thisbe scene
Leonard BernsteinCandide, "Glitter and be gay"