Mad scene

History

The mad scene first appeared in seventeenth-century Venetian operas, especially those of Francesco Cavalli, most notably in L'Egisto (for a male inamorata). 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 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 (verismo), 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 locus classicus
• 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'étoile du nord, Act 3
• Dinorah (originally Le Pardon de Ploërmel), "Ombre légère"

Ferenc Erkel

• Bánk bán, Act 3, "Tudsz-e madárról éneket?"

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 in toto

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. Schön'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

• Dialogues des Carmélites
• La voix humaine

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"

André Previn

• A Streetcar Named Desire

Since 2000

Daniel Catán

• Salsipuedes: a Tale of Love, War and Anchovies (2004), Act 3, Scene 3, "Guzmán, Guzmán, ayúdame" (General García)

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

• Platée, Air de la Folie

Giuseppe Verdi

• La traviata, "É strano! ... Sempre libera"

Arnold Schoenberg

• Pierrot lunaire

Giacomo Puccini

• Suor Angelica, arguably in toto

Milton Babbitt

• Philomel

Luciano Berio

• Sequenza III

Olga Neuwirth

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

Michael Finnissy

• Gesualdo: Libro Sesto, 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!"

Benjamin Britten

• A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Pyramus and Thisbe scene

Leonard Bernstein

• Candide, "Glitter and be gay"

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Anderson, James (1993) The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta, New York
• Ewen, David (1963) Encyclopedia of the Opera, New York
• The Top 10 Mad Scenes in Opera WQXR Operavore retrieved 13-08-13
• Любимов, Д.В. Осторожно, сумасшествие! // Оpera musicologica. 2021. Т. 13. № 4. С. 172–178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26156/OM.2021.13.4.008.
• Любимов, Д.В., Кром, А.Е. «Сцена безумия» в опере: проблемы дефиниции // Музыкальный журнал Европейского Севера. 2022. № 2 (30). С. 60–74. URL: http://muznord.ru/images/issue/30/30_Lubimov_Krom.pdf
• Любимов, Д.В. Лючия и Марфа: безумные невесты в оперном театре XIX века // Opera musicologica. 2022. Т. 14, № 3. С. 30–45. DOI 10.26156/OM.2022.14.3.002.
• Любимов, Д.В. Феномен безумия в европейской опере и его научное осмысление: к проблеме периодизации // Музыкальная академия. 2022. № 4. С. 180–195. DOI: 10.34690/278.
• Любимов, Д.В.Лючия и Жизель: безумные героини в музыкальном театре XIX века. DOI 10.24412/2658-7858-2023-33-61-69 // Музыка в системе культуры: Научный вестник Уральской консерватории.–2023.– Вып. 33.– С. 61–69.
• Любимов, Д.В. Сюжетный мотив безумия в театральном творчестве А.Е.Варламова // Вестник Саратовской консерватории. Вопросы искусствознания. 2023. №4 (22). С. 65-72. URL: https://sarcons.ru/image/publikacii/vestnik_sgk/%D0%92%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%20%D0%A1%D0%93%D0%9A.2023%20%E2%84%964(22).pdf
• Любимов, Д. В. Уберто и Мельник: безумные отцы в оперном театре XIX века // Опера в музыкальном театре: история и современность. Тезисы VI Международной научной конференции, 11–15 марта 2024 г. / ред.-сост. Н.В. Пилипенко, под ред. И.П. Сусидко, Н.В. Пилипенко, А.И. Масловой / Российская академия музыки имени Гнесиных. — М.: Издательство «Российская академия музыки имени Гнесиных», 2024. - С. 120-121. URL: https://gnesin-academy.ru/upload/iblock/8c7/45titr0z13o7jvzvuuwjnvtpr2gm2xcp/AbstractsBook_Conf_Opera_2024.pdf
• Любимов Д. В. Сцена безумия Мелинды из оперы Ф. Эркеля «Банк Бан»: преломление европейских и национальных традиций // Музыка в системе культуры: Научный вестник Уральской консерватории.–2024.– Вып. 37.– С. 6–14.

References

1. McCarren, Felicia M.. (1998). "Dance Pathologies: Performance, Poetics, Medicine". Stanford University Press.