Melodrama

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Image:Perilsofpauline.jpg

Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914).

The word "melodrama" comes from the Greek word for song (compare melody), combined with "drama". Music is used to increase the emotional response or to suggest characters. There is a tidy structure or formula to melodrama: a villain poses a threat, the hero escapes the threat (or rescues the heroine) and there is a happy ending. In melodrama there is constructed a world of heightened emotion, stock characters and a hero who rights the disturbance to the balance of good and evil in a moral universe. In recent decades the term has taken on pejorative connotations.

A melodrama in a more neutral and technical sense of the term is a play, film, or other work in which plot and action are emphasized in comparison to the more character-driven emphasis within a drama. Melodramas can be distinguished from tragedy by the fact that they are open to having a happy ending.

1 Melodrama in opera and song
2 Victorian Stage Melodrama
3 Current use
4 References
5 See also

Melodrama in opera and song

Originating in the 18th century, melodrama was a technique of using short pieces of music in contrast to, and sometimes accompanying, spoken drama. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion, with music by Horace Coignet, is generally regarded as the first example of the form. This was a monodrama. Written in 1762, this was first staged in Lyon in 1770. It was then taken up by Goethe in Weimar in 1772 with music by Anton Schweitzer. Some 30 other monodramas were produced in Germany in the fourth quarter of the 18th century.

Georg Benda developed the duodrama with his 1775 works Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea and this form of melodrama was taken up by other composers, notably Mozart in Zaide and Thamos, König in Ägypten and Carl Maria von Weber in Der Freischütz. The technique was also used in lieder and song.

By the end of the 19th century the term melodrama had nearly exclusively narrowed down to a specific genre of salon entertainment: more or less rhythmically spoken words (often poetry) - not sung, sometimes more or less enacted, at least with some dramatic structure or plot - synchronized to an accompaniment of music (usually piano). It was looked down on as a genre for authors and composers of lesser stature (probably also the reason why virtually no realisations of the genre are still remembered). This was probably also the time when the connotation of cheap overacting first became associated with the term. As a cross-over genre mixing narration and chamber music it was eclipsed nearly overnight by a single composition: Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912), where Sprechgesang was used instead of rhythmically spoken words and which took a freer and more imaginative course regarding the plot prerogative.

A few musicals and operettas contain melodramas in this sense of music played under spoken dialogue, for instance, Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore (itself a parody of melodramas in the modern sense) has a short "melodrame" (reduced to dialogue alone in many productions) in the second act[1]; Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld opens with a melodrama delivered by the chararacter of "Public Opinion"; and other pieces from operetta and musicals may be considered melodramas, such as the "Recit and Minuet"[2] in Gilbert and Sullivan's Sorcerer. In musicals, several long speeches in Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon are delivered to the accompaniment of rather beautiful, evocative music.

In a similar manner, Victorians often added "incidental music" to a pre-existing play, adding background music under the dialogue. This type of often lavish production has mostly been relegated to film (see film score) due to the cost of hiring an orchestra, though ubiquitous in film. Modern recording technology is producing a certain revival of the practice in theatre, but not on the former scale.

A particularly complete version of the older form, Sullivan's incidental music to Tennyson's The Foresters is available online[3], complete with several melodramas, for instance, No. 12 found here.[4].

The John Williams' score to Star Wars, and Korngold's score to The Adventures of Robin Hood are excellent examples of the modern usage.

Victorian Stage Melodrama

According to Michael Booth in his classic study English Melodrama the Victorian stage melodrama featured a limited number of stock characters: the hero, the villain, the heroine, an old man, an old woman, a comic man and a comic woman engaged in a sensational plot featuring themes of Love and Murder. Often the good but not very clever hero is duped by a scheming villain, who has eyes on the damsel in distress until fate intervenes at the end to ensure the triumph of good over evil.

The first English play to be called a melodrama or 'melodrame' was A Tale of Mystery (1802) by Thomas Holcroft. This was an example of the Gothic genre, a previous theatrical example of which was The Castle Spectre (1797) by Matthew Gregory Lewis. English melodrama was influenced by German Sturm und Drang drama and Parisian melodrama of the post-Revolutionary period (Booth 1991: 151). Other examples of early Gothic melodramas include The Miller and his Men (1813) by Isaac Pocock, The Woodsman's Hut ((1814) by Samuel Arnold and The Broken Sword (1816) by William Dimond. Another popular sub-genre, beginning in the 1820's, was the nautical melodrama such as The Red Rover (1829) by Edward Fitzball and Black-Eyed Susan (1829) by Jerrold. Later melodramas developed domestic and urban situations such as The Streets of London (1864) and The Corsican Brothers by Dion Boucicault; and Lost in London (1867). The villain was always the central character in melodrama and crime was a favorite theme. This included dramatisations of the murderous careers of Burke and Hare, Sweeney Todd, the murder of Maria Marten in the Red Barn and the bizarre exploits of Spring Heeled Jack. Early silent films, such as The Perils of Pauline had similar themes. Later, after silent fims were superseded by the 'talkies', stage actor Tod Slaughter, at the age of 50, transferred to the screen the Victorian melodramas in which he had played villain in his earlier theatrical career. These films, which include Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street are a unique record of a bygone art-form.

Current use

Melodrama is ubiquitous on television: it is evident, for example, in a long series of TV movies about diseases or domestic violence, or the large number of hour-long television programs about lawyers, police officers, or physicians.

Issues melodrama is a subspecies of melodrama in which current events or politics are given a dramatic treatment, hoping to use some recent crime or controversy as a vehicle to draw an emotional response from the viewer. The usual method is to involve lawyers, police officers, or physicians, who can then make speeches about the crime or controversy being dramatized. By this artifice, the dramatist seeks to engage the audience's recently refreshed sense of fear or moral disapproval, while simultaneously maintaining the posture that the drama so produced is timely and socially engaged.

Action melodrama is another subgenre of melodrama that is particularly prevalent in the action Hollywood film blockbuster. An athletic action hero is pitted against an evil villain, and through a bevy of fights, car chases, love scenes and splatter, the hero overcomes the villain and restores the balance of good in the universe. This subgenre often includes a heroine who fights then falls in love with the hero. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are examples of the stars of these action melodramatic flicks.

Informal use / Slang Casual use of the word as an adjective translates to exaggerated emotional affect or ways in expressing oneself. For example: "Don't be so melodramatic!" This has fallen into common parlance.

References

Michael Booth (1991) Theatre in the Victorian Age. Cambridge University Press.

Melodrama

Contents

Melodrama in opera and song

Victorian Stage Melodrama

Current use

References

See also