Many people are surprised that the legendary musical virtuoso Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) never wrote an opera during his lifetime. But why didn’t he?
Why didn’t Bach write an opera?
It’s a mystery why one of the greatest composers of all time, celebrated for his musical prowess and masterpieces aplenty, has not a single operatic composition in all of his career.
Bach was a highly respected organist, harpsichordist, and prominent composer of the Baroque era. He possessed artistic mastery in harmonic complexity and created magnificent pieces in almost every genre.
His long compositions include cantatas, chorales, instrumental sonatas, concertos, fugues, and many more. And yet, no opera. What could have possibly stopped him from writing one?
No time?
Indeed, Bach was known to be a very busy man— some would say even a “workaholic.” However, his whole career was devoted to music, making it hard to picture Bach having no time to write an opera.
Having created a whopping 1,128 pieces in his 65 years, it’s safe to assume that music was his life’s passion. Bach even found the time to write a delightful cantata about coffee while at his tenure in Leipzig titled Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (literally meaning “be still, stop chattering”), which can be described essentially as a “miniature comic opera.”
Bach wrote music across many genres for royalty, religious services, and events, and even at a time, taught music. However, if he had truly wanted to write an opera, he probably would have made the time to do so.
Not talented enough?
As they say, an opera is a composer’s ultimate challenge. A lot of talent and technical skills are needed to write an opera, not to mention certain elements. As shown in his other works, Bach was nowhere near lacking in the talent department.
His sacred oratorio, Matthäus-Passion (St. Matthew Passion), is just one of his creations proving his capacity to write an opera. The piece is a musical masterpiece portraying the last days of Jesus Christ with an almost operatic quality.
In this work, you’ll see Bach’s dramatic choral writing and impactful storytelling blended well with his use of double choruses and orchestras, not to mention the stunningly beautiful arias. Despite not writing an opera, his liturgical music and passions use operatic techniques.
Is it because his fellow Baroque composers didn’t write operas?
It might have been that Bach never got into operas because his contemporaries weren’t diving into them either. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Instead, his peers Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, and Georg Philipp Telemann all dabbled in writing operas.
Handel, who Bach respected in the music scene as well as a fellow master of the keyboard, made his debut as an opera composer. Handel composed close to 50 operas during his lifetime. Meanwhile, Telemann, a good friend of Bach, composed his first opera at age 12 and continued to write more.
While Bach admired Vivaldi’s work and borrowed themes to use in his compositions, he did not follow Vivaldi’s footsteps in writing operas.
Because of his ideologies?
Bach’s Lutheran upbringing helped shape his ideologies, and his religious convictions may be why he did not pursue writing an opera. On the other hand, while we cannot be entirely sure, it could be that Bach was too conservative to stray away from sacred music, mainly since the world of opera and theater deals with elegant themes and opera singers supposedly lead licentious lifestyles.
Regarding his affinity for liturgical compositions, Bach wrote many church cantatas and other religious masterworks, such as the famous Mass in B minor. During his time at the St. Thomas Church, he wrote music weekly for the Sunday services, thus the abundance of cantatas.
A question with no answer
Ultimately, there is no definitive answer as to why Bach never wrote an opera. Perhaps, since he was asked to compose cantatas, that’s all he did. Or maybe he didn’t feel like writing one.
Nevertheless, even without an operatic composition in his name, there is no denying Bach’s talent for writing music and all his magnificent masterpieces.
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