Stormy Weather

Abstract

Operatic Formenlehre seems to be alive and well—witness the wealth of publications on the solita forma (after Ritorni, Basevi, and Powers) and on concerto-like sonata forms in Mozart arias as early as the 1768 La finta semplice (after Mann and Rosen). But even standard operatic forms have often been thwarted—throughout opera’s long history—by dramatic exigencies. The purpose of this chapter is to explore and define subcategories of deformations in operatic storm scenes by identifying formal types along the continuum between closed operatic numbers and continuous, fragmentary musical flow. Formal (and deformational) categories are examined here in light of the topos of storm scenes from operatic selections of the Baroque, Galant, and Romantic periods, and avoiding the more traditional loci of continuous music, such as act finales.