Introduction
An Election I: The Election Entertainment - William Hogarth - 1754-55
Music and food have always had a relationship. Eating and music are often done together. In restaurants music and eating are both considered entertainment. Interesting to note that singing and eating are both things performed with the mouth.
Greek feasting was always accompanied by music. The Romans also played music at banquets.
Banqueter and musician, detail. Tondo from an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490 BC. Found in Vulci.
“The final component of the banquet was its entertainment, which was designed to delight both the eye and ear. Musical performances often involved the flute, the water organ, and the lyre, as well as choral works. Active forms of entertainment could include troupes of acrobats, dancing girls, gladiatorial fights, mime, pantomime, and even trained animals, such as lions and leopards. There were also more reserved options, such as recitations of poetry (particularly the new Roman epic, Virgil’s Aeneid), histories, and dramatic performances. Even the staff and slaves of the house were incorporated into the entertainment: singing cooks performed as they served guests, while young, attractive, and well-groomed male wine waiters provided an additional form of visual distraction. In sum, the Roman banquet was not merely a meal but rather a calculated spectacle of display that was intended to demonstrate the host’s wealth, status, and sophistication to his guests, preferably outdoing at the same time the lavish banquets of his elite friends and colleagues.” - Katharine Raff Department of Greek and Roman Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
By the mid 16th century Germany developed music and vocal compositions for feasts.
Examples
Bancetto musicale from 1617 by Johann Hermann Schein. This is 20 suites for string quintet and continuo, 2 violins, 2 violas, cello and bass, and piano.
In France there was Michael Richard Delalande - Pour les Souper du Rey. Delalande was the leading composer of sacred music in France in the 18th century and one of Louis XIV favorites.
Best known might be Georg Philipp Telemann’ s Tafelmusik, a term used since the mid-16th century for music played at feasts and banquets.
Hauskappelen like Haydn played for feasts for the Esterhazy princes at the Esterhazy palace in Eisenstadt, but as music became considered artistic rather than background in the 18th and 19th century music to accompany food waned.
The Haydn Concert Hall In the Esterhazy Palace, Eisenstadt
As restaurants and cafes arose in the 19th century string orchestras like J. Strauss Sr. performed at the Sperl Cafe in Leopoldstadt. It was said, " a more unintellectual, eating and drinking, dancing and music-loving people do not exist than the good people of Vienna. As long as they can eat gebackene Hendel at the Sperl, or dance in the Augarten, and listen to the immortal Strauss as he stamps and fiddles before the best waltz band in Europe" - https://josephjoachim.com/2013/06/17/vienna/
A Tribute To Vienna With The Philharmonics
Johann Strauss Waltzes arranged by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern
In the famous Café Sperl in Vienna, the musicians of The Philharmonics give visitors a concert in the colours of the traditional Vienna, with the rhythm of the waltzes composed by Johann Strauss II, arranged by three famous Viennese composers: Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.
Tosca Act II: Scarpia’s dinner
Ruggero Raimondi, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu in a film by Benoit Jacquot, 2001, conductor: Antonio Pappano
In opera and drama the aesthetic of 'no presence' often prevailed. Eating was referred to in the plot but was offstage. However, as opera tells stories of real life, there are also many operas that have scenes where food is eaten, but more where it is referred to, or offstage eating is announced. Examples of this can be seen in the following, though certainly not complete, list: Nixon in China, Damnation of Faust, Albert Herring, Elixir of Love, Sorcerer, The Wandering Scholar, The long Christmas dinner, Don Giovanni, La Rondine, La Boheme, Tosca, Mozart and Salieri, L'Italiana in Algeri, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Capriccio, Rosenkavalier, Ivanhoe, Macbeth, Rigoletto, Falstaff, La Traviata, Three Penny Opera, and Il Tabarro.
The posts that you will find here are about the location and meals in these and other operas. Hopefully, they will be another way in which you can immerse yourself in their world and story, understand the characters better by the relationship to the food they are eating, and also, through the recipes these posts contain, participate at home in the creating meals and events that celebrate all that is opera.
La cena è pronta
La Traviata, Act 2, Scene 2 - Giuseppe Verdi