Recitative - An Important Part Of Opera
If you attend a performance of many operas, usually those written before the later 19th century, you'll notice certain parts between the arias, duets, choruses and other ensemble passages in which the orchestra does not play and the singers are singing in a kind of non-melodic style which approximates ordinary speech. These passages are usually accompanied only by a harpsichord , cello or occaisionally other instruments.
This is what is called Recitative in operatic parlance, or recitativo in Italian (rechi-tat-teevo) . It's a kind a declamatory singing. In the opera, the action proceeds through recitative, and the arias, duets or other ensembles halt the action in order for the singer or singers to state their emotions. Recitative passages are also common in the oratorios and cantatas of such great composers as Handel, Bach, Haydn and Mozart etc.
Recitatives often precede an opera aria, or one in an oratorio. The kind with only harpsichord and cello is called dry recitative, or "Secco" in Italian, and the other type , in which the orchestra participates, is called recitativo accompagnato, or accompanied recitative.
The supertitles used in opera houses are very helpful because you can understand what the singers are singing about; without this aid, recitatives can be awfully boring. On CD, most operas come with an English translation along with the text in the original language so you can follow what's going on, and most DVD performances have English subtitles.
In many French and German operas, the recitatives are replaced by spoken dialogue . Mozart's German language operas"The Magic Flute" and "The Abduction From the Seraglio feature this, as well as Beethoven's Fidelio" and Weber's "Der Freischutz"(The Freeshooter). The original version of George Bizet's "Carmen" features spoken dialogue in French, but soon after the composer's untimely death shortly after the premiere, another composer replaced them with recitatives which he wrote himself.
As the 19th century progressed, dry recitative went out of fashion, but there were still recitative-like passages with the orchestra accompanying the singers. With Wagner, the technique of "through-composing " operas became the norm ; that is, the action was continuous , and the individual arias and other ensembles were no longer self-contained and easily separated from the action. Recitatives may be"dry", but if you follow the action with a translation, you can understand what is going on in the action, and experience how characters interact.