In its narrow meaning, a form of Melodrama which features one character, sometimes with chorus, using speech in alternation with short passages of music, or sometimes speaking over music. Simultaneously with melodrama, the initial enthusiasm for monodrama occurred chiefly in Germany during the 1770s and 80s, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, since many of the early melodramas had only one character on stage at a time. The prototypical ‘monodrama’, Rousseau’s Pygmalion, actually has two characters, but until the end, when Galatea comes to life and speaks four lines, Pygmalion holds the stage alone. Introduced in Weimar by Goethe in 1772, with music by Anton Schweitzer, Pygmalion became the model for several examples of monodrama and duodrama produced in Weimar and Gotha by J.C. Brandes, often as a vehicle for his wife Charlotte, and in Weimar, Dresden, Leipzig and Frankfurt by the Seylers. From 1775 to 1790 over 30 so-called monodramas were performed in Germany, though some of these are actually cantatas with one main character. In Darmstadt, where C.G. Neefe’s Sophonisbe (1776) and G.J. Vogler’s Lampedo (1779) were produced, there is now a large collection of monodramas in the Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek. Other significant monodramas include J.F. Reichardt’s Ino (1779), Franz Danzi’s Cleopatra (1780), and Goethe’s Proserpina, with music by K.S. Seckendorff (1778), and revived in 1814 with new music by Carl Eberwein.
In modern times, the term has lost its exclusive association with the combination of speech and music characteristic of melodrama and is most often used as a synonym for a one-character opera, as in Schoenberg’s Erwartung (1909) and Poulenc’s La voix humaine (1958); as a non-staged dramatic work for singer and orchestra, as in Poulenc’s La dame de Monte Carlo (1961), Floyd’s Flower and Hawk (1972), Rochberg’s Phaedra (1973–4), J.E. Ivey’s Testament of Eve (1976) and Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Medium (1981); or even as a purely instrumental work, as in Mordecai Seter’s Chamber Music ’70 for clarinet and piano (1975), and {H} MWNWDRMH {R}: II Monodrama for viola and piano (1979). In addition, some works are simply entitled ‘Monodrama’, for example the ballet for orchestra by Karel Husa (1976). In several of the vocal works, some techniques of Sprechstimme are used along with singing (e.g. Davies and Floyd), but these are properly seen more as an outgrowth of extended vocal techniques of the 20th century than as a continuation of melodrama techniques of the 18th and early 19th centuries. 20th-century works incorporating speech and music are more often entitled ‘monologues’ or ‘recitations with music’ than monodrama.
J.C. Brandes: Preface to Sämtlichen dramatische Schriften, i (Hamburg, 1790), pp.xxvii–xxxiv
E. Schmidt: ‘Goethe's Proserpina’, Vierteljahrschrift für Litteraturgeschichte, i (1888), 27–52
E. Istel: Die Entstehung des deutschen Melodrams (Berlin, 1906)
K.G. Holmstrom: Monodrama, Attitudes, Tableaux Vivants: Studies on some Trends of Theatrical Fashion, 1770–1815 (Stockholm, 1967)
For further bibliography see Melodrama.
ANNE DHU McLUCAS