(It.; Fr. scène; Ger. Szene, formerly Scene).
The word is derived from the Latin scaena, which in turn comes from the Greek skēnē, ‘tent’, ‘hut’, ‘booth’ and hence ‘stage’, ‘décor’. It is used in opera, as in drama generally, to mean (1) the stage (e.g. ‘sulla scena’, on the stage; ‘derrière la scène’, behind the stage), (2) the scene represented on the stage, (3) a division of an act.
In Italian opera it also has the specific meaning of an episode which has no formal construction but may be made up of diverse elements. The opening of Act 3 of Verdi’s Ernani (1844) is described as ‘Preludio, Scena e Cavatina’. The ‘Preludio’ is for orchestra. The ‘Scena’ consists of recitative for the king, with interpolations by his squire. A scena is frequently more extended than this and includes, in addition to recitative, arioso passages and one or more arias, duets, etc. A scena of a particularly dramatic character, often (though not invariably) for a single character, is described as a ‘gran scena’, e.g. ‘Gran scena del sonnambulismo’, the sleep-walking scene in Verdi’s Macbeth (1847, rev. 1865). The word was also used to describe a setting for concert performance of a scene from an opera libretto, e.g. Mozart’s Misera, dove son k369 (1781), for soprano and orchestra, the text of which is taken from Metastasio’s Ezio. Spohr’s Violin Concerto in A minor op.47 (1816) is subtitled ‘In modo di scena cantante’. In French and German opera ‘scène’ and ‘Szene’ are used much like ‘scena’, but generally to describe quite short sections of a work, e.g. no.11 bis in Act 2 of Bizet’s La jolie fille de Perth (1867), which is an accompanied recitative for the duke and Mab.
GroveO (‘Scene’; J. Budden)
G. Buschmeier: Die Entwicklung von Arie und Szene in der französischen Oper von Gluck bis Spontini (Tutzing, 1991)
JACK WESTRUP