The prelude to the beginning of an opera or to one of its acts differs from an overture in several ways. A prelude is usually, though not always, shorter. It is not a compendium of the work’s hit tunes. It tends to be less formal and more atmospheric. It typically runs directly into the action without a pause. Its structure leaves virtually no room or need for applause. The grand overtures to operas like those that start The Marriage of Figaro, William Tell, or La Forza del Destino are often received by audiences with rapturous applause – if well performed.
The two greatest preludes, in my opinion, are both from the same opera – Verdi’s La Traviata. The prelude to Act 1 is one of the miracles of nineteenth-century opera. Instead of excitement or spectacle, Verdi gives us fragility. The hushed violins seem to portray Violetta’s fading life before she even appears on stage. The love theme that follows is exquisitely tender, yet already tinged with loss. Few operatic openings are so economical or so emotionally devastating. Verdi’s ability to combine simplicity with profound expression ranks this prelude at the top of the genre were it not for the prelude to the opera’s third act.
The Act I prelude is prophetic. It tells us from the beginning that Violetta’s story will end in tragedy. The Act III prelude, by contrast, is not prophecy – it is the tragedy itself. By the time it begins, everything has happened. Alfredo has returned too late, Germont has realized his mistake, and Violetta is dying.
What makes the music extraordinary is its utter simplicity. Verdi strips away almost everything. The orchestra seems reduced to a whisper. The fragile string writing conveys physical exhaustion and emotional resignation better than any words could. Unlike Wagner, who often builds vast musical structures, Verdi here achieves his effect through economy; every note matters. The Act III prelude is more emotionally devastating than the famous Act I prelude because there is no longer any uncertainty. In Act I, Violetta’s fate lies in the future. In Act III, it is present reality. Violetta is minutes away from death. The brief prelude played as she is dying is so poignant because it is transmitted without words. It’s an emotionally overwhelming experience that only music of the highest order can convey. Death suffuses the entire piece, especially the dying away of the last few notes. Verdi’s music conveys Violetta’s voluntary sacrifice of the only chance at happiness that passed through her brief life like a supernova of the senses.
Combined, the two preludes stand at the pinnacle of art. They cannot be bettered.
Verdi was one of the few great artists who was granted a long life, which he used to improve his craft, such that at its end he had reached the sublime. His setting of Shakespeare’s Othello is arguably the greatest tragic opera ever composed. It has no prelude, but the storm scene that precedes Otello’s entrance functions as one. The orchestral introduction that opens the opera is among the most thrilling beginnings in all music. The tempest is not merely meteorological – it embodies the emotional violence that will destroy the characters.
The storm functions exactly as a prelude should, but in dramatic rather than decorative form. It establishes the opera’s world before the protagonist appears. The first sound is not courtly, lyrical, or ceremonial; it is elemental violence. That matters because Otello is an opera about forces barely held under control: jealousy, racial and military insecurity, erotic possession, religious terror, political instability, and Iago’s nihilism. The opening tempest is therefore not just weather. It is the opera’s moral climate.
The prelude to Act I of Tristan und Isolde occupies a unique place in music history. It is one of the few pieces that can legitimately be called both a masterpiece and a turning point. The famous opening phrase is among the most consequential in Western music. A solitary cello line rises yearningly and incompletely, as though reaching toward something unattainable. The phrase culminates in the sonority known as the “Tristan chord,” which refuses to resolve in the expected manner.
But its historical impact on music is a century and a half in the past. What sounded harmonically unique and of uncertain tonality is now commonplace. The listener can judge it solely on its artistic quality without the technical baggage it once carried.
The orchestration is remarkably restrained by Wagnerian standards. The strings dominate much of the texture. Woodwinds emerge briefly before fading back into the orchestral milieu. The prelude is constructed as a series of increasingly intense waves. Each crest reaches higher than the previous one, only to collapse before achieving complete fulfillment. The final climax is overwhelming. The orchestra rises to a passionate outcry and then withdraws. Yet, Wagner denies complete satisfaction. The tension remains unresolved. True resolution will not arrive until the very end of the opera, in Isolde’s ‘Liebestod’.
Only Wagner could have written this prelude. One has to concede its brilliance and its emotional properties. Despite all these, at least in my estimation, it does not touch the heart with the intensity of the brief Verdi pieces just presented above. Yet some find its power overwhelming. There’s no accounting for taste.
Another Wagner tour de force is the opening of his first Ring opera – Das Rheingold. Over the course of 136 bars, Wagner musically depicts the dawn of creation, the timeless depths of the Rhine, and the birth of the Ring cycle’s entire sonic universe – all built entirely on a single, unchanging E-flat major chord.
What makes this prelude revolutionary is its total rejection of traditional harmonic tension and resolution. There are no modulations, no minor chords, and no dissonances for over four minutes. The opening of the opera is something the listener can admire with awe. But this admiration is all in the head. Its brilliance is dazzling. A genius with much brain power, much to say, but little to weep over. The excerpt below stops just before the Rhein Maidens enter.
