Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's mostly lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) especially from works by Claudio Monteverdi, notably L'Orfeo, and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. The 19th century saw the rise of the continuous music drama. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of singing: recitative, a speech-inflected style, and self-contained arias. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as Singspiel and Opéra comique. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition.

Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Such a 'work' (the literal translation of the Italian word 'opera') is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Olaf's Castle, Savonlinna, Finland, in 2007 La Scala of Milan Palais Garnier of the Paris Opéra Macbeth at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in St. Much less fortunate than the previous one, but destined to have a much longer and deeper impact on the evolution of the European musical theater is the alternative model by Richard Wagner.Īfter the mid-twentieth century, the production of new operas was significantly reduced, also due to theĮmergence of new forms of entertainment such as cinematography, radio broadcasting and television.Not to be confused with Soap opera, Horse opera, or Space opera. The French model also has a decisive impact on the Italian operatic production of the seventies and eighties With the second half of the century, however, an intermediate genre was imposed, the opéra-lyrique, to which Charles Gounod, Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet, among others, are dedicated. Meanwhile, the French opera develops the opposing genres of the grand opéra (with sumptuous performances and dances) and of the opéra-comique (with spoken dialogues).

In their wake, but with a greater attention to the representation of the historical reality of contemporary Italy is the figure of Giuseppe Verdi, author of some of the most famous and executed operas of all time, such as Rigoletto, La traviata, Aida and Otello. Rossini, who moved to Paris, inaugurated with “Guillaume Tell” the genre of the grand opéra, destined to a huge fortune in the following decades.Ī turn towards a French or English-style romanticism comes from the theater of Giovanni Pacini, Saverio Mercadante and Gaetano Donizetti. The years from 1810 to 1830 are dominated in Italy by the figure of Gioachino Rossini who completes the experience of the comic opera (opera buffa). Its historical roots go back to the medieval theater and to artists like Guido d'Arezzo, while the original idea has deep roots in the ancient theater and in particular in the classical tragedy. The origins of the Opera date back to the passage between the 16th and 17th centuries, when a group of Florentine intellectuals, known as Camerata de' Bardi, decided to formalize the new genre. Even if other nations have undeniably important and valuable operatic traditions, the genre was born and developed in Italy, a country that possesses, not surprisingly, the greatest number of opera houses in the world.

The word “opera” is used in almost all the languages of the world.

The name “opera” actually is the conventional abbreviation of the original definition “opera in musica”. “Opera” is the Italian term of international use to refer to a theatrical and musical genre in which the scenic action is combined with music, ballet and singing.

Development of the opera