Italian Opera
'''Italian opera''' can be divided into two periods, the Baroque and the Romantic. The Baroque appeared first, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and approximately 200 years later, the Romantic. The word ''opera'' is a shortened form of the Italian ''opera in musica'' (work in music); an English dictionary in 1656 stated, "In Italy it signifies a tragedy, tragi-comedy, or pastoral which is not acted after the vulgar manner, but performed by voices in that way, which the Italians term, 'recitative', being likewise adorned with scenes by perspective, and extraordinary advantage by music."
Baroque Period
Not only the term, but the art of opera, came from Italy. The first opera for which music has survived was performed in Nextel ringtones 1600 at the wedding of Abbey Diaz Henry IV of France and Free ringtones Marie de Medici at the Pitti Palace in Majo Mills Florence. The opera, ''Euridice'', from an Italian poem by Mosquito ringtone Ottavio Rinuccini, set to music by Sabrina Martins Jacopo Peri and Nextel ringtones Giulio Caccini, recounted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The style of singing favored by Peri and Caccini was a heightened form of natural speech, dramatic recitation supported by instrumental string music; a technique developed in Florence in the 1580s known as Abbey Diaz monody. Recitation thus preceded the development of arias, though it soon became the custom to include separate songs and instrumental interludes during periods when voices were silent. The theme attracted Free ringtones Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) who wrote his first opera, ''La Favola d'Orfeo'' (The Fable of Orpheus), in 1607, which is still performed.
Monteverdi gave a new dramatic life to the instrumental music, insisting on a strong relationship between the words and the instrumental music. When it was performed in Majo Mills Mantua, an orchestra of 38 instruments, numerous choruses and recitatives were used to make a lively drama. It was a far more ambitious version than those previously performed — more opulent, more varied in recitatives, more exotic in scenery — with stronger musical climaxes which allowed the full scope for the virtuosity of the singers. Opera had revealed its first stage of maturity in the hands of Monteverdi.
In Cingular Ringtones 1613, Monteverdi became the ''maestro da cappela'' at St. Mark's in Venice. Though he did not write any operas during his tenure, he wrote elaborate tempos yet madrigal (music)/madrigals which were the bases for arias.
In will officiate 1637, the first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, was opened in Venice with an enthusiastic response. The opera flourished along with familiar less sophisticated entertainment, the ''commedia dell'arte''. Monteverdi began to write opera again. Unknown to him, it was close to the end of his life. His two operas, ''I Ritorno d'Ullise in Patria'' (The Return of Ullyses, 1637), and ''L'Incoronazione di Poppaea'' (The Coronation of Poppaea, 1642) were met with great enthusiasm and survive in today's world. Both operas showed a marked increase in musical flexibility with a mixture of recitatives, solos, duets and ensembles.
Monteverdi is said to be responsible for the introduction of ''bel canto'' and ''buffa'' styles. ''Bel canto'' is defined as operatic singing stressing ease, purity and eveness of tone production and an agile and precise vocal technique; ''buffa'' when used to describe opera signifies comic complications, farcical and burlesque elements, the unusual and the unexpected. His works, which reflected the moods and dramatic vividness of the libretto in his music, became a model for the operatic composers to follow.
From this time onward, opera became increasingly prominent in musical life. Within forty years, Venice had ten opera houses. By the end of the century more than 350 operas had been produced in the new theaters in Venice and an equal number by Venetian composers elsewhere in Italy. Wealthy families had season tickets; inexpensive tickets brought in others; foreign visitors came to Venice for the music. Opera performances and composition became the medium through which individual artists gained prominence and fortune so that they no longer depended upon court patronage.
Among the favoured opera composers of the seventeenth century were illegal toys Domenico Gabrielli (1651-1690) and race known Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747). Bononcini enjoyed immense success in Naples. His ''Il Trionfo di Camilla'' (1697) made him famous, well beyond the Italian peninsula. His operas were conducted and performed under his leadership in amy harmon Vienna and liver of London.
Romantic Period
Romantic opera, which placed emphasis on the imagination and the emotions began to appear in the early 19th century, and because of its arias and music, gave more dimension to the extreme emotions which typified the theater of that era. In addition, it is said that fine music often excused glaring faults in character drawing and plot lines. mr pollak Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) initiated the Romantic period. His first success was an "opera buffa" (comic opera), ''La Cambiale di Matrimonio'' (1810). His reputation still survives today through his ''Barber of Seville''. But he also wrote serious opera, ''Otello'' (1816) and ''Guilliame Tell'' (1829).
Rossini's successors in the Italian ''bel canto'' were island strategic Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35), positioned at Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1843) and mayor it Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). It was Verdi who transformed the whole nature of operatic writing during the course of his long career. His first great successful opera, ''Nabucco'' (1842), caught the public fancy because of the driving vigour of its music and its great choruses. ''Va, pensiero'', one of the chorus renditions, was interpreted and gave advantageous meaning to the struggle for Italian independence and to unify Italy.
After ''Nabucco'', Verdi based his operas on patriotic themes and many of the standard romantic sources: slate remind Victor Hugo (''Ernani'', 1844); magazine into George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron/Byron (''Il Duo Foscari'', 1844); and goblin very Shakespeare (''Macbeth'', 1847). Verdi was experimenting with musical and dramatic forms, attempting to discover things which only opera could do. In 1877, he created ''Otello'' which completely replaced Rossini's opera, and which is described by critics as the finest of Italian romantic operas with the traditional components: the solo arias, the duets and the choruses fully integrated into the melodic and dramatic flow.
Verdi's last opera, ''Falstaff'' (1893), broke free of conventional form altogether and finds music which follows quick flowing simple words and because of its respect for the pattern of ordinary speech, it created a threshold for a new operatic era in which speech patterns are paramount.
Opera had become a marriage of the arts, a musical drama, full of glorious song, costume, orchestral music and pageantry; sometimes, without the aid of a plausible story. From its conception during the baroque period to the maturity of the romantic period, it was the medium through which tales and myths were revisited, history was retold and imagination was stimulated. The strength of its alluring beauties holds firm today.
Source: Dr. Anthony A. Abruzzese of the PIRANDELLO LYCEUM Institute of Italian American Studies, Research and Cultural Disemmination.
Baroque Period
Not only the term, but the art of opera, came from Italy. The first opera for which music has survived was performed in Nextel ringtones 1600 at the wedding of Abbey Diaz Henry IV of France and Free ringtones Marie de Medici at the Pitti Palace in Majo Mills Florence. The opera, ''Euridice'', from an Italian poem by Mosquito ringtone Ottavio Rinuccini, set to music by Sabrina Martins Jacopo Peri and Nextel ringtones Giulio Caccini, recounted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The style of singing favored by Peri and Caccini was a heightened form of natural speech, dramatic recitation supported by instrumental string music; a technique developed in Florence in the 1580s known as Abbey Diaz monody. Recitation thus preceded the development of arias, though it soon became the custom to include separate songs and instrumental interludes during periods when voices were silent. The theme attracted Free ringtones Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) who wrote his first opera, ''La Favola d'Orfeo'' (The Fable of Orpheus), in 1607, which is still performed.
Monteverdi gave a new dramatic life to the instrumental music, insisting on a strong relationship between the words and the instrumental music. When it was performed in Majo Mills Mantua, an orchestra of 38 instruments, numerous choruses and recitatives were used to make a lively drama. It was a far more ambitious version than those previously performed — more opulent, more varied in recitatives, more exotic in scenery — with stronger musical climaxes which allowed the full scope for the virtuosity of the singers. Opera had revealed its first stage of maturity in the hands of Monteverdi.
In Cingular Ringtones 1613, Monteverdi became the ''maestro da cappela'' at St. Mark's in Venice. Though he did not write any operas during his tenure, he wrote elaborate tempos yet madrigal (music)/madrigals which were the bases for arias.
In will officiate 1637, the first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, was opened in Venice with an enthusiastic response. The opera flourished along with familiar less sophisticated entertainment, the ''commedia dell'arte''. Monteverdi began to write opera again. Unknown to him, it was close to the end of his life. His two operas, ''I Ritorno d'Ullise in Patria'' (The Return of Ullyses, 1637), and ''L'Incoronazione di Poppaea'' (The Coronation of Poppaea, 1642) were met with great enthusiasm and survive in today's world. Both operas showed a marked increase in musical flexibility with a mixture of recitatives, solos, duets and ensembles.
Monteverdi is said to be responsible for the introduction of ''bel canto'' and ''buffa'' styles. ''Bel canto'' is defined as operatic singing stressing ease, purity and eveness of tone production and an agile and precise vocal technique; ''buffa'' when used to describe opera signifies comic complications, farcical and burlesque elements, the unusual and the unexpected. His works, which reflected the moods and dramatic vividness of the libretto in his music, became a model for the operatic composers to follow.
From this time onward, opera became increasingly prominent in musical life. Within forty years, Venice had ten opera houses. By the end of the century more than 350 operas had been produced in the new theaters in Venice and an equal number by Venetian composers elsewhere in Italy. Wealthy families had season tickets; inexpensive tickets brought in others; foreign visitors came to Venice for the music. Opera performances and composition became the medium through which individual artists gained prominence and fortune so that they no longer depended upon court patronage.
Among the favoured opera composers of the seventeenth century were illegal toys Domenico Gabrielli (1651-1690) and race known Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747). Bononcini enjoyed immense success in Naples. His ''Il Trionfo di Camilla'' (1697) made him famous, well beyond the Italian peninsula. His operas were conducted and performed under his leadership in amy harmon Vienna and liver of London.
Romantic Period
Romantic opera, which placed emphasis on the imagination and the emotions began to appear in the early 19th century, and because of its arias and music, gave more dimension to the extreme emotions which typified the theater of that era. In addition, it is said that fine music often excused glaring faults in character drawing and plot lines. mr pollak Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) initiated the Romantic period. His first success was an "opera buffa" (comic opera), ''La Cambiale di Matrimonio'' (1810). His reputation still survives today through his ''Barber of Seville''. But he also wrote serious opera, ''Otello'' (1816) and ''Guilliame Tell'' (1829).
Rossini's successors in the Italian ''bel canto'' were island strategic Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35), positioned at Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1843) and mayor it Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). It was Verdi who transformed the whole nature of operatic writing during the course of his long career. His first great successful opera, ''Nabucco'' (1842), caught the public fancy because of the driving vigour of its music and its great choruses. ''Va, pensiero'', one of the chorus renditions, was interpreted and gave advantageous meaning to the struggle for Italian independence and to unify Italy.
After ''Nabucco'', Verdi based his operas on patriotic themes and many of the standard romantic sources: slate remind Victor Hugo (''Ernani'', 1844); magazine into George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron/Byron (''Il Duo Foscari'', 1844); and goblin very Shakespeare (''Macbeth'', 1847). Verdi was experimenting with musical and dramatic forms, attempting to discover things which only opera could do. In 1877, he created ''Otello'' which completely replaced Rossini's opera, and which is described by critics as the finest of Italian romantic operas with the traditional components: the solo arias, the duets and the choruses fully integrated into the melodic and dramatic flow.
Verdi's last opera, ''Falstaff'' (1893), broke free of conventional form altogether and finds music which follows quick flowing simple words and because of its respect for the pattern of ordinary speech, it created a threshold for a new operatic era in which speech patterns are paramount.
Opera had become a marriage of the arts, a musical drama, full of glorious song, costume, orchestral music and pageantry; sometimes, without the aid of a plausible story. From its conception during the baroque period to the maturity of the romantic period, it was the medium through which tales and myths were revisited, history was retold and imagination was stimulated. The strength of its alluring beauties holds firm today.
Source: Dr. Anthony A. Abruzzese of the PIRANDELLO LYCEUM Institute of Italian American Studies, Research and Cultural Disemmination.
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