Opera
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Main Period: Baroque through Romantic
Kind: Vocal with orchestral accompaniment

Composers


Monteverdi


Gluck


Rameau


Mozart


Weber


Rossini


Verdi


Wagner


Bizet


Puccini
Placido Domingo stamp / St. Vincent
Opera
The opera is a musical drama combining singing and musicThe drinking song from 'La Traviata'. It includes all stage arts including stage design, costumes and full makeup. The opera is a musical melange of a highly evolved singing culture and fine orchestral writing. It was invented in the late 16th century, as a part of a renaissance of ancient Roman and Greek cultures, and its origins are rooted in the ancient Greek theatre. The first opera was "Daphne", first performed in 1598 in Florence. It's music was composed by Jacopo Peri (1561-1633).
The Opera House in Sydney, AustraliaThroughout operatic history, there is a constant, fascinating competition between drama and music as different artists underline one element as more important, yet both consitute a significant component in the opera as a whole. Monteverdi, Gluck and Rameau were the important baroque opera composers, while Mozart, with "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", the "Magic Flute" and many other operas, was the leading classical composer in this field. Among 19th century romantic Italian composers were Rossini ("The Barber of Seville") and Puccini ("Tosca" and "La Boheme") and of course the greatest opera writer Verdi, who, with unforgettable operas such as "Nabucco", "La Traviata"The drinking song from 'La Traviata', "Rigoletto" and "Aida"'Celeste Aida' from 'Aida' - Verdi made opera the perfect romantic combination of great drama and worderful music.
Luciano Pavarotti stamp / GuyanaIn his great "music dramas", German composer Wagner ("Twilight of the Gods", "Tristan and Isolde") developed Weber's system of light-motifs, in which every character is represented by a musical motif, played every time it is either mentioned or appears, and he turned to write operas about historical and German myths. The end of 19th century brought opera writers to deal with more realistic subjects than before (opera verismo), and they strated writing about the lives of the common people of their time ("Carmen"From 'Carmen' - BizetCarmen Overture - Georges Bizet by Bizet, and Puccini's "Madame Butterfly"Aria from 'Madam Butterfly' - Puccini, for instance).
Maria Callas stamp / St. VincentThe excellent opera singer always gained audiences' admiration. There were times (the 17th century) when the admiration they enjoyed made them masters of the opera, and composers wrote operas that would allow them to demonstrate their staggering aptitude. Although opera since Gluck became more dramatic and less of a virtuoso display, there were singers in the 20th Century, such as Maria Callas "the divine" and Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, who became icons of opera singing history. Of the most famous opera singers in the world today, are the tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. They perform in the main opera theaters in the world today, from the Metropolitan in New-York to Milan and Vienna.
The opera, in many people's opinion, is artistic wholeness, derived in the number of arts taking part, and in the quality that this combination produces.


"Hoffmann's tales" by Offenbach
Prokofiev's "Love of the 3 oranges"
From Verdi's "Nabucco"



"Habanera" from the opera "Carmen" by Bizet (Solo: Lori-Kaye Miller)




"The Queen of the Night" from the opera "The Magic Flute" by Mozart (Singer: Diana Damrau)


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Musical Fete (1747) by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Musee du Louvre, Paris
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