Bel Canto Opera Essay

Musical theatre started in the fifteenth century, in Greece. They incorporated music and dance into their performances, which many were comedy based. Slowly, music and dance was integrated into Roman theatre as well. In the 1700-1800’s, Opera became a popular musical entertainment to the British, French and Germans. They enjoyed ballad operas which included popular tunes at the time with comedy or sentimental plays, such as John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera” performed in 1728 (http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/balladoperas/what.php) Many of these opera’s were mimicked and comic operas with original scores and many romantic plot based plays. Many believe that musical theatre is a descended of Operas, however Operas are actually spoofs of Greek musicals as the artists in the Renaissance Times were trying to bring out Greek music that faded over many years.

Gioachino Rossini, like many great composers, was born in the right place at the right time. The musical firmament was still mourning the loss of Wolfgang Mozart in 1792 when Rossini was born. His parents were both gifted musicians, and young Gioachino was in a music conservatory by the age of 14. Rossini composed ten operas within the following seven years and had established himself as a gifted composer in the opera buffa style. This genre of comic opera was strikingly different from the rigorous opera seria, but it still managed to acquire some noticeable traits. Primarily, the arias in opera buffe shirk the da capo style of the seria mold. The subject matter deals frequently

Giuseppe Verdi Research Paper Derek C. Zimmerman HUM 221 Northwest State Community College Abstract The Italian opera was at an ultimate high during the romantic period. Many composers came to life during this period and became some of the most prominent composers of all time.

I went to go see a college production of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at a recital hall at Meredith College. The hall was almost full, but it was not huge auditorium or stage. The stage was brightly lit and there were no light changes during the performance. The audience ranged in ages, so it was family event. Many had flowers, so some of the audience was families supporting those performing. Most people seemed engaged in the performance, especially when performers entered from the back of hall because it would catch their attention. There were two parts of the concert; selected Arias, and the opera. The opera singers in the first part of the show sung with piano accompaniment, and the opera was sung with a piano accompaniment as well, but also was accompanied by a string ensemble. The first two Arias and the Opera were composed from the Baroque period. Two of the Arias were composed by Mozart. The last three selected Arias were from the Romantic period. While operas stemmed from the Baroque period, they continued and still continue to be composed.

Puccini is one of the best-known Italian composers, after Verdi, of the 19th century. He was born on 22nd December 1858 and passed away on 29th November 1924. He is particularly well known for his works such as; La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and his final opera, Turandot.

Gian Carlo Menotti was born on July 7th 1911 in Cadegliano, Italy. Unfortunately, he died on February 1, 2007 in Monte Carlo, Monaco at the age of 95. He was an American composer. He started writing music at the age of seven with the help of his mother. On top of her helping him with his music, she also provided piano, cello, and violin lessons for him and his siblings. At the age of eleven, Menotti wrote the words and music to his first opera known as “The Death of Pierrot”. After moving to the United States after his father’s death, Menotti began training at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan in 1923. Then completed his musical studies at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.

Giacomo Puccini was the fifth child of Michele and Albina Puccini. He grew up surrounded by music and talented musicians. At the age of five, Puccini’s father passed away. Even though Puccini’s father and mother greatly wanted Puccini to follow in his late father’s footsteps, he was considered to be a very lazy and unfocused student as he did not show much interest in music. At the age of fourteen he began playing the organ for a choir and began composing music at the late age of seventeen. It wasn’t until he attended a performance of the piece Verdi’s Aïda that he began to consider pursuing a career in composition and began to take his studies seriously.

Beginning in the mid-1700s composers started to resist the changes that occurred in opera. They began to resist: the preferential treatment that the divas and castrati received, the excessive and replaceable arias and the melodic phrasing, and the extreme vocal embellishments. Coming out of the opera seria where the focus remained squarely on the divas, castrati, and where the da capo aria was the standard form of the time Christoph Willibald Gluck was the leader of the Operatic Reform. While Christoph Willibald Gluck and other composers of the time did not abandon the da capo aria entirely, they began to modify it to more effectively to fit the telling of a story. With the reform, opera was returned to expressing dramatic truth.

The opera Rinaldo by George Fredric Handel is one of Handel’s earliest most successful works. This case study aims at discovering more about the different contexts of the opera, the structure, and the performances of Rinaldo. The context around Rinaldo is important as it can examine the environment around the time of the composition and the relationship that Handel had with the patrons, performers, librettists, audiences, and publishers. The compositional elements that Handel used in Rinaldo as well as the significance of the genre and the relationship between music and its text-setting is crucial to the discussion and discovery of the structure through the music. Through looking at these two sections, it is vital to look the performances

Luigi Rossi was born 1597, in Torremaggiore, Italy which is a little town near Foggia. He died February 20, 1652. When he was young he moved to Naples. Than is where he studied music under the Franco­Flemish composer Jean de Macque. Any way he only made music for two operas which are called P​alazzo Incantato t​his

Like the previous eras, Opera continued to be one of the most important music genre is the 19th century, especially in Italy, German and France. Opera served as a form of entertainment for the people of higher social class. Opera music was also popular among the people of other social classes due to the availability of transcribed opera music for them to enjoy in salons or homes of the middle class. This genre was extensively explored and developed by the Italians and Germans. This paper will discuss how Italian and German opera were developed by comparing each composer’s distinctive compositional traits.

He began playing the piano at age 3 and by the age of 10, his father bought him a spinet. Soon after, he would begin composing operas and continued composing into his 80’s. Verdi’s music was popularized by the people of the public because during this point of the 19th Century, opera was not viewed as favorable to those of high-standing. “The subject of his works, Verdi said, should be ‘original, interesting,… and passionate; passion above all!’” (Kamien, Roger).

drums and was considered an Opera Buffa, which had been greatly influenced by the early nineteenth century version of the Italian Opera. ( “The Opera Lovers Companion” 75- 82)

This horrified the French. They believed opera was supposed to be formal. One French traveller described it as a ‘Hotch Potch’. English did not have all- sung opera for 200 years after. Drama became more popular and important.

Is it possible for one man to be accredited for discovering a new genre of music while having such a powerful impact on the world for centuries to come? Opera is a unique fusion of words, music and design. These ingredients, when combined, deliver large amounts of information to the audience simultaneously – information about the characters’ outlook, feelings, motivations and actions. If the composer, librettist, designer and director all rise to the challenges of the art-form, the result, for the audience, can be uniquely absorbing, moving, and thrilling. In the early 16th century Italian artist began to form what we know today as opera, however Monteverdi is often anointed king of opera. Monteverdi’s opera L’Orefeo opened in 1607, when