Opera

This article is about the Western art form. For the web
browser, see Opera (web browser). For all other uses, see
Opera (disambiguation).
Opera (Italian: [pera]; English plural: operas; Ital-

The rst third of the 19th century saw the high point of
the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all
creating works that are still performed in the 2000s It also
saw the advent of Grand Opera typied by the works of
Auber and Meyerbeer. The mid-to-late 19th century was
a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Wagner in
Germany and Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary
French opera through to Puccini and Strauss in the early
20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic
traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia. The 20th century saw
many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality
and serialism (Schoenberg and Berg), Neoclassicism
(Stravinsky), and Minimalism (Philip Glass and John
Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers
such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known
to much wider audiences that went beyond the circle of
The performers from the Atlanta Opera sing the nale of Lucia opera fans. Since the invention of radio and television,
di Lammermoor. The opera orchestra is visible in the lowered operas were also performed on (and written for) these
area in front of the stage.
mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of major opera
houses began to present live high-denition video transian plural: opere [pere]) is an art form in which missions of their performances in cinemas all over the
singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combin- world. In 2009, an opera company oered an online
ing text (libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatri- download of a complete performance.
cal setting.[1] In traditional opera, singers do two types of
singing: recitative, a speech-inected style[2] and arias, a
more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the el- 1 Operatic terminology
ements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and
costumes and sometimes includes dance. 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.
Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition.[3] It
started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo
Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon
spread through the rest of Europe: Schtz in Germany,
Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. In
the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate
most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against
its articiality with his reform operas in the 1760s. In
the 2000s, the most renowned gure of late 18th-century
opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most
famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro), Don Giovanni, and
Cos fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute (Die Zauberte), a landmark in the German tradition.

The Palais Garnier of the Paris Opra, one of the worlds most
famous opera houses.

The words of an opera are known as the libretto (literally

small book). Some composers, notably Richard Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked
in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart
with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Traditional opera, often re1

ferred to as "number opera", consists of two modes of

singing: recitative, the plot-driving passages sung in a
style designed to imitate and emphasize the inections
of speech,[2] and aria (an air or formal song) in which
the characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on
the action. In some forms of opera, such as singspiel,
opra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative
is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semimelodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of,
recitative, are also referred to as arioso. The terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described
in detail below.[4] During both the Baroque and Classical
periods, recitative could appear in two basic forms, each
of which was accompanied by a dierent instrumental
ensemble: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm
dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only
by basso continuo, which was usually a harpsichord and
a cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato) in
which the orchestra provided accompaniment. Over the
18th century, arias were increasingly accompanied by the
orchestra. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained
the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role,
and Richard Wagner revolutionised opera by abolishing
almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his
quest for what Wagner termed endless melody. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rakes
Progress have bucked the trend. The changing role of the
orchestra in opera is described in more detail below.

2
2.1

History
Origins

Main article: Origins of opera

The Italian word opera means work, both in the sense
of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin opera, a singular noun
meaning work and also the plural of the noun opus.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Italian
word was rst used in the sense composition in which
poetry, dance, and music are combined in 1639; the rst
recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648.[5]
Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written
around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite
circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as
the "Camerata de' Bardi". Signicantly, Dafne was
an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part
of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the
Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered
that the chorus parts of Greek dramas were originally
sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera
was thus conceived as a way of restoring this situa-

HISTORY

Claudio Monteverdi

tion. Dafne is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri,

Euridice, dating from 1600, is the rst opera score to have
survived to the present day. The honour of being the rst
opera still to be regularly performed, however, goes to
Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, composed for the court of
Mantua in 1607.[6] The Mantua court of the Gonzagas,
employers of Monteverdi, played a signicant role in the
origin of opera employing not only court singers of the
concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of the rst
actual opera singers"; Madama Europa.[7]

2.2 Italian opera

Main article: Italian opera

2.2.1 The Baroque era

Opera did not remain conned to court audiences for
long. In 1637, the idea of a season (Carnival) of publicly attended operas supported by ticket sales emerged in
Venice. Monteverdi had moved to the city from Mantua
and composed his last operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea, for the Venetian theatre in the 1640s. His most important follower Francesco
Cavalli helped spread opera throughout Italy. In these
early Baroque operas, broad comedy was blended with
tragic elements in a mix that jarred some educated sensibilities, sparking the rst of operas many reform movements, sponsored by the Arcadian Academy, which came
to be associated with the poet Metastasio, whose libretti
helped crystallize the genre of opera seria, which became

2.2

Italian opera

Teatro Argentina (Panini, 1747, Muse du Louvre)

1710s and '20s, were initially staged during the intermissions of opera seria. They became so popular, however,
that they were soon being oered as separate productions.
Opera seria was elevated in tone and highly stylised in
form, usually consisting of secco recitative interspersed
George Frideric Handel, 1733
with long da capo arias. These aorded great opportunity for virtuosic singing and during the golden age of
opera seria the singer really became the star. The role
of the hero was usually written for the high-pitched male
castrato voice,which was produced by castration of the
singer before puberty, which prevented a boys larynx
from being transformed at puberty. Castrati such as
Farinelli and Senesino, as well as female sopranos such
as Faustina Bordoni, became in great demand throughout Europe as opera seria ruled the stage in every country except France. Farinelli was one of the most famous
singers of the 18th century. Italian opera set the Baroque
standard. Italian libretti were the norm, even when a German composer like Handel found himself composing the
likes of Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare for London audiences.
Italian libretti remained dominant in the classical period
as well, for example in the operas of Mozart, who wrote
Private baroque theatre in esk Krumlov
in Vienna near the centurys close. Leading Italian-born
composers of opera seria include Alessandro Scarlatti,
[8]
the leading form of Italian opera until the end of the 18th Vivaldi and Porpora.
century. Once the Metastasian ideal had been rmly established, comedy in Baroque-era opera was reserved for
what came to be called opera bua. Before such ele- 2.2.2 Reform: Gluck, the attack on the Metastasian
ideal, and Mozart
ments were forced out of opera seria, many libretti had
featured a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an
opera-within-an-opera. One reason for this was an at- Opera seria had its weaknesses and critics. The taste for
tempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, embellishment on behalf of the superbly trained singers,
newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to and the use of spectacle as a replacement for dramatic
the public opera houses. These separate plots were al- purity and unity drew attacks. Francesco Algarotti's Esmost immediately resurrected in a separately developing say on the Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for
tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte, Christoph Willibald Gluck's reforms. He advocated that
a long-ourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. opera seria had to return to basics and that all the variJust as intermedi had once been performed in-between ous elementsmusic (both instrumental and vocal), balthe acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre let, and stagingmust be subservient to the overriding
of intermezzi, which developed largely in Naples in the drama. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published "Pome ly-

HISTORY

Giuseppe Verdi, by Giovanni Boldini, 1886

Illustration for the score of the original Vienna version of Orfeo
ed Euridice

rique", an inuential article for the Encyclopdie on lyric

and opera librettos.[9][10][11][12][13] Several composers of
the period, including Niccol Jommelli and Tommaso
Traetta, attempted to put these ideals into practice. The
rst to succeed however, was Gluck. Gluck strove to
achieve a beautiful simplicity. This is evident in his rst
reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, where his non-virtuosic
vocal melodies are supported by simple harmonies and a
richer orchestra presence throughout.
Glucks reforms have had resonance throughout operatic
history. Weber, Mozart, and Wagner, in particular, were
inuenced by his ideals. Mozart, in many ways Glucks
successor, combined a superb sense of drama, harmony,
melody, and counterpoint to write a series of comedies,
notably Cos fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don
Giovanni (in collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte) which
remain among the most-loved, popular and well-known
operas today. But Mozarts contribution to opera seria
was more mixed; by his time it was dying away, and in
spite of such ne works as Idomeneo and La clemenza di
Tito, he would not succeed in bringing the art form back
to life again.[14]

2.2.3 Bel canto, Verdi and verismo

The bel canto opera movement ourished in the early
19th century and is exemplied by the operas of Rossini,
Bellini, Donizetti, Pacini, Mercadante and many others.
Literally beautiful singing, bel canto opera derives from
the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel
canto lines are typically orid and intricate, requiring
supreme agility and pitch control. Examples of famous
operas in the bel canto style include Rossinis Il barbiere
di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, as well as Donizettis Lucia
di Lammermoor.
Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style
was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi, beginning
with his biblical opera Nabucco. This opera, and the ones
that would follow in Verdis career, revolutionized Italian
opera, changing it from merely a display of vocal reworks, with Rossinis and Donizettis works, to dramatic
story-telling. Verdis operas resonated with the growing
spirit of Italian nationalism in the post-Napoleonic era,
and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement
for a unied Italy. In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his
three most popular operas: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La
traviata. The rst of these, Rigoletto, proved the most
daring and revolutionary. In it, Verdi blurs the distinction between the aria and recitative as it never before was,
leading the opera to be an unending string of duets. La
traviata was also novel. It tells the story of courtesan,
and is often cited as one of the rst realistic operas, because rather than featuring great kings and gures from

2.3

German-language opera

literature, it focuses on the tragedies of ordinary life and

society. After these, he continued to develop his style,
composing perhaps the greatest French Grand Opera,
Don Carlos, and ending his career with two Shakespeareinspired works, Otello and Falsta, which reveal how far
Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early
19th century. These nal two works showed Verdi at his
most masterfully orchestrated, and are both incredibly inuential, and modern. In Falsta, Verdi sets the preeminent standard for the form and style that would dominate
opera throughout the twentieth century. Rather than long,
suspended melodies, Falsta contains many little motifs
and mottos, that, rather than being expanded upon, are
introduced and subsequently dropped, only to be brought
up again later. These motifs never are expanded upon,
and just as the audience expects a character to launch into
a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing a new
phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi,
onward, exercising tremendous inuence on his successors Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, and Benjamin
Britten.[15]

5
Singspiel, Seelewig, a popular form of German-language
opera in which singing alternates with spoken dialogue.
In the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Theater am Gnsemarkt in Hamburg presented German operas by Keiser, Telemann and Handel. Yet most of the
major German composers of the time, including Handel
himself, as well as Graun, Hasse and later Gluck, chose to
write most of their operas in foreign languages, especially
Italian. In contrast to Italian opera, which was generally
composed for the aristocratic class, German opera was
generally composed for the masses and tended to feature
simple folk-like melodies, and it was not until the arrival
of Mozart that German opera was able to match its Italian
counterpart in musical sophistication.[17]

After Verdi, the sentimental realistic melodrama of

verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced
by Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci that came virtually to dominate
the worlds opera stages with such popular works as
Giacomo Puccini's La bohme, Tosca, and Madama Buttery. Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono,
have experimented with modernism.[16]

2.3

German-language opera

Main article: German opera

The rst German opera was Dafne, composed by

Richard Wagner

Mozart's Singspiele, Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail

(1782) and Die Zauberte (1791) were an important
breakthrough in achieving international recognition for
German opera. The tradition was developed in the 19th
century by Beethoven with his Fidelio, inspired by the climate of the French Revolution. Carl Maria von Weber
established German Romantic opera in opposition to the
dominance of Italian bel canto. His Der Freischtz (1821)
shows his genius for creating a supernatural atmosphere.
The Queen of the Night in an 1815 production of Mozarts Die
Other opera composers of the time include Marschner,
Zauberte
Schubert and Lortzing, but the most signicant gure was
Heinrich Schtz in 1627, but the music score has not undoubtedly Wagner.
survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German- Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controverspeaking countries until the late 18th century. Never- sial composers in musical history. Starting under the intheless, native forms would develop in spite of this in- uence of Weber and Meyerbeer, he gradually evolved a
uence. In 1644, Sigmund Staden produced the rst new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a complete

HISTORY

Der Rosenkavalier, where Mozart and Viennese waltzes

became as important an inuence as Wagner. Strauss
continued to produce a highly varied body of operatic
works, often with libretti by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Other composers who made individual contributions to German opera in the early 20th century include Alexander von Zemlinsky, Erich Korngold, Franz
Schreker, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill and the Italianborn Ferruccio Busoni. The operatic innovations of
Arnold Schoenberg and his successors are discussed in
the section on modernism.[18]
During the late 19th century, the Austrian composer
Johann Strauss II, an admirer of the French-language
operettas composed by Jacques Oenbach, composed
several German-language operettas, the most famous of
which was Die Fledermaus, which is still regularly performed today.[19] Nevertheless, rather than copying the
style of Oenbach, the operettas of Strauss II had distinctly Viennese avor to them, which have cemented the
Strauss IIs place as one of the most renowned operetta
composers of all time.

2.4 French opera

Main article: French opera
In rivalry with imported Italian opera productions, a sepBrnnhilde throws herself on Siegfrieds funeral pyre in Wagners
Gtterdmmerung

work of art), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. He

greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with a complex web of leitmotifs, recurring
themes often associated with the characters and concepts
of the drama, of which prototypes can be heard in his earlier operas such as Der iegende Hollnder, Tannhuser
and Lohengrin; and he was prepared to violate accepted
musical conventions, such as tonality, in his quest for
greater expressivity. In his mature music dramas, Tristan
und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg, Der Ring des
Nibelungen and Parsifal, he abolished the distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless ow of
endless melody. Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually
based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth with
part of the patronage from Ludwig II of Bavaria, exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in the style
he wanted.
Opera would never be the same after Wagner and for
many composers his legacy proved a heavy burden. On
the other hand, Richard Strauss accepted Wagnerian
ideas but took them in wholly new directions, along with
incorporating the new form introduced by Verdi. He
rst won fame with the scandalous Salome and the dark
tragedy Elektra, in which tonality was pushed to the limits. Then Strauss changed tack in his greatest success,

A performance of Lullys opera Armide in the Salle du PalaisRoyal in 1761

arate French tradition was founded by the Italian JeanBaptiste Lully at the court of King Louis XIV. Despite
his foreign origin, Lully established an Academy of Music and monopolised French opera from 1672. Starting with Cadmus et Hermione, Lully and his librettist
Quinault created tragdie en musique, a form in which
dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lullys operas also show a concern for expressive
recitative which matched the contours of the French language. In the 18th century, Lullys most important successor was Jean-Philippe Rameau, who composed ve
tragdies en musique as well as numerous works in other
genres such as opra-ballet, all notable for their rich orchestration and harmonic daring. Despite the popularity
of Italian opera seria throughout much of Europe during the Baroque period, Italian opera never gained much

2.5

English-language opera

of a foothold in France, where its own national operatic

tradition was more popular instead.[20] After Rameaus
death, the German Gluck was persuaded to produce six
operas for the Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show
the inuence of Rameau, but simplied and with greater
focus on the drama. At the same time, by the middle
of the 18th century another genre was gaining popularity in France: opra comique. This was the equivalent of
the German singspiel, where arias alternated with spoken
dialogue. Notable examples in this style were produced
by Monsigny, Philidor and, above all, Grtry. During
the Revolutionary period, composers such as Mhul and
Cherubini, who were followers of Gluck, brought a new
seriousness to the genre, which had never been wholly
comic in any case. Another phenomenon of this period was the 'propaganda opera' celebrating revolutionary successes, e.g. Gossecs Le triomphe de la Rpublique
(1793).

7
bach created operetta with witty and cynical works such
as Orphe aux enfers, as well as the opera Les Contes
d'Homann; Charles Gounod scored a massive success
with Faust; and Bizet composed Carmen, which, once audiences learned to accept its blend of Romanticism and
realism, became the most popular of all opra comiques.
Jules Massenet, Camille Saint-Sans and Lo Delibes
all composed works which are still part of the standard repertory, examples being Massenets Manon, SaintSans Samson et Dalila and Delibes Lakm.[21] At the
same time, the inuence of Richard Wagner was felt as
a challenge to the French tradition. Many French critics angrily rejected Wagners music dramas while many
French composers closely imitated them with variable
success. Perhaps the most interesting response came
from Claude Debussy. As in Wagners works, the orchestra plays a leading role in Debussys unique opera
Pellas et Mlisande (1902) and there are no real arias,
only recitative. But the drama is understated, enigmatic
and completely unWagnerian.
Other notable 20th-century names include Ravel, Dukas,
Roussel and Milhaud. Francis Poulenc is one of the very
few post-war composers of any nationality whose operas
(which include Dialogues des Carmlites) have gained a
foothold in the international repertory. Olivier Messiaen's
lengthy sacred drama Saint Franois d'Assise (1983) has
also attracted widespread attention.[22]

2.5 English-language opera

Magdalena Koen and Jonas Kaufmann in a scene from

Carmen, Salzburg Festival 2012

By the 1820s, Gluckian inuence in France had given

way to a taste for Italian bel canto, especially after the arrival of Rossini in Paris. Rossinis Guillaume Tell helped
found the new genre of Grand Opera, a form whose
most famous exponent was another foreigner, Giacomo
Meyerbeer. Meyerbeers works, such as Les Huguenots
emphasised virtuoso singing and extraordinary stage effects. Lighter opra comique also enjoyed tremendous
success in the hands of Boeldieu, Auber, Hrold and
Adolphe Adam. In this climate, the operas of the Frenchborn composer Hector Berlioz struggled to gain a hearing. Berliozs epic masterpiece Les Troyens, the culmination of the Gluckian tradition, was not given a full performance for almost a hundred years.
In the second half of the 19th century, Jacques Oen-

Main article: Opera in English

In England, operas antecedent was the 17th-century jig.
This was an afterpiece which came at the end of a play.
It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted
in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect, jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French
masque was gaining a rm hold at the English Court, with
even more lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery
than had been seen before. Inigo Jones became the
quintessential designer of these productions, and this style
was to dominate the English stage for three centuries.
These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson's Lovers Made Men (1617), the whole masque was
sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo.[23] The
approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres
and halted any developments that may have led to the
establishment of English opera. However, in 1656, the
dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of
Rhodes. Since his theatre was not licensed to produce
drama, he asked several of the leading composers (Lawes,
Cooke, Locke, Coleman and Hudson) to set sections of
it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty
of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir
Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged
by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain.
With the English Restoration, foreign (especially French)

HISTORY

Thomas Arne

Henry Purcell

musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell's Psyche, patterned on the 1671 'comdie-ballet' of
the same name produced by Molire and Jean-Baptiste
Lully. William Davenant produced The Tempest in the
same year, which was the rst musical adaption of a
Shakespeare play (composed by Locke and Johnson).[23]
About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis, often thought of as the rst true English-language opera.
Blows immediate successor was the better known Henry
Purcell. Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and
Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the
use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcells best work
was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but
instead he usually worked within the constraints of the
semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques
are contained within the structure of a spoken play, such
as Shakespeare in Purcells The Fairy-Queen (1692) and
Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and
Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend
not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that
Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through
song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his
collaborator John Dryden) was to establish serious opera
in England, but these hopes ended with Purcells early
death at the age of 36.

Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England

dwindled for several decades. A revived interest in
opera occurred in the 1730s which is largely attributed
to Thomas Arne, both for his own compositions and
for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of
large-scale works in English. Arne was the rst English
composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic
opera, with his greatest success being Thomas and Sally
in 1760. His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the rst attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was
a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. Although Arne imitated many elements of Italian opera, he
was perhaps the only English composer at that time who
was able to move beyond the Italian inuences and create
his own unique and distinctly English voice. His modernized ballad opera, Love in a Village (1762), began a vogue
for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century.
Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced a light, airy,
original, and pleasing melody, wholly dierent from that
of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had
either pillaged or imitated.
Besides Arne, the other dominating force in English opera
at this time was George Frideric Handel, whose opera serias lled the London operatic stages for decades, and inuenced most home-grown composers, like John Frederick Lampe, who wrote using Italian models. This situation continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries,
including in the work of Michael William Balfe, and the
operas of the great Italian composers, as well as those of

2.6

Russian opera

9
of the 21st century, the librettist of an early Birtwistle
opera, Michael Nyman, has been focusing on composing operas, including Facing Goya, Man and Boy: Dada,
and Love Counts. Today composers such as Thomas Ads
continue to export English opera abroad.[25]
Also in the 20th century, American composers like
Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Gian Carlo
Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Carlisle Floyd began to
contribute English-language operas infused with touches
of popular musical styles. They were followed by
composers such as Philip Glass, Mark Adamo, John
Corigliano, Robert Moran, John Coolidge Adams, Andr
Previn and Jake Heggie.

2.6 Russian opera

Main article: Russian opera
Opera was brought to Russia in the 1730s by the

The Mikado (Lithograph)

Mozart, Beethoven and Meyerbeer, continued to dominate the musical stage in England.
The only exceptions were ballad operas, such as John
Gay's The Beggars Opera (1728), musical burlesques,
European operettas, and late Victorian era light operas,
notably the Savoy Operas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur
Sullivan, all of which types of musical entertainments
frequently spoofed operatic conventions. Sullivan wrote
only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the eorts of
a number of young English composers beginning about
1876),[23] but he claimed that even his light operas constituted part of a school of English opera, intended to
supplant the French operettas (usually performed in bad
translations) that had dominated the London stage from
the mid-19th century into the 1870s. Londons Daily
Telegraph agreed, describing The Yeomen of the Guard as
a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let
us hope, and possibly signicant of an advance towards a Feodor Chaliapin as Ivan Susanin in Glinka's A Life for the Tsar
national lyric stage.[24]
In the 20th century, English opera began to assert more
independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams
and in particular Benjamin Britten, who in a series of
works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed
an excellent air for the dramatic and superb musicality. More recently Sir Harrison Birtwistle has emerged
as one of Britains most signicant contemporary composers from his rst opera Punch and Judy to his most recent critical success in The Minotaur. In the rst decade

Italian operatic troupes and soon it became an important part of entertainment for the Russian Imperial
Court and aristocracy. Many foreign composers such as
Baldassare Galuppi, Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti,
and Domenico Cimarosa (as well as various others) were
invited to Russia to compose new operas, mostly in the
Italian language. Simultaneously some domestic musicians like Maksym Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky were sent abroad to learn to write operas. The rst

10

HISTORY

opera written in Russian was Tsefal i Prokris by the Italian composer Francesco Araja (1755). The development
of Russian-language opera was supported by the Russian composers Vasily Pashkevich, Yevstigney Fomin and
Alexey Verstovsky.
However, the real birth of Russian opera came with
Mikhail Glinka and his two great operas A Life for the
Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). After
him, in the 19th century in Russia, there were written
such operatic masterpieces as Rusalka and The Stone
Guest by Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Boris Godunov and
Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky, Prince Igor by
Alexander Borodin, Eugene Onegin and The Queen of
Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and The Snow Maiden
and Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. These developments mirrored the growth of Russian nationalism
across the artistic spectrum, as part of the more general
Slavophilism movement.
In the 20th century, the traditions of Russian opera were
developed by many composers including Sergei Rachmanino in his works The Miserly Knight and Francesca
da Rimini, Igor Stravinsky in Le Rossignol, Mavra,
Oedipus rex, and The Rakes Progress, Sergei Prokoev
in The Gambler, The Love for Three Oranges, The Fiery
Angel, Betrothal in a Monastery, and War and Peace; as The score of Smetanas The Bartered Bride
well as Dmitri Shostakovich in The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Edison Denisov in L'cume
des jours, and Alfred Schnittke in Life with an Idiot and in Georgia under the leadership Zacharia Paliashvili,
who fused local folk songs and stories with 19th-century
Historia von D. Johann Fausten.[26]
Romantic classical themes.

2.7

Other national operas

Spain also produced its own distinctive form of opera,

known as zarzuela, which had two separate owerings:
one from the mid-17th century through the mid-18th century, and another beginning around 1850. During the late
18th century up until the mid-19th century, Italian opera
was immensely popular in Spain, supplanting the native
form.
Czech composers also developed a thriving national opera
movement of their own in the 19th century, starting
with Bedich Smetana, who wrote eight operas including
the internationally popular The Bartered Bride. Antonn
Dvok, most famous for Rusalka, wrote 13 operas; and
Leo Janek gained international recognition in the 20th
century for his innovative works including Jenfa, The
Cunning Little Vixen, and Ka Kabanov.
In Russian Eastern Europe, several national operas began to emerge. Ukrainian opera was developed by
Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813-1873) whose most famous work Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Cossack Beyond
the Danube) is regularly performed around the world.
Other Ukrainian opera composers include Mykola Lysenko (Taras Bulba and Natalka Poltavka), Heorhiy Maiboroda, and Yuliy Meitus. At the turn of the century, a
distinct national opera movement also began to emerge Ferenc Erkel, the father of Hungarian opera

2.8

Contemporary, recent, and modernist trends

11

The key gure of Hungarian national opera in the 19th

century was Ferenc Erkel, whose works mostly dealt with
historical themes. Among his most often performed operas are Hunyadi Lszl and Bnk bn. The most famous modern Hungarian opera is Bla Bartk's Duke
Bluebeards Castle.
Stanisaw Moniuszko's opera Straszny Dwr (in English
The Haunted Manor) (1861-4) represents a nineteenthcentury peak of Polish national opera.[27] In the 20th
century, other operas created by Polish composers included King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Ubu Rex
by Krzysztof Penderecki.
The rst known opera from Turkey (the Ottoman Empire)
was Arshak II, which was an Armenian opera composed
by an ethnic Armenian composer Tigran Tchoukhajian in
1868 and partially performed in 1873. It was fully staged
in 1945 in Armenia.
The rst years of the Soviet Union saw the emergence
of new national operas, such as the Korolu (1937) by
the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. The rst
Kyrgyz opera, Ai-Churek, premiered in Moscow at the
Bolshoi Theatre on 26 May 1939, during Kyrgyz Art
Decade. It was composed by Vladimir Vlasov, Abdylas
Maldybaev and Vladimir Fere. The libretto was written
by Joomart Bokonbaev, Jusup Turusbekov, and Kybanychbek Malikov. The opera is based on the Kyrgyz heroic
epic Manas.[28][29]
Chinese contemporary classical opera, a Chinese lan- Arnold Schoenberg in 1917. Portrait by Egon Schiele.
guage form of Western style opera that is distinct from
traditional Chinese opera, has had operas dating back to
dramatic works, Erwartung (1909, premiered in 1924)
The White Haired Girl in 1945.[30][31][32]
and Die glckliche Hand display heavy use of chromatic
harmony and dissonance in general. Schoenberg also occasionally used Sprechstimme.

2.8

2.8.1

Contemporary, recent, and modernist

The two operas of Schoenbergs pupil Alban Berg,
trends
Modernism

Perhaps the most obvious stylistic manifestation of modernism in opera is the development of atonality. The
move away from traditional tonality in opera had begun
with Richard Wagner, and in particular the Tristan chord.
Composers such as Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy,
Giacomo Puccini, Paul Hindemith, Benjamin Britten and
Hans Ptzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a
more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance. Another aspect of modernist opera is the shift
away from long, suspended melodies, to short quick mottos, as rst illustrated by Giuseppe Verdi in his Falsta.
Composers such as Strauss, Britten, Shostakovich and
Stravinsky adopted and expanded upon this style.

Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (incomplete at his death in

1935) share many of the same characteristics as described above, though Berg combined his highly personal interpretation of Schoenbergs twelve-tone technique with melodic passages of a more traditionally tonal
nature (quite Mahlerian in character) which perhaps partially explains why his operas have remained in standard
repertory, despite their controversial music and plots.
Schoenbergs theories have inuenced (either directly or
indirectly) signicant numbers of opera composers ever
since, even if they themselves did not compose using his
techniques.

Composers thus inuenced include the Englishman

Benjamin Britten, the German Hans Werner Henze, and
the Russian Dmitri Shostakovich. (Philip Glass also
makes use of atonality, though his style is generally dethought of as another 20thOperatic modernism truly began in the operas of two scribed as minimalist, usually
[33]
century
development.)
Viennese composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his student Alban Berg, both composers and advocates of However, operatic modernisms use of atonality also
atonality and its later development (as worked out by sparked a backlash in the form of neoclassicism. An early
Schoenberg), dodecaphony. Schoenbergs early musico- leader of this movement was Ferruccio Busoni, who in

12

HISTORY

ists; Mark Adamo's two-act realization of Little Women is

scored for 18 instrumentalists.
Another feature of late 20th-century opera is the emergence of contemporary historical operas, in contrast to
the tradition of basing operas on more distant history, the
re-telling of contemporary ctional stories or plays, or on
myth or legend. The Death of Klinghoer, Nixon in China
and Doctor Atomic by John Adams, Dead Man Walking
by Jake Heggie, and Anna Nicole by Mark-Anthony Turnage exemplify the dramatisation on stage of events in
recent living memory, where characters portrayed in the
opera were alive at the time of the premiere performance.
The Metropolitan Opera in the US reports that the average age of its audience is now 60.[37] Many opera companies have experienced a similar trend, and opera company
websites are replete with attempts to attract a younger audience. This trend is part of the larger trend of greying
audiences for classical music since the last decades of the
20th century.[38] In an eort to attract younger audiences,
the Metropolitan Opera oers a student discount on ticket
purchases.[39] Major opera companies have been better
able to weather the funding cutbacks, because they can
aord to hire star singers which draw substantial audiences.

Stravinsky in 1921

Smaller companies in the US have a more fragile existence, and they usually depend on a patchwork quilt
of support from state and local governments, local businesses, and fundraisers. Nevertheless, some smaller companies have found ways of drawing new audiences. Opera
Carolina oer discounts and happy hour events to the 21to 40-year-old demographic.[40] In addition to radio and
television broadcasts of opera performances, which have
had some success in gaining new audiences, broadcasts
of live performances in HD to movie theatres have shown
the potential to reach new audiences. Since 2006, the Met
has broadcast live performances to several hundred movie
screens all over the world.[41]

1913 wrote the libretto for his neoclassical number opera

Arlecchino (rst performed in 1917).[34] Also among
the vanguard was the Russian Igor Stravinsky. After composing music for the Diaghilev-produced ballets
Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913), Stravinsky turned to neoclassicism, a development culminating in his opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927).[35] Well
after his Rimsky-Korsakov-inspired works The Nightingale (1914), and Mavra (1922), Stravinsky continued
to ignore serialist technique and eventually wrote a fulledged 18th-century-style diatonic number opera The
Rakes Progress (1951). His resistance to serialism (an at- 2.8.3 From musicals back towards opera
titude he reversed following Schoenbergs death) proved
By the late 1930s, some musicals began to be written with
to be an inspiration for many other composers.[36]
a more operatic structure. These works include complex
polyphonic ensembles and reect musical developments
2.8.2 Other trends
of their times. Porgy and Bess (1935), inuenced by
jazz styles, and Candide (1956), with its sweeping, lyriA common trend throughout the 20th century, in both cal passages and farcical parodies of opera, both opened
opera and general orchestral repertoire, is the use of on Broadway but became accepted as part of the opera
smaller orchestras as a cost-cutting measure; the grand repertory. Popular musicals such as Show Boat, West
Romantic-era orchestras with huge string sections, multi- Side Story, Brigadoon, Sweeney Todd, Passion, Evita, The
ple harps, extra horns, and exotic percussion instruments Light in the Piazza, The Phantom of the Opera and othwere no longer feasible. As government and private pa- ers tell dramatic stories through complex music and are in
tronage of the arts decreased throughout the 20th century, the 2000s they sometimes seen in opera houses.[42] The
new works were often commissioned and performed with Most Happy Fella (1952) is quasi-operatic and has been
smaller budgets, very often resulting in chamber-sized revived by the New York City Opera. Other rock inuworks, and short, one-act operas. Many of Benjamin enced musicals, such as Tommy (1969) and Jesus Christ
Britten's operas are scored for as few as 13 instrumental- Superstar (1971), Les Misrables (1980), Rent (1996),

3.2

Historical use of voice parts

13
female vocal ranges, in which case they are termed
sopranist or countertenor. The countertenor is commonly
encountered in opera, sometimes singing parts written for
castrati men neutered at a young age specically to give
them a higher singing range.) Singers are then further
classied by size for instance, a soprano can be described as a lyric soprano, coloratura, soubrette, spinto,
or dramatic soprano. These terms, although not fully describing a singing voice, associate the singers voice with
the roles most suitable to the singers vocal characteristics.

Yet another sub-classication can be made according to

acting skills or requirements, for example the Basso Buo
who often must be a specialist in patter as well as a comic
actor. This is carried out in detail in the Fach system of
German speaking countries, where historically opera and
The cast of the Boston preview of Porgy and Bess prior to the
spoken drama were often put on by the same repertory
works Broadway opening. While Porgy was launched on Broadcompany.
way, it has become a standard part of the opera repertory.
A particular singers voice may change drastically over his
or her lifetime, rarely reaching vocal maturity until the
Spring Awakening (2006), and Natasha, Pierre & The third decade, and sometimes not until middle age. Two
Great Comet of 1812 (2012) employ various operatic con- French voice types, premiere dugazon and deuxieme dugaventions, such as through composition, recitative instead zon, were named after successive stages in the career of
of dialogue, and leitmotifs.
Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre (Mme. Dugazon). Other terms
originating in the star casting system of the Parisian theatres are baryton-martin and soprano falcon.

2.9

Acoustic enhancement in opera

A subtle type of sound electronic reinforcement called

acoustic enhancement is used in some modern concert
halls and theatres where operas are performed. Although none of the major opera houses "...use traditional, Broadway-style sound reinforcement, in which
most if not all singers are equipped with radio microphones mixed to a series of unsightly loudspeakers scattered throughout the theatre, many use a sound reinforcement system for acoustic enhancement, and for subtle boosting of ostage voices, child singers, onstage dialogue, and sound eects (e.g., church bells in Tosca or
thunder eects in Wagnerian operas).[43]

Operatic voices

Operatic vocal technique evolved, in a time before electronic amplication, to allow singers to produce enough
volume to be heard over an orchestra, without the instrumentalists having to substantially compromise their volume.

3.1

Vocal classications

Singers and the roles they play are classied by voice

type, based on the tessitura, agility, power and timbre
of their voices. Male singers can be classied by
vocal range as bass, bass-baritone, baritone, tenor and
countertenor, and female singers as contralto, mezzosoprano and soprano. (Men sometimes sing in the

3.2 Historical use of voice parts

The following is only intended as a brief
overview. For the main articles, see soprano,
mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass,
countertenor and castrato.
The soprano voice has typically been used as the voice
of choice for the female protagonist of the opera since
the latter half of the 18th century. Earlier, it was common for that part to be sung by any female voice, or even
a castrato. The current emphasis on a wide vocal range
was primarily an invention of the Classical period. Before
that, the vocal virtuosity, not range, was the priority, with
soprano parts rarely extending above a high A (Handel,
for example, only wrote one role extending to a high C),
though the castrato Farinelli was alleged to possess a top
D (his lower range was also extraordinary, extending to
tenor C). The mezzo-soprano, a term of comparatively recent origin, also has a large repertoire, ranging from the
female lead in Purcells Dido and Aeneas to such heavyweight roles as Brangne in Wagners Tristan und Isolde
(these are both roles sometimes sung by sopranos; there is
quite a lot of movement between these two voice-types).
For the true contralto, the range of parts is more limited,
which has given rise to the insider joke that contraltos
only sing witches, bitches, and britches" roles. In recent
years many of the trouser roles from the Baroque era,
originally written for women, and those originally sung by
castrati, have been reassigned to countertenors.

14

4 CHANGING ROLE OF THE ORCHESTRA

The tenor voice, from the Classical era onwards, has

traditionally been assigned the role of male protagonist.
Many of the most challenging tenor roles in the repertory
were written during the bel canto era, such as Donizetti's
sequence of 9 Cs above middle C during La lle du rgiment. With Wagner came an emphasis on vocal heft for
his protagonist roles, with this vocal category described
as Heldentenor; this heroic voice had its more Italianate
counterpart in such roles as Calaf in Puccinis Turandot.
Basses have a long history in opera, having been used in
opera seria in supporting roles, and sometimes for comic
relief (as well as providing a contrast to the preponderance of high voices in this genre). The bass repertoire is
wide and varied, stretching from the comedy of Leporello
in Don Giovanni to the nobility of Wotan in Wagners
Ring Cycle, to the conicted King Phillip of Verdis Don
Carlos. In between the bass and the tenor is the baritone, which also varies in weight from say, Guglielmo in
Mozarts Cos fan tutte to Posa in Verdis Don Carlos; the
actual designation baritone was not standard until the
mid-19th century.

3.3

the rst major female star (or prima donna), Anna Renzi,
dates to the mid-17th century. In the 18th century, a
number of Italian sopranos gained international renown
and often engaged in erce rivalry, as was the case with
Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, who started
a st ght with one another during a performance of a
Handel opera. The French disliked castrati, preferring
their male heroes to be sung by an haute-contre (a high
tenor), of which Joseph Legros (17391793) was a leading example.[44]
Though opera patronage has decreased in the last century in favor of other arts and media (such as musicals,
cinema, radio, television and recordings), mass media
and the advent of recording have supported the popularity of many famous singers including Maria Callas,
Enrico Caruso, Amelita Galli-Curci, Kirsten Flagstad,
Mario Del Monaco, Ris Stevens, Alfredo Kraus, Franco
Corelli, Montserrat Caball, Joan Sutherland, Birgit Nilsson, Nellie Melba, Rosa Ponselle, Beniamino Gigli, Jussi
Bjrling, Feodor Chaliapin, and "The Three Tenors"
(Luciano Pavarotti, Plcido Domingo, and Jos Carreras).

Famous singers

4 Changing role of the orchestra

The castrato Senesino, c. 1720

Early performances of opera were too infrequent for

singers to make a living exclusively from the style, but
with the birth of commercial opera in the mid-17th century, professional performers began to emerge. The role
of the male hero was usually entrusted to a castrato,
and by the 18th century, when Italian opera was performed throughout Europe, leading castrati who possessed extraordinary vocal virtuosity, such as Senesino
and Farinelli, became international stars. The career of

Before the 1700s, Italian operas used a small string orchestra, but it rarely played to accompany the singers.
Opera solos during this period were accompanied by
the basso continuo group, which consisted of the
harpsichord, plucked instruments such as lute and a
bass instrument.[45] The string orchestra typically only
played when the singer was not singing, such as during
a singers "...entrances and exits, between vocal numbers,
[or] for [accompanying] dancing. Another role for the
orchestra during this period was playing an orchestral
ritornello to mark the end of a singers solo.[45] During
the early 1700s, some composers began to use the string
orchestra to mark certain aria or recitatives "...as special";
by the 1720, most arias were accompanied by orchestra. Opera composers such as Domenico Sarro, Leonardo
Vinci, Giambattista Pergolesi, Leonardo Leo, and Johann
Adolf Hasse added new instruments to the opera orchestra and gave the instruments new roles. They added wind
instruments to the strings and used orchestral instruments
to play instrumental solos, as a way to mark certain arias
as special.[45]
The orchestra has also provided an instrumental overture
before the singers come onstage since the 1600s. Peri's
Euridice opens with a brief instrumental ritornello, and
Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) opens with a toccata, in this
case a fanfare for muted trumpets. The French overture
as found in Jean-Baptiste Lully's operas[46] consist of a
slow introduction in a marked dotted rhythm, followed
by a lively movement in fugato style. The overture was
frequently followed by a series of dance tunes before the
curtain rose. This overture style was also used in English

15
vated its status to that of a prima donna.[50] Wagners
operas were scored with unprecedented scope and complexity, adding more brass instruments and huge ensemble sizes: indeed, his score to Das Rheingold calls for six
harps.

A German opera orchestra from the early 1950s

opera, most notably in Henry Purcell's Dido and neas.

Handel also uses the French overture form in some of his
Italian operas such as Giulio Cesare.[47]
In Italy, a distinct form called overture arose in the
1680s, and became established particularly through the
operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, and spread throughout Europe, supplanting the French form as the standard operatic overture by the mid-18th century.[48] It uses three
generally homophonic movements: fastslowfast. The
opening movement was normally in duple metre and in
a major key; the slow movement in earlier examples was
short, and could be in a contrasting key; the concluding
movement was dance-like, most often with rhythms of
the gigue or minuet, and returned to the key of the opening section. As the form evolved, the rst movement may
incorporate fanfare-like elements and took on the pattern
of so-called sonatina form (sonata form without a development section), and the slow section became more
extended and lyrical.[48]

As the role of the orchestra and other instrumental ensembles changed over the history of opera, so did the role
of leading the musicians. In the Baroque era, the musicians were usually directed by the harpsichord player,
although the French composer Lully is known to have
conducted with a long sta. In the 1800s, during the
Classical period, the rst violinist, also known as the
concertmaster, would lead the orchestra while sitting.
Over time, some directors began to stand up and use hand
and arm gestures to lead the performers. Eventually this
role of music director became termed the conductor, and
a podium was used to make it easier for all the musicians
to see him or her. By the time Wagnerian operas were
introduced, the complexity of the works and the huge orchestras used to play them gave the conductor an increasingly important role. Modern opera conductors have a
challenging role: they have to direct both the orchestra in
the orchestra pit and the singers up on stage.

5 Language and translation issues

Since the days of Handel and Mozart, many composers

have favored Italian as the language for the libretto of
their operas. From the Bel Canto era to Verdi, composers would sometimes supervise versions of their operas in both Italian and French. Because of this, operas
such as Lucia di Lammermoor or Don Carlos are today
deemed canonical in both their French and Italian verIn Italian opera after about 1800, the overture became sions.
known as the sinfonia.[49] Fisher also notes the term Sin- Till the mid 1950s, it was acceptable to produce operas in
fonia avanti l'opera (literally, the symphony before the translations even if these had not been authorized by the
opera) was an early term for a sinfonia used to begin an composer or the original librettists. For example, opera
opera, that is, as an overture as opposed to one serving houses in Italy routinely staged Wagner in Italian.[51] Afto begin a later section of the work.[49] In 19th-century ter WWII, opera scholarship improved, artists refocused
opera, in some operas, the overture, Vorspiel, Einleitung, on the original versions, and translations fell out of faIntroduction, or whatever else it may be called, was the vor. Knowledge of European languages, especially Italportion of the music which takes place before the curtain ian, French, and German, is today an important part of
rises; a specic, rigid form was no longer required for the the training for professional singers."The biggest chunk
overture.
of operatic training is in linguistics and musicianship,
The role of the orchestra in accompanying the singers explains mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick. "[I have to unchanged over the 19th century, as the Classical style tran- derstand] not only what I'm singing, but what everyone
sing Italian, Czech, Russian, French,
sitioned to the Romantic era. In general, orchestras got else is singing. I [52]
German,
English.
bigger, new instruments were added, such as additional
percussion instruments (e.g., bass drum, cymbals, snare
drum, etc.). The orchestration of orchestra parts also developed over the 19th century. In Wagnerian operas, the
forefronting of the orchestra went beyond the overture.
In Wagnerian operas such as Tristan, the orchestra often
played the recurrent musical themes or leitmotifs, a role
which gave a prominence to the orchestra which "...ele-

In the 1980s, supertitles (sometimes called surtitles) began to appear. Although supertitles were rst almost
universally condemned as a distraction,[53] today many
opera houses provide either supertitles, generally projected above the theatres proscenium arch, or individual
seat screens where spectators can choose from more than
one language. Subtitles in one or more languages have be-

16

come standard in opera broadcasts, simulcasts, and DVD

editions.
Today, operas are only rarely performed in translation. Exceptions include the English National Opera and
the Opera Theater of St. Louis, which favor English
translations.[54] Another exception are opera productions
intended for a young audience, such as Humperdincks
Hansel and Gretel[55] and some productions of Mozarts
The Magic Flute.[56]

Funding of opera

Swedish opera singers in a tribute to Kjerstin Dellert and the

Ulriksdal Palace Theater at the 40-year jubilee in 2016 of its
funding, renovation and subsequent reopening.

Outside the US, and especially in Europe, most opera

houses receive public subsidies from taxpayers.[57] In Milan, Italy, 60% of La Scalas annual budget of 115 million is from ticket sales and private donations, with the
remaining 40% coming from public funds.[58] In 2005,
La Scala received 25% of Italys total state subsidy of
464 million for the performing arts.[59] In the UK,
Arts Council England provides funds to Opera North, the
Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, and English
National Opera. Between 2012 and 2015, these four
opera companies along with the English National Ballet,
Birmingham Royal Ballet and Northern Ballet accounted
for 22% of the funds in the Arts Councils national portfolio. During that period, the Council undertook an analysis
of its funding for large scale opera and ballet companies
setting recommendations and targets for the companies
to meet prior to the 20152018 funding decisions.[60] In
February 2015, concerns over English National Operas
business plan led to the Arts Council placing it under
special funding arrangements in what The Independent
termed the unprecedented step of threatening to withdraw public funding if the Councils concerns were not
met by 2017.[61]

REFERENCES

7 Television, cinema and the Internet

A milestone for opera broadcasting in the U.S. was
achieved on December 24, 1951, with the live broadcast
of Amahl and the Night Visitors, an opera in one act by
Gian Carlo Menotti. It was the rst opera specically
composed for television in America.[62] Another milestone occurred in Italy in 1992 when Tosca was broadcast live from its original Roman settings and times of the
day: The rst act came from the 16th-century Church of
Sant'Andrea della Valle at noon on Saturday; the 16thcentury Palazzo Farnese was the setting for the second at
8:15 P.M.; and on Sunday at 6 A.M., the third act was
broadcast from Castel Sant'Angelo. The production was
transmitted via satellite to 105 countries.[63]
Major opera companies have begun presenting their performances in local cinemas throughout the United States
and many other countries. The Metropolitan Opera began a series of live high-denition video transmissions
to cinemas around the world in 2006.[64] In 2007, Met
performances were shown in over 424 theaters in 350
U.S. cities. La bohme went out to 671 screens worldwide. San Francisco Opera began prerecorded video
transmissions in March 2008. As of June 2008, approximately 125 theaters in 117 U.S. cities carry the showings. The HD video opera transmissions are presented
via the same HD digital cinema projectors used for major
Hollywood lms.[65] European opera houses and festivals
including the Royal Opera in London, La Scala in Milan, the Salzburg Festival, La Fenice in Venice, and the
Maggio Musicale in Florence have also transmitted their
productions to theaters in cities around the world since
2006, including 90 cities in the U.S.[66][67]
The emergence of the Internet has also aected the way
in which audiences consume opera. In 2009 the British
Glyndebourne Festival Opera oered for the rst time
an online digital video download of its complete 2007
production of Tristan und Isolde. In 2013 season the
festival streamed all six of its productions online.[68][69]
In July 2012 the rst online community opera was premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Titled Free Will,
it was created my members of the Internet group Opera
By You. Its 400 members from 43 countries wrote the
libretto, composed the music, and designed the sets and
costumes using the Wreckamovie web platform . Savonlinna Opera Festival provided professional soloists, an 80member choir, a symphony orchestra, the stage machinery. It was performed live at at the festival and streamed
live on the internet.[70]

8 References
Notes

17

[1] Some denitions of opera: dramatic performance or

composition of which music is an essential part, branch
of art concerned with this (Concise Oxford English Dictionary); any dramatic work that can be sung (or at times
declaimed or spoken) in a place for performance, set to
original music for singers (usually in costume) and instrumentalists (Amanda Holden, Viking Opera Guide); musical work for the stage with singing characters, originated
in early years of 17th century (Pears Cyclopaedia, 1983
ed.).
[2] Apel, p. 718.
[3] Comparable art forms from various other parts of the
world, many of them ancient in origin, are also sometimes
called opera by analogy, usually prefaced with an adjective indicating the region (for example, Chinese opera).
These independent traditions are not derivative of Western opera, but are rather distinct forms of musical theatre.
Opera is also not the only type of Western musical theatre: in the ancient world, Greek drama featured singing
and instrumental accompaniment; and in modern times,
other forms such as the musical have appeared.
[4] General information in this section comes from the relevant articles in The Oxford Companion to Music, by.
P.Scholes (10th ed., 1968).
[5] Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. "opera".
[6] Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapter 1; articles on
Peri and Monteverdi in The Viking Opera Guide.
[7] Karin Pendle Women and music 2001 p65 From 1587
1600 a Jewish singer cited only as Madama Europa was in
the pay of the Duke of Mantua,
[8] Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 13.
[9] Larousse Dictionnaire de la musique

[18] General outline for this section from The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 13, 6, 8 and 9, and
The Oxford Companion to Music; more specic references
from the individual composer entries in The Viking Opera
Guide.
[19] Kenrick, John. A History of The Musical: European Operetta 1850-1880. Musicals101.com
[20] A Short History of Opera. ISBN 9780231119580. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
[21] Their operas formed another genre, the Opera Lyrique,
combined opera comique and grand opera. It is less
grandiose than grand opera, but without the spoken dialogue of opera comique.
[22] General outline for this section from The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 14, 8 and 9; and The
Oxford Companion to Music (10th ed., 1968); more specic references from the individual composer entries in
The Viking Opera Guide.
[23] From Webrarian.coms Ivanhoe site.
[24] The Daily Telegraph's review of Yeomen stated, The accompaniments... are delightful to hear, and especially
does the treatment of the woodwind compel admiring attention. Schubert himself could hardly have handled those
instruments more deftly. ...we have a genuine English
opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly signicant of an advance towards a national lyric
stage. (quoted at p. 312 in Allen, Reginald (1975). The
First Night Gilbert and Sullivan. London: Chappell & Co.
Ltd.). Sullivan produced a few light operas in the 1890s
that were of a more serious nature than those in the G&S
series, including Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone, but
Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts a record until Broadways La bohme) survives as his only Grand Opera.

[10] Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the

French Enlightenment by Downing A. Thomas, p. 148.

[25] Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 1, 3 and 9.

The Viking Opera Guide articles on Blow, Purcell and Britten.

[11] Lully Studies by John Hajdu Heyer, p. 248

[26] Taruskin, Richard: Russia in 'The New Grove Dictionary

of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992); Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 79.

[12] A History of Western Musical Aesthetics by Edward A.

Lippman, p. 171
[13] Kings College London, seminar 1. Music: universal, national, nationalistic

[27] See the chapter on Russian, Czech, Polish and Hungarian

Opera to 1900 by John Tyrrell in The Oxford Illustrated
History of Opera (1994).

[14] Man and Music: the Classical Era, ed. Neal Zaslaw
(Macmillan, 1989); entries on Gluck and Mozart in The
Viking Opera Guide.

[28] Abazov, Ras (2007). Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics, pp. 144-145. Greenwood Publishing
Group, ISBN 0313336563

[15] http://www.richardstrauss.at/strauss-and-wagner.html

[29] Igmen, Ali F. (2012). Speaking Soviet with an Accent, p.

163. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0822978091

[16] Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapters 5, 8 and 9.

Viking Opera Guide entry on Verdi.
[17] Man and Music: the Classical Era ed. Neal Zaslaw
(Macmillan, 1989), pp.242247, 258260;Oxford Illustrated History of Opera pp.5863, 98103. Articles on
Hasse, Graun and Hiller in Viking Opera Guide.

[30] World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Asia/ Pacic, p. 140 Series Rubin - 1998 Western-style opera
(also known as High Opera) exists alongside the many Beijing Opera groups. The Central ... Operas of note by Chinese composers include A Girl With White Hair written in
the 1940s, Red Squad in Hong Hu and Jiang Jie.

18

REFERENCES

[31] Zicheng Hong, A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, 2007, p. 227: Written in the early 1940s, for a
long time The White-Haired Girl was considered a model
of new western-style opera in China.

[49] Fisher 1998.

[32] Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women - Volume 2

- Page 145 Lily Xiao Hong Lee, A. D. Stefanowska, Sue
Wiles - 2003 "... of the PRC, Zheng Lcheng was active
in his work as a composer; he wrote the music for the
Western-style opera Cloud Gazing.

[51] Spicer, Graham. "'Vincer' or 'I shall win!'? The opera

translation dilemma

[33] http://www.classicfm.com/discover/periods/modern/
minimalism-guide/
[34] Chris Walton, Neo-classical opera in Cooke, p. 108.

[50] Murray, Christopher John (2004). Encyclopedia of the

Romantic Era. Taylor & Francis. p. 772.

[52] For Opera Powerhouse Dolora Zajick, 'Singing Is Connected To The Body'" (Fresh Air, 19 March 2014)
[53] Tommasini, Anthony. So Thats What the Fat Lady
Sang (The New York Times, 6 July 2008)
[54] Tommasini, Anthony. Opera in Translation Refuses to
Give Up the Ghost (The New York Times, 25 May 2001)

[35] Stravinsky had already turned away from the modernist

trends of his early ballets to produce small-scale works
that do not fully qualify as opera, yet certainly contain
many operatic elements, including Renard (1916: a burlesque in song and dance) and The Soldiers Tale (1918:
to be read, played, and danced"; in both cases the descriptions and instructions are those of the composer). In
the latter, the actors declaim portions of speech to a specied rhythm over instrumental accompaniment, peculiarly
similar to the older German genre of Melodrama.

[55] Humperdincks Hansel & Gretel: A Review by Stephen

Eddins

[36] Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapter 8; The Viking

Opera Guide articles on Schoenberg, Berg and Stravinsky; Malcolm MacDonald Schoenberg (Dent,1976); Francis Routh, Stravinsky (Dent, 1975).

[59] Willey, David (27 October 2005). Italy facing opera

funding crisis. BBC News.

[37] Wakin, Daniel J. (17 February 2011). Met Backtracks on

Drop in Average Audience Age. The New York Times.

[56] Tommasini, Anthony. A Mini-Magic Flute? Mozart

Would Approve (The New York Times, 4 July 2005)
[57] Special report: Private money for the arts, The
Economist, 6 August 2001
[58] Owen, Richard (26 May 2010). Is it curtains for Italys
opera houses. The Times. London.

[60] Arts Council England (2015). Arts Council Englands

analysis of its investment in large-scale opera and ballet.
Retrieved 5 May 2015.

[38] General reference for this section: Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, Chapter 9.

[61] Clark, Nick (15 February 2015). English National

Operas public funding may be withdrawn. The Independent. Retrieved 5 May 2015.

[39] Information about Metropolitan Opera Company student

discounts. Metoperafamily.org. Retrieved 2010-11-09.

[62] Obituary: Gian Carlo Menotti, The Daily Telegraph, 2

February 2007. Accessed 11 December 2008

[40] Opera Carolina discount information Archived 21 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine.

[63] O'Connor, John J. (1 January 1993). A Tosca performed

on actual location. The New York Times. Retrieved 4 July
2010.

[41] On Air & On Line: 200708 HD Season. The

Metropolitan Opera. 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2008.

[64] Metropolitan Opera high-denition live broadcast page

[42] Clements, Andrew (17 December 2003). Sweeney Todd,

Royal Opera House, London. The Guardian. London.

[65] The Bigger Picture. Thebiggerpicture.us. Retrieved

2010-11-09.

[43] Kai Harada, Operas Dirty Little Secret, Entertainment

Design, 1 March 2001

[66] Emerging Pictures

[44] The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (ed.

1994), Chapter 11

Parker,

[45] John Spitzer. (2009). Orchestra and voice in eighteenthcentury Italian opera. In: Anthony R. DelDonna and
Pierpaolo Polzonetti (eds.) The Cambridge Companion
to Eighteenth-Century Opera. pp. 112-139. [Online].
Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[46] Waterman and Anthony 2001.
[47] Burrows 2012, page needed]
[48] Fisher 2001.

[67] Where to See Opera at the Movies sidebar p. W10 in

June 2122, 2008 The Wall Street Journal.
[68] Classic FM (26 August 2009). Download Glyndebourne. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
[69] Rhinegold Publishing (28 April 2013). With new pricing
and more streaming the Glyndebourne Festival is making
its shows available to an ever wider audience. Retrieved
21 May 2016.
[70] Partii, Heidi (2014). Supporting Collaboration in
Changing Cultural Landscapes, pp. 208209 in Margaret S Barrett (ed.) Collaborative Creative Thought
and Practice in Music. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN
1472415841

19
Main sources
Apel, Willi, ed. (1969). Harvard Dictionary of
Music, Second Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
SBN 674375017.
Cooke, Mervyn (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-78009-8. See
also Google Books partial preview. Accessed 3 October 2009.
Silke Leopold, The Idea of National Opera, c.
1800, United and Diversity in European Culture c.
1800, ed. Tim Blanning and Hagen Schulze (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1934.
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, edited by
Stanley Sadie (1992), 5,448 pages, is the best, and
by far the largest, general reference in the English language. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 156159-228-5
The Viking Opera Guide, edited by Amanda Holden
(1994), 1,328 pages, ISBN 0-670-81292-7
The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, ed. Roger
Parker (1994)
The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack
and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19869164-5
Opera, the Rough Guide, by Matthew Boyden et al.
(1997), 672 pages, ISBN 1-85828-138-5
Opera: A Concise History, by Leslie Orrey and
Rodney Milnes, World of Art, Thames & Hudson
Other sources
DiGaetani, John Louis: An Invitation to the Opera,
Anchor Books, 1986/91. ISBN 0-385-26339-2.
Dorschel, Andreas, 'The Paradox of Opera', The
Cambridge Quarterly 30 (2001), no. 4, pp. 283
306. ISSN (printed): 0008-199X. ISSN (electronic): 1471-6836. Discusses the aesthetics of
opera.
MacMurray, Jessica M. and Allison Brewster
Franzetti: The Book of 101 Opera Librettos: Complete Original Language Texts with English Translations, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1996.
ISBN 978-1-884822-79-7
Rous, Samuel Holland (1919). The Victrola Book of
the Opera. Stories of The Operas with Illustrations....
Camden, New Jersey, U. S. A.: Victor Talking Machine Company. View at Internet Archive.
Simon, Henry W.: A Treasury of Grand Opera, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1946.

9 Bibliography
Howard Mayer Brown, Opera, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2001. Oxford
University Press
Louis II, Encyclopdia Britannica
Opera, Encyclopdia Britannica

10 Further reading
Abbate, Carolyn; Parker, Roger (2012). A History
of Opera. New York: W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN
9780393057218.
Grout, Donald Jay (1947). A Short History of Opera.
Columbia University Press.

11 External links
Operabase Comprehensive opera performances
database
StageAgent synopses & character descriptions for
most major operas
Whats it about? Opera plot summaries
Vocabulaire de l'Opra (French)
OperaGlass, a resource at Stanford University
HistoricOpera historic operatic images
Americas Opera Boom By Jonathan Leaf, The
American, July/August 2007 Issue
Opera~Opera article archives
A History of Opera. Theatre and Performance.
Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 15 February 2011.

20

12

12
12.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

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Robert Merkel, Tarquin, AstroNomer, -- April, Andre Engels, Dachshund, Fcueto, Rmhermen, Gianfranco, Oliverkroll, Camembert,
Hephaestos, Olivier, Someone else, Ram-Man, Nevilley, Edward, Kchishol1970, D, Mqe, Gabbe, Ixfd64, Lquilter, Zanimum, Shoaler,
Card~enwiki, Fantasy, Ahoerstemeier, Snoyes, TUF-KAT, Den fjttrade ankan~enwiki, Kingturtle, Ijon, , Bogdangiusca,
Nikai, Llull, Evercat, Rl, BRG, Denny, Nikola Smolenski, Jengod, Charles Matthews, Timwi, Viajero, David Latapie, Pladask, Ebruchez,
Zoicon5, Maximus Rex, Head, Traroth, Shizhao, Topbanana, Lord Emsworth, Sandman~enwiki, Raul654, Wetman, Jusjih, Jeq, Dimadick, Nico~enwiki, Chrism, Lowellian, Mayooranathan, Jxg, Flauto Dolce, Dmn, Adam78, Snobot, Kevin Sa, Sj, Kenny sh, Meursault2004, Zigger, Suitov, Chinasaur, Guanaco, Ragib, OldakQuill, Stevietheman, Gadum, DavidBrooks, Antandrus, Beland, Doops,
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Explicit, Henry Merrivale, Liuben, TheCatalyst31, WordyGirl90, Atif.t2, Lolaandersson, Naxosb2c, ClueBot, Thenewopera, Hutcher, The
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Alumnum, SassoBot, Amaury, Daniel Hen, Bungton18, Manuelt15, Hatchetman103, Shadowjams, Hepingping, Pie554, Pdienderfer,
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Daniel78835, F, Ewebb49, Babakmoazzez, Wayne Slam, Crochet, AluminumFoilist, Hiiamcool1234567899, Pun, ChuispastonBot,
Jdavison93, Paver12, Csharpllp, LikeLakers2, Loodeds, SirCadogon4, I hate whitespace, ClueBot NG, Neterseven, Mnorena, Siswick,
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Helpful Pixie Bot, KemalDion, Tholme, Calabe1992, Cera Nola, WNYY98, BG19bot, Wasbeer, Deepblue1, Branthecan, Zse1234567890,
Solomon7968, Mark Arsten, Dogowers, Altar, Swi521, Boleeva, Florida ke, SU26Ilham, Snow Blizzard, Rococo1700, Brokenmeow,

12.2

Images

21

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SpeezaG, Banan0phone, Emily.Pendanski, Dragonmaster666, Dasdfs, Janyl Myrza, Cherubinirules, Fluyoss1, Quenhitran, Trixie05,
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12.2

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Composer:
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