Portal:Opera References

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Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work (called an opera) which combines a text (called a libretto) and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements 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.

Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence around 1597), and was championed by Claudio Monteverdi with works such as L'Orfeo. It soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. However, 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 artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure 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, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute, a landmark in the German tradition.

The first third of the 19th century saw the highpoint of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Meyerbeer. The mid to late 19th century is considered by some a golden age of opera, led by Wagner in Germany and Verdi in Italy. This 'golden age' developed 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), Neo-Classicism ( Stravinsky), and Minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso became known to audiences beyond the circle of opera fans. Operas were also performed on (and written for) radio and television.

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Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria ( SV 325, The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland) is an opera in a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season. The story, taken from the second half of Homer's Odyssey, tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome. After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors have seized the realm and are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope. With the assistance of the gods, his son Telemaco and a staunch friend Eumete, Ulisse vanquishes the suitors and recovers his kingdom. Il ritorno is the first of three full-length works which Monteverdi wrote for the burgeoning Venetian opera industry during the last five years of his life. Together with Monteverdi's other Venetian stage works, it is considered one of the first modern operas. Its music, while showing the influence of earlier works, also demonstrates Monteverdi's development as a composer of opera, through his use of fashionable forms such as arioso, duet and ensemble alongside the older-style recitative. By using a variety of musical styles, Monteverdi is able to express the feelings and emotions of a great range of characters, divine and human, through their music.

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Trial by Jury

Credit: D. H. Friston

An engraving by D. H. Friston of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Trial by Jury, shortly after its première. A satire of courtroom antics, which invoked "almost boisterous hilarity" in its original audience, Trial by Jury remains a favourite throughout the English-speaking world, and is performed regularly to this day.

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In this month

3 June 1875 – Georges Bizet, the composer of Carmen, died in Bougival, France, at the age of 36.
4 June 1966 – Italian mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli, was born in Rome.
6 June 1928 – Die ägyptische Helena by Richard Strauss had its world premiere at the Dresden Semperoper.
11 June 1913 – The popular American mezzo-soprano, Risë Stevens, was born in New York City.
13 June 1801 – Vienna's Theater an der Wien was officially inaugurated. Amongst the world premieres which have taken place there are Beethoven's Fidelio and Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow.
14 June 1884 – The celebrated Irish tenor, John McCormack (pictured), was born in Athlone.
21 June 1868 – Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg had its world premiere at the National Theatre Munich conducted by Hans von Bülow.
22 June 1910 – British tenor, Sir Peter Pears, was born in Farnham, Surrey. He created the leading tenor roles in Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, Albert Herring, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and Death in Venice.

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Giacomo Meyerbeer, (born Jacob Liebmann Beer) (5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer of Jewish birth who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the 19th century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors he gave the genre of grand opera "decisive character". Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe, and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the 19th century. Born to a very wealthy family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist, but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation, but it was Robert le diable (1831) which raised his status to great celebrity. His public career from 1831 until his death, during which he remained throughout a dominating figure in opera, was summarized by his contemporary Hector Berlioz, who claimed that he "has not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky." He was at his peak with his operas Les Huguenots (1836) and Le prophète (1849); his last opera ( L'Africaine) was performed posthumously.

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People are wrong when they say that the opera isn't what it used to be. It is what it used to be—that's what's wrong with it!

— Noël Coward, from in his play Design for Living

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1862 – Brass band arrangement of the Hunters' Chorus from The Lily of Killarney

Brass band arrangement of the Hunters' Chorus from The Lily of Killarney using period instruments. During the 19th century, brass bands began to spring up throughout Europe and America. Popular music, including operas, were arranged for them by composers and music sellers eager to cash in on the free advertising they provided.

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Did you know?

...that following the London premiere of Fabio Campana's opera Esmeralda in 1870 ( Adelina Patti pictured in the title role), The Saturday Review pronounced it "irredeemably bad"?"
...that Patience and Sarah has been called the first lesbian opera?
...that the two leading sopranos in the 1711 world premiere of Handel's Rinaldo, Isabella Girardeau and Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti, were bitter rivals?

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WikiProjects

Parent projects

WikiProject Arts • WikiProject Music • WikiProject Theatre

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WikiProject Opera

Descendant projects

WikiProject Richard Wagner • WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan

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WikiProject Classical music • WikiProject Composers

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Main topics

Opera history: Origins of opera • Italian opera • Opera in German • French opera • Opera in English • Polish opera • Russian opera • Hungarian opera • Armenian opera • Opera in Latin America

Opera genres: Azione teatrale · Ballad opera · Comédie en vaudevilles · Comédie mêlée d'ariettes · Dramma giocoso · Dramma per musica · Farsa · Festa teatrale · Género chico · Grand Opera · Music Drama · Opéra-ballet · Opera buffa · Opéra bouffe · Opéra bouffon · Opéra comique · Opéra féerie · Opera semiseria · Opera seria · Operetta · Pastorale héroïque · Romantische Oper · Savoy opera · Semi-opera · Singspiel · Spieloper · Tragédie en musique · Verismo · Zarzuela · Zeitoper

Opera terms: Aria · Aria di sorbetto · Arioso · Bel canto · Breeches role · Burletta · Cabaletta · Cadenza · Cantabile · Castrato · Cavatina · Chest voice · Claque · Coloratura · Comprimario · Convenienze · Coup de glotte · Da capo aria · Diva · Entr'acte · Fach · Falsetto · Fioritura · Gesamtkunstwerk · Head voice · Intermezzo · Kammersänger · Leitmotif · Legato · Libretto · Literaturoper · Mad scene · Maestro · Melodrama · Melodramma · Monodrama · Messa di voce · Opera house · Passaggio · Portamento · Prima donna · Prompter · Recitative · Regietheater · Répétiteur · Sitzprobe · Spinto · Sprechgesang · Squillo · Stagione · Surtitles · Tessitura · Timbre · Vibrato

Opera voices: Baritenor · Baritone · Bass · Bass-baritone · Coloratura soprano · Contralto · Countertenor · Dramatic soprano · Haute-contre · Lyric soprano · Mezzo-soprano · Soprano · Soubrette · Spinto soprano · Tenor · Tenore contraltino · Tenore di grazia

Opera lists: Opera topics • List of operas by composer • Important operas • Major opera composers • Opera librettists • Opera houses • Opera companies • Opera festivals • Opera directors • Operetta composers • Orphean operas • Zarzuela composers • Opera genres • Operas set in the Crusades • The Record of Singing • Bayreuth canon

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1899 poster of Mme. M. Sissieretta Jones
Adolphe-Joseph-Louis Alizard from Le Charivari
Advertisement for the music score of La Bohème, 1895
Aida poster colors fixed
Al quartiere latino, bozzetto di Adolf Hohenstein per La Bohème (1896) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON000086 - Restoration
Albert Pierre-René Maignan - Jules Massenet - Ariane
Albert Reiss LOC ggbain-25651
Alexandre Charles Lecocq - Giuseppe Verdi - La forza del destino
Alexandre Fragonard - Scène de L'orage (Barbier de Séville)
Alexandre Lacauchie - Gilbert Duprez as Gaston in Verdi's Jérusalem
Alfredo Edel - Jules Massenet - Le mage
Alice Neilsen's production of Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller
Amilcare Ponchielli (before 1886) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO000794 - Restoration
Amédée Forestier - Illustrated London News - Gilbert and Sullivan - Ruddygore (Ruddigore)
Anna Fernqvist, rollporträtt - SMV - H1 122 - Restoration
Atelier Nadar - Fly scene from Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers with Jeanne Granier as Eurydice and Eugène Vauthier as Jupiter, 1887 revival, wide-angle shot
Atelier Nadar - Galli-Marié in Bizet's Carmen
Atelier Nadar - Jacques Isnardon, Vaudeville
Auguste François-Marie Gorguet - poster for the première performance of Édouard Lalo's Le roi d'Ys (1888)
Barbier, Jules, Nadar, Gallica
Boris Kustodiev - Portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin - Google Art Project
Carl Nielsen c. 1908 - Restoration
Carloz Schwabe - Vincent d'Indy's Fervaal
Cavalleria Rusticana - Alfio and Turiddu embrace
Cavalleria Rusticana - Santuzza and Turiddu outside the church
Charles Gounod (1890) by Nadar
Charles Motte - Rossini et Georges IV - la soirée de Brighton
Charles-Antoine Cambon - La Esmeralda, Act 3, Scene 2 set
Charles-Antoine Cambon - La Esmeralda, Act III, Scene 1 set design (Version 2)
Charles-Antoine Cambon - Set design for Act V, Scene 2 of Fromental Halévy's La reine de Chypre
Charles-Antoine Cambon - Set design for the première of Rossini's Robert Bruce, Act III, Scene 3
Cherubini, Luigi - Medea - Restoration
Christine Nilsson Nadar
Colette and Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, 1st scene
Colette and Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, 2nd scene
Collina presso Nagasaki, bozzetto di Alexandre Bailly, Marcel Jambon per Madama Butterfly (1906) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON000079 - Restoration
Composer Rossini G 1865 by Carjat - Restoration
Célestin Nanteuil - Jules Massenet - Don César de Bazan
Dudley Hardy - Poster for His Majesty
Edmond Cavé 1844 Ingres - NY Met Museum of Art
Elliott & Fry - photograph W. S. Gilbert
Ethel Smyth
Eugène Du Faget - Costume designs for Guillaume Tell - 1-3. Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst
Eugène Du Faget - Costume designs for Les Huguenots - 2. Julie Dorus-Gras as Marguerite, Adolphe Nourrit as Raoul, and Cornélie Falcon as Valentine
Eugène Grasset - Jules Massenet - Werther
Falka - Weir Collection
Falstaff 3
Fausta Labia, porträtt - SMV - H5 028 - Restoration
François-Joseph Bélanger - Set design for Gluck's Alceste
Fromental Halévy, L'Éclair score cover - Restoration
Georges Rochegrosse - Henry Février - Henri Cain and Louis Payen after Victorien Sardou - Gismonda
Georges Rochegrosse - Jules Massenet - Roma
Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for Gabriel Fauré's Pénélope (1913)
Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for the prèmiere of Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande
Georges Rochegrosse's poster for Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte
Geraldine Ulmar in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado - photograph only
Giacomo Puccini (1924) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO003293 - Restoration
Gilbert Duprez & Rosine Stoltz in Donizetti's La Favorite
Giuseppe Barberis - Carlo Cornaglia - Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo at La Scala
Giuseppe Verdi, Giovanna d'Arco, Vocal Score - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, La traviata title page - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Lombardi alla prima crociata. Libretto, 1843 - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto, Vocal score illustration by Roberto Focosi - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra first edition libretto for the 1881 revision of the opera - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Un Ballo in maschera, Vocal score frontispiece - restoration
H. M. Brock - Gilbert and Sullivan - D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Ruddigore revival 1921
H. M. Brock - Poster for Iolanthe
H.J. Whitlock - Photograph of Arthur Sullivan
Haydée, ou Le secret Act II - Philippe Chaperon
Hector Berlioz, Béatrice et Bénédict score title page - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, La Prise de Troie score cover - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens vocal score cover - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens à Carthage vocal score cover - Restoration
Henri C. R. Presseq - Camille Erlanger - Le juif polonais
Henry Atwell Thomas - Franz von Suppé - Fatinitza
Il signor Tambourossini - Delaroche
Il trovatore by Luigi Morgari
Illustrated London News - Giuseppe Verdi's Attila at Her Majesty's Theatre, London
Iolanthe piano transcriptions by Ernst Perabo
Ivor Novello
Jacques Offenbach - A. Jannin - Robinson Crusoé
Jacques Offenbach by Nadar
Jean de Paleologu - Jules Massenet - Sapho
Jeremiah Gurney - Photograph of Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
Johann Strauss II by Fritz Luckhardt
John Phillip Sousa - De Wolf Hopper - El Capitan1
Joseph Albert - Ludwig und Malwine Schnorr von Carolsfeld - Tristan und Isolde, 1865f
Jules Massenet - Le Cid 2e Acte, 3e Tableau - L'Illustration
Jules Massenet - Le Cid 3e Acte, 6e Tableau - L'Illustration
Jules Massenet by Eugène Pirou
La Juive Act 1 set 1835 - Restoration
Le comte Ory - Dubois & chez Martinet - Final scene
Lilly Walleni in Daria at Kungliga Operan 1907 - SMV - NV059
Louis Guéymard as Robert le Diable by Gustave Courbet - The Metropolitan Museum of Art 436015 (cropped)
Lucy Arbell as Queen Amahelli in Massenet's Bacchus, wide view
Lucy Arbell in Massenet's Thérèse
Lucy Arbell photographed by Paul Nadar
Luigi Verardi after Dominico Ferri - Gaetano Donizetti - Carrefour de St Jean et Paul. Dans l'Opéra Marino Faliero
Luigi Verardi after Dominico Ferri - Vincenzo Bellini - Théatre Royal Italien. Salle d'armes dans l'Opéra I Puritani
M. Browne - Herbert Railton - Sydney Grundy - Arthur Sullivan - Haddon Hall
Mademoiselle Maupin de l'Opéra (Julie d'Aubigny)
Mademoiselle Priola de l'Opéra Comique, rôle de Javotte dans "Le Roi l'a dit" de Delibes
Magna Lykseth in Tristan och Isolde at Kungliga Operan 1909 - SMV - GL164
Marcel Jambon - Giuseppe Verdi - Otello Act I set design model
Maria Carrara Verdi, Barberina Strepponi, Giuseppe Verdi, Giuditta Ricordi, Teresa Stolz, Umberto Campanari, Giulio Ricordi, Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1900) - Archivio storico Ricordi FOTO003107 - Restoration
Marian Anderson
Maritana - Nov 22 1845 Illustrated London News
Max Brückner - Otto Henning - Richard Wagner - Final scene of Götterdämmerung
Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots - Décor Acte II
Michael William Balfe - Atelier Nadar
Napoli, strada Acquaquilia, bozzetto di Riccardo Salvadori per A Basso Porto (1894) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON002556
Nelly Martyl by Jean Reutlinger (Image 10715)
Paul Maurou - Poster for Edmond Audran's Gillette de Narbonne
Percy Anderson - Poster for The Duchess of Dantzic
Philippe Chaperon - Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots Act I (1896)
Philippe Chaperon - Rigoletto
Philippe Chaperon by Atelier Nadar
Pierre Gaveaux by Edmé Quenedey (1821)
Pierre-Auguste Lamy (?) - Les contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach, Giulietta act
Pierre-Auguste Lamy (?) - Les contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach, Olympia act
Pierre-Auguste Lamy (?) - Les contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach, prologue
Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri - Eugène Cicéri - Philippe Benoist - Adolphe Jean Baptiste Bayot - Décorations de théâtre, Robert le diable, 3e act
PikiWiki Israel 13773 AIDA AT MASADA 2011
Portrait of Madame Dugazon (Louise Rosalie Lefèvre), in the title rôle of Nina (Scene V)
Poster for Burnand and Sullivan's Cox and Box - Royal Gallery of Illustration
Poster for Gilbert and Clay's Ages Ago at the Royal Gallery of Illustration
Poster for Jules Massenet's La Navarraise with Emma Calvé in the rôle of Anita
Poster for Le pardon de Ploërmel 1859
Prokofieff (i.e. Prokofiev) LCCN2014708419 Crop 2
Prudent-Louis Leray - Poster for the première of Georges Bizet's Carmen
Robert Jacob Hamerton - Poster for A Sensation Novel
Robert Jacob Hamerton - Poster for F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan's The Contrabandista
Rosa Raisa (1917) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO002701 - Restoration
Set design by Philippe Chaperon for Act1 sc2 of Aida by Verdi 1871 Cairo - Gallica - Restored
Set design by Philippe Chaperon for Act4 sc2 of Aida by Verdi 1880 Paris
Strauss, Richard - Ariadne auf Naxos - Restoration
Tavola 5, bozzetto di Gebrüder Brückner per Tannhäuser (s.d.) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON011721 - Restoration, crop
Teatro Municipal de São Paulo 8
The Mikado Chappell Vocal Score cover (c.1895)
Thespis - Illustrated London News Jan 6 1872
Trial by Jury - Chaos in the Courtroom
Utopia Limited Poster
Vasta spianata presso Courtray, bozzetto di Giuseppe Palanti per Edgar (s.d.) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON000128 B
Verdi conducting Aida in Paris 1880 - Gallica - Restoration
Wally (soprano), figurino di Adolf Hohenstein per La Wally (1892) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON004639 - Restoration
Wilhelm - Costume design for Arac, Gunon, and Scynthius (Princess Ida, 1884)
Édouard de Reszke by Nadar (BPL Hale Coll)
Émile Bertrand - Jules Massenet - Cendrillon poster