OPERA

 Opera – work
 Combination of singing and declamation
 Libretto – little book
 Masquerades
RENAISSANCE OPERA
 1502 – Isabella d’Este – The first lady of the renaissance
 Camerata – fellowship – group of nobles and poets
 Revive and transform Greek drama
 Recitative – new vocal style – recited
 Soloist with accompaniment
 Dafne – early experiment (Jacopo Peri, 1597)
 Ottavio Rinicci – librettist
 455 lines
 Euridice – Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini
 1600
 Monody (Solo Singing) – first style – express emotional content
 Stile recitativo – declamation with musical instruments
 Separate songs and interludes
 Choruses – Greek tragedy
 Claudio Monteverdi – transition
 L’Orfeo – Mantua 1607
 Le nuove musiche – the new music
BAROQUE OPERA
 Aria – composition for one voice
 Bel canto – beautiful singing
 Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi
 Castrato – castrate before puberty
 Recitative – dialogue spoken

 Pietro Francesco Cavalli – studied under Monteverdi

 1617 – joined St. Mark’s Cathedral
 1637 – public influence opera

 Jean Baptiste Lully – French composer

 Tragedies in music
 Trumpets and kettledrums
 Louis XIV
  Jean Philippe Rameau – followed lully
 Les indes galantes
NEOCLASSICAL OPERA
 Opera seria – serious opera
 Fast-slow-fast
 Rise of the castrati
 Heroes and gods
 Occasionally comic scenes
 Serious subjects

 Opera Buffa – comic opera

 Common people
 The Marriage of Figaro
 Main comic scenes
 Two acts

 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – most versatile composer

 Master of the opera
 Comedies

 Christoph Willibald Gluck – reforming the operatic style