Appreciating the

Western Opera
Music

The opera is actually an art form

in which singer actors as well as
musicians perform a dramatic
work.
The presentation is a combination
of a text called libretto and a
musical score, and is staged.
Opera incorporates many of the
elements of spoken theatre, such
as acting, scenery, and costumes
and even includes dance.

What is Western Opera?

1.

2.

3.

It had its origin in the last years of

the 16th century, and eventually this
new form of entertainment spread
through the rest of Europe.
Italian composer Pietro Francesco
Cavalli held the stage for some 50
years.
Opera began as an entertainment
at the courts of the Italian
aristocracy, with outdoor terraces
and even enclosed tennis courts
being adapted for performances.

How did Western Opera

came about?

4. Italian opera continued to

dominate most of Europe, except
France, attracting foreign
composers such as Handel.
5. Throughout its history, opera
has exerted great influence on other
forms of music and vice versa.
6. Singing is at the center of opera.
7. The most renowned figure of
late 18th-century opera is Mozart.

How did Western Opera

came about?

8.

9.

Mozart began with opera

seria. He is however most
famous for his Italian comic
operas, like The Marriage
of Figaro, Don Giovanni,
Cosi fan tutte, and The
Magic Flute.
Opera is part of the Western
classical music tradition.

How did Western Opera

came about?

One of the worlds most famous opera

house

Palais Garnier of the Paris

Opera

Comic operas generally deal

with ordinary people and
places and end happily,
whereas opera seria treats
mythological or historical
subjects and typically ends
tragically.

What is Palais Garnier of

the Paris Opera?

1.

The most famous examples of

comic opera are Carmen
(1875) by French composer
Georges Bizet and Fidelio by
German composer Ludwig
van Beethoven.

What is Palais Garnier of

the Paris Opera?

2. A form of light, sentimental

comic opera that flourished in
Paris and Vienna in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries came to
be called operatta.

What is Palais Garnier of

the Paris Opera?

3. Imported to the United

States, the operetta evolved into
the musical, a play that includes
songs, choruses and dances in
its narrative.

What is Palais Garnier of

the Paris Opera?

1.

2.

The entire text in a grand

opera is sung in present-day
grand opera.
In present day, comic opera,
singing alternates with
passage that are half sung
and half-spoken and usually
accompanied by a keyboard
instrument.

What is the Opera today?

First of the four operas that

constitue Richard Wagners Der
Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the
Nibelung)

Das Rheingold (The Rhine

Gold

3.

The symphony, for example,

began as an instrumental
introduction (called a
sinfonia) to 18th Italian opera.

What is the Opera today?

4. The glittering runs and

cadenzas (extended virtuosic
solos) of violin and piano
concertos stem, in large part,
from an attempt to replicate
some of operas vocal brilliance
for these instruments.

What is the Opera today?

5. The innovations in harmony

and orchestration (assigning parts
in an orchestral composition to
different instruments) that 19th
century German composer
Richard Wagner developed for
his sprawling operas shaped the
subsequent course of many
musical forms.

What is the Opera today?

6. Indeed many modern

musicians regard the effort to
emerge from the gigantic
shadow of Wagner as the
principal struggle of Classical
music after the 19th century.

What is the Opera today?

The instruments in a full

orchestra may be divided into
main four sections. These are
strings, woodwinds, brass and
percussion. Among the four
sections, the strings section is the
largest in the orchestra. These
instruments usually include the
violins, violas, cellos, basses, and
harps.

What are the musical

instruments in an orchestra?

Woodwinds include oboes,

flutes, saxophones, clarinets,
and bassoons.
The brass section includes
trumpets, French horns and
trombones.
The percussion section can
include timpani, bells, chimes
and xylophone.

What are the musical

instruments in an orchestra?

The first opera ever written,

Dafnewas, was performed in
1597 in Florence in Italy, it was
composed by was Jacopo Peri. In
1600, he worked together with
another composer, Guilio Caccini,
to write an opera called Euridice.
This genre of writing was new. The
characteristic of the new genre was
having solo singer who can tell a
story through singing. It was
presented in a sort of a club called
camerata.

The Baroque Opera (1600-1750)

Claudio Monteverdi, in 1607 wrote

the opera titled Orfeo, which was
produced in Mantua. In 1637, the
first public opera house was
opened in Venice. A number of
theaters in Italy soon started to
produce operas. The stories were
usually about ancient times, like
the Roman Empire or Greek myths.
This period is known as the
Baroque period, the opera was used
as a means to entertain the upper
classes.

The Baroque Opera (1600-1750)

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a

composer known for his
dedication in developing the
Opera. In 1762, he wrote an
opera titled Orfeo which was
performed in Vienna. It had a
number of choruses and ballet
numbers. The lyrics were in
Italian and the music
concentrated on the story rather
than being just a display of
singers' vocal skills.

Classical Opera (Late 18th Century)

Taking cognizance of Gluck, Moxart

composed a number of opera pieces
like Idomeneo which is all about a
Greek story. Mozart also wrote for
the Italian Opera. His works include
Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di
Figaro, and osi fan tutte. For the
German Opera, Mozart wrote The
Abduction from The Serai and The
Magic Flute. Ludwig van Beethoven
also wrote an opera titled Fidelio,
which is about a story of a woman
who rescues her lover from prison.

Classical Opera (Late 18th Century)

Wagner composed both text and

music of his operas. His subjects are
from German folklore and myths.
Wagner used leitmotifs which
means that there are tunes which are
used for particular characters or ideas
in the opera. This allows the music to
develop with the story, and can be
used in interesting ways. The
Spaniards had their own kind of opera
called zarzuela. The Russian
Mikhail Glinka wrote Ruslan and
Lydumia, which was based on a
Russian fairytale.

Romantic Opera (19th Century)