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Comic Opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, ''opera buffa'', emerged as an alternative to '' opera seria''. It quickly made its way to France, where it became ''opéra comique'', and eventually, in the following century, French operetta, with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian and French models along with their own musical traditions. Examples include German ''singspiel'', Viennese operetta, Spanish '' zarzuela'', Russian comic opera, English ballad and Savoy opera, North American operetta and musical comedy. Italian ''opera buffa'' In late 17th-century Italy, light-hearted m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trionfo Dell'onore
''Il trionfo dell'onore'' (''The Triumph of Honour'') is an operatic 'commedia' in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti, with a libretto by . It was first performed at the Teatro dei Fiorentini, Naples, on 26 November 1718. It is Scarlatti's only known comic opera. Roles Synopsis ;Act 1 :Ricardo Albenori, a dissolute young man, and his friend, the soldier Rodimarte Bombarda, arrive in Pisa, having escaped from Lucca where they had run into trouble with the law. In Lucca, Riccardo had also seduced Leonora Dorini before rejecting her in favour of Doralice Rossetti. Leonora has followed him and takes refuge with Cornelia Buffacci, Doralice's aunt. Doralice, too, is still pursuing Riccardo, who manages to convince her he loves her. ;Act 2 :Erminio, Leonora's brother who is in love with Doralice, arrives in Pisa. Leonora tells him how Riccardo, Erminio's friend, seduced her. He vows to avenge her. Leonora and Doralice quarrel over Riccardo. ;Act 3 :Riccardo pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there until productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Matrimonio Segreto
' (''The Secret Marriage'') is a dramma giocoso in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the 1766 play ''The Clandestine Marriage'' by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick. It was first performed on 7 February 1792 at the Imperial Hofburg Theatre in Vienna in the presence of Emperor Leopold II. Performance history Cimarosa's only work still to be regularly performed, it is arguably one of the greatest 18th century opera buffa apart from those by Mozart. Its premiere was the occasion of the longest encore in operatic history; Leopold II was so delighted that he ordered supper served to the company and the entire opera repeated immediately after. The Italian premiere of the opera was given at La Scala in Milan on 17 February 1793 with Maria Gazzotti as Carolina and Vincenzo Del Moro as Paolino. On 23 May, the same year, it arrived at the Teatre de la Santa Creu in Barcelona. England saw the work for the first time on 11 January 1794 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa (; 17 December 1749 – 11 January 1801) was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan school and of the Classical period. He wrote more than eighty operas, the best known of which is ''Il matrimonio segreto'' (1792); most of his operas are comedies. He also wrote instrumental works and church music. Cimarosa was principally based in Naples, but spent some of his career in various other parts of Italy, composing for the opera houses of Rome, Venice, Florence and elsewhere. He was engaged by Catherine II of Russia as her court composer and conductor between 1787 and 1791. In his later years, returning to Naples, he backed the losing side in the struggle to overthrow the monarchy there, and was imprisoned and then exiled. He died in Venice at the age of 51. Life and career Early years Cimarosa was born in Aversa, a town near Naples. His family name was Cimmarosa, which is how he is recorded on his baptismal record. He appears to have been an only child. His fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nina (opera)
''Nina, o sia La pazza per amore'' (''Nina, or Madly in Love'') is an opera, described in 1790 as a ''commedia in prosa ed in verso per musica'', in two acts by Giovanni Paisiello to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Battista Lorenzi after Giuseppe Carpani's translation of Benoît-Joseph Marsollier's '' Nina, ou La folle par amour'', set by Nicolas Dalayrac in 1786. The work is a sentimental comedy with set numbers, recitative and spoken dialog. It is set in Italy in the 18th century. ''Nina'' was first performed in a one-act version at the Teatro del Reale Sito di Belvedere in Caserta, San Leucio on 25 June 1789. The revised and familiar two-act work was presented at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in the autumn of 1790. Roles *Nina (soprano) *Lindoro, her lover/Un Pastore (tenor) *The Count, her father ( bass) *Susanna, her companion (mezzo-soprano) *Giorgio, the Count's valet (bass) *A musician (tenor) *Second musician *Chorus (staff and patients at the sanatorium) Synopsis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello (or Paesiello; 9 May 1740 – 5 June 1816) was an Italian composer of the Classical era, and was the most popular opera composer of the late 1700s. His operatic style influenced Mozart and Rossini. Life Paisiello was born in Taranto in the Apulia region and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and eventually became assistant master. For the theatre of the Conservatorio, which he left in 1763, he wrote some intermezzi, one of which attracted so much notice that he was invited to write two operas, ''La Pupilla'' and ''Il Mondo al Rovescio'', for Bologna, and a third, ''Il Marchese di Tidipano'', for Rome. His reputation now firmly established, he settled for some years at Naples, where, despite the popularity of Niccolò Piccinni, Domenico Cimarosa and Pietro Guglielmi, of whose triumphs he was bitterly jealous, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Cecchina
''La buona figliuola'' (''The Good-Natured Girl'' or ''The Accomplish'd Maid''), or ''La Cecchina'' (The girl from Cecchina), is an opera buffa in three acts by Niccolò Piccinni. The libretto, by Carlo Goldoni, is based on Samuel Richardson's novel ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded''. This was Piccinni's most successful Italian opera. There was a sequel entitled ''La buona figliuola maritata'' (1761) by the same composer and librettist. ''La buona figliuola supposta vedova'' by Gaetano Latilla followed in 1766. Performance history It was first performed at the Teatro delle Dame, Rome, on 6 February 1760 with an all-male cast. It was given in London at the King's Theatre on 25 November 1766 with Gaetano Guadagni, Savi, Lovattini, Morigi, Quercioli, Piatti, and Michele; and at Covent Garden in English as ''The Accomplish'd Maid'' on 3 December 1766. It was revived as ''La Cecchina'' (with alterations) on 7 February 1928 in Bari (the composer's native city), as part of a celebration of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni (; 16 January 1728 – 7 May 1800) was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of the Classical period. Life Piccinni was born in Bari, in the Apulia region. From the age of fourteen, he was educated at the S. Onofrio Conservatory by Leonardo Leo and Francesco Durante,. thanks to the intervention of the Bishop of Bari (his father, although himself a musician, was opposed to his son following the same career). Piccinni's first opera, ''Le donne dispettose'', was produced in 1755 with the patronage of Prince Vintimille. In 1760 he composed, at Rome, the ''chef d'œuvre'' of his early life, '' La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola'', an ''opera buffa'' with a libretto by Goldoni, which "enjoyed a two-year run in Rome and was played in all the important European capitals. It can probably ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Filosofo Di Campagna
''Il filosofo di campagna'' (''The Country Philosopher'') is a dramma giocoso per musica in 3 acts by composer Baldassare Galuppi. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Carlo Goldoni. The work premiered at the Teatro San Samuele Teatro San Samuele was an opera house and theatre located at the Rio del Duca, between Campo San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano, in Venice. One of several important theatres built in that city by the Grimani family, the theatre opened in 1656 and ... in Venice on 26 October 1754. ''Il filosofo di campagna'', which has been defined a "masterly opera", obtained a great success, with many performances throughout Europe. Roles Synopsis Tritemio wants his daughter Eugenia to marry Nardo, a rich farmer, known as "the Philosopher", but Eugenia is in love with the nobleman Rinaldo. Lesbina, housemaid of Tritemio, in order to avoid that Nardo meets Eugenia, takes the place of the girl. Nardo, who has never seen Eugenia before, ends up falling in lov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
