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List Of Important Operas
Since the origins of opera in late 16th century Italy, a central repertoire has developed, shepherded by major opera composers. The earliest major opera composer is generally considered to be Claudio Monteverdi, who wrote the first prominent opera, ''L'Orfeo'', followed by two others. Throughout the later 17th century, his successor Francesco Cavalli and the Englishman Henry Purcell wrote numerous prominent operas. The early 18th century was dominated by the operas of George Frideric Handel, while other important works include Pepusch's ''The Beggar's Opera'', Pergolesi's' ''La serva padrona'', and various works by Jean-Philippe Rameau. This list provides a guide to the most prominent operas, as determined by their presence on a majority of selected compiled lists, which date from between 1984 and 2000. The operas included cover all important genres, and include all operas regularly performed today, from seventeenth-century works to late twentieth-century operas. The brief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Origins Of Opera
The art form known as ''opera'' originated in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it drew upon older traditions of medieval and Renaissance courtly entertainment. The word ''opera'', meaning "work" in Italian, was first used in the modern musical and theatrical sense in 1639 and soon spread to the other European languages. The earliest operas were modest productions compared to other Renaissance forms of sung drama, but they soon became more lavish and took on the spectacular stagings of the earlier genre known as intermedio. ''Dafne'' by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today, although with only five instrumental parts it was much more like a chamber opera than either the preceding intermedi or the operas of Claudio Monteverdi a few years later. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the " Camerata". Significantly, ''Dafne'' was an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ormindo
''L'Ormindo'' is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli to an original Italian libretto by Giovanni Faustini. The manuscript score is held at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice,The score has been digitized bIMSLP while a copy of the original libretto has been digitized by the Library of Congress. The opera has set numbers with recitative, and is set in Anfa (Casablanca), in the Mauri kingdom of Fessa (Fez). Performance history ''Ormindo'' was first performed in 1644 at the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice, the world's first public opera house. After its 1644 run, it was probably not revived until 1967 when it was performed at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The version presented at Glyndebourne was arranged and conducted by Raymond Leppard. The work received its American premiere in 1968 in a performance at the Juilliard School supervised by Leppard. Subsequently it was performed by the Washington Opera Society, using Juilliard's sets and Costumes. Singers were as fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Hicks
Anthony Hicks (26 June 1943 – 26 May 2010) was a Welsh musicologist, music critic, editor, and writer. Born in Swansea, a city in Wales, Hicks read mathematics at King's College London during the mid-1960s and worked for roughly a quarter of century as a computer systems analyst at the University of London (retired 1993). Although he was educated in the field of mathematics and computer science, his personal obsession with baroque music led him to pursue scholarly music research in his spare time. What began as more or less a hobby developed into a highly distinguished para-career as a historian and writer. He became one of the leading 20th-century scholars on George Frideric Handel. As a music critic, Hicks wrote for '' Early Music Review'' and ''The Musical Times''. For the 2001 edition of ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', he penned Handel's biography and several other Handel related entries. He also authored most of the Handel related articles in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamerlano
''Tamerlano'' (Tamerlane, HWV 18) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian libretto was by Nicola Francesco Haym, adapted from Agostin Piovene's ''Tamerlano'' together with another libretto entitled ''Bajazet'' after Nicolas Pradon's ''Tamerlan, ou La Mort de Bajazet''. The opera was staged by the Royal Academy of Music in the King's Theatre at the Haymarket, London. History and context The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera ''Rinaldo''. A tremendous success, ''Rinaldo'' created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel was appointed music director of an organisation called the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the present day London conservatoire), a company under royal charter to prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giulio Cesare
''Giulio Cesare in Egitto'' (; , HWV 17), commonly known as ''Giulio Cesare'', is a dramma per musica ('' opera seria'') in three acts composed by George Frideric Handel for the Royal Academy of Music in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani, which had been set to music by Antonio Sartorio (1676). The opera was a success at its first performances, was frequently revived by Handel in his subsequent opera seasons and is now one of the most often performed Baroque operas. The opera's plot is loosely based on historic events during the Roman Civil War of 49–45 BC. Composition history ''Giulio Cesare in Egitto'' was first performed at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, London on 20 February 1724. The opera was an immediate success. A contemporary wrote in a letter on 10 March 1724: ...the opera is in full swing also, since Hendell's new one, called Jules César – in which Cenesino and Cozzun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rinaldo (opera)
''Rinaldo'' ( HWV 7) is an opera by George Frideric Handel, composed in 1711, and was the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill, and the work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket on 24 February 1711. The story of love, war and redemption, set at the time of the First Crusade, is loosely based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' ("Jerusalem Delivered"), and its staging involved many original and vivid effects. It was a great success with the public, despite negative reactions from literary critics hostile to the contemporary trend towards Italian entertainment in English theatres. Handel composed ''Rinaldo'' quickly, borrowing and adapting music from operas and other works that he had composed during a long stay in Italy in the years 1706–10, during which he established a considerable reputation. In the years followi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agrippina (opera)
''Agrippina'' ( HWV 6) is an '' opera seria'' in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the Venice ''Carnevale'' season, the opera tells the story of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an "anti-heroic satirical comedy",Brown, pp. 357–358 full of topical political allusions. Some analysts believe that it reflects Grimani's political and diplomatic rivalry with Pope Clement XI. Handel composed ''Agrippina'' at the end of a three-year sojourn in Italy. It premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo on 26 December 1709. It proved an immediate success and an unprecedented series of 27 consecutive performances followed. Observers praised the quality of the music—much of which, in keeping with the contemporary custom, had been borrowed and adapted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haendel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical break ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semi-opera
The terms "semi-opera", "dramatic opera" and "English opera" were all applied to Restoration entertainments that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes employing singing and dancing characters. They usually included machines in the manner of the restoration spectacular. The first examples were the Shakespeare adaptations produced by Thomas Betterton with music by Matthew Locke. After Locke's death, a second flowering produced the semi-operas of Henry Purcell, notably ''King Arthur'' and ''The Fairy-Queen''. Semi-opera received a deathblow when the Lord Chamberlain separately licensed plays without music and the new Italian opera. Semi-operas were performed with singing, speaking and dancing roles. When music was written, it was usually for moments in the play immediately following either love scenes or those concerning the supernatural. It has been observedCurtis Price and Louise K. Stein: "Semi-opera" in ''New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' that several of Calderón's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fairy-Queen
''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy '' A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed in 1692, ''The Fairy-Queen'' was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to music; instead he composed music for short masques in every act but the first. The play itself was also slightly modernised in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many critics have stated that they bear no relationship to the play. Recent scholarship has shown that the opera, which ends with a masque featuring Hymen, the God of Marriage, was composed for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dido And Aeneas
''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689.White, Bryan, 'Letter from Aleppo: dating the Chelsea School performance of Dido and Aeneas', 417 Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683.Pinnock, Andrew, 'Which Genial Day? More on the court origin of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with a shortlist of dates for its possible performance before King Charles II’, Early Music 43 (2015), 199–212Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, Unscared by turning times'? The dating of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas," The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Calisto
''La Calisto'' is an opera by Francesco Cavalli from a libretto by Giovanni Faustini based on the mythological story of Callisto. The opera received its first performance on 28 November 1651 at the Teatro Sant 'Apollinare, Venice, where it drew limited audiences for its run of eleven performances. In the twentieth century it was successfully revived. Libretto The libretto was published in 1651 by Giuliani and Batti. The story combines two myths: Jupiter's seduction of Calisto, and Diana's adventure with Endymion. The plot is somewhat formulaic: Jane Glover has commented on how the librettist had to invent complications to meet audience expectations in the context of Venetian opera. Performance history Faustini, who was an impresario as well as a librettist, rented the Sant 'Apollinare Theatre in 1650. He and Cavalli put on three operas there before his death in December 1651 during the run of ''La Calisto''. The theatre was equipped with complex stage machinery intended to im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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