Opera is an

art form The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

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. While the scale of opera can be larger or smaller—there are many different genres of opera—performance typically involves different types of artist (singers, instrumentalists and often dancers and actors) and technical staff. Usually an orchestra led by a conductor accompanies the singers. In contrast to spoken theatre, the opera world is international.

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, French,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

works are performed worldwide in their original languages, and artists travel from country to country performing. The following is a list of articles on general opera topics:

Essence of opera

History of opera

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 i ...

Querelle des Bouffons The ("Quarrel of the Comic Actors"), also known as the ("War of the Comic Actors"), was the name given to a battle of musical philosophies that took place in Paris between 1752 and 1754. The controversy concerned the relative merits of French an ...

Opera in different national traditions

Operas have been written in a diversity of languages with many countries or regions developing their own operatic style, tradition and history. Silke Leopold, "The Idea of National Opera, c. 1800," ''Unity and Diversity in European Culture c. 1800'',

Tim Blanning Timothy Charles William Blanning (born 21 April 1942) is an English historian who served as Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 2009. Career Timothy Charles William Blanning attended the King's Sch ...

and Hagen Schulze (eds), Oxford University Press, 2006, ; ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', Stanley Sadie (ed), Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1992, ''passim''

Component parts

* Overture ** French **

Aria In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

** Aria di sorbetto **

Arioso In classical music, arioso (also aria parlante ) is a category of solo vocal piece, usually occurring in an opera or oratorio, falling somewhere between recitative and aria in style. Literally, arioso means ''airy''. The term arose in the 16th ...

Cabaletta Cabaletta is a two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera in the belcanto era until about the 1860s during which it was one of the era's most important elements. More properly, a cabaletta is a more animate ...

Cantabile In music, ''cantabile'' , an Italian word, means literally "singable" or "songlike". In instrumental music, it is a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th-century composers, ''cantabile'' is often synonymous wit ...

Catalogue aria A catalogue aria is a genre of opera aria in which the singer recounts a list of information (people, places, food, dance steps, etc.) that was popular in Italian comic opera in the latter half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The ...

Da capo aria The da capo aria () is a musical form for arias that was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres of opera and orato ...

Insertion aria An insertion aria (' in Italian, also known as suitcase aria, interpolated aria, or trunk aria) is an aria sung in an opera for which it was not composed. It was a practice that began in the seventeenth century and continued actively through the ...

** Rage aria *

Cavatina Cavatina is a musical term, originally meaning a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air. It is now frequently applied to any simple, melodious air, as distinguished from brilliant arias or recitatives ...

Intermezzo In music, an intermezzo (, , plural form: intermezzi), in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term ha ...

* Mad scene *

Recitative Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat ...

* Chorus * Ballet

Operatic genres

Over the centuries, the original form of opera, as established by Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, has diversified into distinct and recognisable genres, in addition to the national traditions listed above. These include, but are not limited to, the following. * Azione teatrale *

Ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its dist ...

* Chamber opera *

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 ne ...

* Dramma giocoso *

Duodrama A duodrama is a theatrical melodrama for two actors or singers, in which the spoken voice is used with a musical accompaniment for heightened dramatic effect. It was popular at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. Closely rela ...

Farsa Farsa (Italian, literally: ''farce'', plural: ''farse'') is a genre of opera, associated with Venice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is also sometimes called ''farsetta''. Farse were normally one-act operas, sometimes performed to ...

* Festa teatrale *

Grand opera Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on o ...

Literaturoper Literaturoper (''literature opera'', plural “Literaturopern”), a term coined by the German music critic Edgar Istel, describes a genre of opera that emerged during the late 19th century. When an existing play for the legitimate theatre is set t ...

Monodrama A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character. In opera In opera, a monodrama was originally a melodrama with one role such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's '' Pygmalion'', which w ...

Music drama is a German word that means a unity of prose and music. Initially coined by Theodor Mundt in 1833, it was most notably used by Richard Wagner, along with Gesamtkunstwerk, to define his operas. Usage Mundt formulated his definition explicitly ...

Opéra-ballet ''Opéra-ballet'' (; plural: ''opéras-ballets'') is a genre of French Baroque lyric theatre that was most popular during the 18th century, combining elements of opera and ballet, "that grew out of the '' ballets à entrées'' of the early sevente ...

Opera buffa ''Opera buffa'' (; "comic opera", plural: ''opere buffe'') is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ''commedia in musica'', ''commedia per musica'', ''dramm ...

Opéra bouffe Opéra bouffe (, plural: ''opéras bouffes'') is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, inspiring the genre's name. Opéras bouff ...

Opéra bouffon This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

* Opéra comique *

Opéra féerie This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

Opera semiseria Opera semiseria ('semi-serious opera') is an Italian genre of opera, popular in the early and middle 19th century. Related to the opera buffa, opera semiseria contains elements of comedy but also of pathos, sometimes with a pastoral setting. It can ...

* Opera seria * Operetta *

Pasticcio In music, a ''pasticcio'' or ''pastiche'' is an opera or other musical work composed of works by different composers who may or may not have been working together, or an adaptation or localization of an existing work that is loose, unauthorized, o ...

Pastorale héroïque Pastorale héroïque was a type of ballet héroïque, a form of the opéra-ballet genre of French Baroque opera. The first work to bear the name was Jean-Baptiste Lully's final completed opera ''Acis et Galatée'' (1686), although musical works on ...

Radio opera Radio opera (German: 'Funkoper' or 'Radiooper') is a genre of opera. It refers to operas which were specifically composed to be performed on the radio and is not to be confused with broadcasts of operas which were originally written for the stage. ...

Rescue opera Rescue comprises responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, or the urgent treatment of injuries after an accident or a dangerous situation. Tools used might include search and rescue dogs, mounted search and rescue ho ...

* Romantische Oper *

Sainete A sainete (farce or titbit) was a popular Spanish comic opera piece, a one-act dramatic vignette, with music. It was often placed at the end of entertainments, or between other types of performance. It was vernacular in style, and used scenes of lo ...

Savoy opera Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impr ...

* Science fiction opera *

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 manne ...

* Singspiel *

Spieloper In the 19th century, Spieloper ('opera play') was understood to mean a light opera genre, developed from Singspiel. Works typical of the genre include those by Albert Lortzing, such as ''Zar und Zimmermann'', and Otto Nicolai's '' The Merry Wives ...

Tragédie en musique Tragédie en musique (, ''musical tragedy''), also known as tragédie lyrique (, ''lyric tragedy''), is a genre of French opera introduced by Jean-Baptiste Lully and used by his followers until the second half of the eighteenth century. Operas in ...

Verismo In opera, ''verismo'' (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini. ''Verismo'' as an ...

* Zarzuela *

Zeitoper ''Zeitoper'' (German: "opera of the time") was a short-lived genre of opera associated with Weimar Germany. It is not known when or by whom the term was coined, but by 1928 Kurt Weill ("Zeitoper" in ''Melos'') was able to complain that it was more a ...

General opera concepts

Music concepts relevant to opera

Concert version A concert performance or concert version is a performance of a musical theater or opera in concert form, without set design or costumes, and mostly without theatrical interaction between singers. Concert performances are commonly presented in c ...

* Libretto ** Electronic libretto * Offstage instrument or choir part *

Tessitura In music, tessitura (, pl. ''tessiture'', "texture"; ) is the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer or less frequently, musical instrument, the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characte ...

Vocal range Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of st ...

Vocal weight Vocal weight refers to the perceived "lightness" or "heaviness" of a singing voice. This quality of the voice is one of the major determining factors in voice classification within classical music. Lighter voices are often associated with the term ...

Voice type A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, ...

, the classification of singers by the range, weight, and color of their voices

Theatre concepts relevant to opera

Opera house

Auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...

Box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...

Gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (Gr ...

* Backstage facilities **

Green room In show business, the green room is the space in a theatre or similar venue that functions as a waiting room and lounge for performers before, during, and after a performance or show when they are not engaged on stage. Green rooms typically have ...

Orchestra pit An orchestra pit is the area in a theater (usually located in a lowered area in front of the stage) in which musicians perform. Orchestral pits are utilized in forms of theatre that require music (such as opera and ballet) or in cases when incide ...

* Stage **

Fly system A fly system, or theatrical rigging system, is a system of rope lines, blocks (pulleys), counterweights and related devices within a theater (structure), theater that enables a stage crew to fly (hoist) quickly, quietly and safely components suc ...

Footlight A footlight is a theatrical lighting device arranged to illuminate a stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referr ...

Prompt corner In a theatre, the prompt corner or prompt box is the place where the prompter—usually the stage manager in the US or deputy stage manager in the UK—stands in order to coordinate the performance and to remind performers of their lines when req ...

Revolving stage A revolving stage is a mechanically controlled platform within a theatre that can be rotated in order to speed up the changing of a scene within a show. A fully revolving set was an innovation constructed by the hydraulics engineer Tommaso Franci ...

Safety curtain A safety curtain (or fire curtain in America) is a fire safety precaution used in large proscenium theatres. It is usually a heavy fibreglass or iron curtain located immediately behind the proscenium arch. Asbestos-based materials were ori ...

Stage curtain Theater drapes and stage curtains are large pieces of cloth that are designed to mask backstage areas of a theater from spectators. They are designed for a variety of specific purposes, moving in different ways (if at all) and constructed from v ...

** Star trap

People in opera

Opera composers, librettists, directors

List of major opera composers This list provides a guide to opera composers, as determined by their presence on a majority of compiled lists of significant opera composers. (See the "Lists Consulted" section for full details.) The composers run from Jacopo Peri, who wrote the ...

– an annotated compilation of the most frequently named composers on ten lists by opera experts. * List of opera librettists – inclusive list of libretto writers. * List of opera directors (in the sense of ''stage director'', not ''general manager'' or ''general director'' (often also called ''opera director'').

Opera singers categories

Boy soprano A boy soprano (British and especially North American English) or boy treble (only British English) is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range, a range that is often still called the treble voice range (in North Americ ...

* Soprano ** Coloratura **

Soubrette A soubrette is a type of operatic soprano voice ''fach'', often cast as a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy". Theatre In theatre, a soubrette is a ...

** Lyric **

Spinto Spinto (from Italian, "pushed") is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals. (Sometimes the terms ' or ' a ...

** Dramatic **

Soprano sfogato Soprano sfogato ("Vented" soprano) is a contralto or mezzo-soprano who is capable — by sheer industry or natural talent — of extending her upper range and encompassing the coloratura soprano tessitura. An upwardly extended "natural" sopran ...

* Mezzo-soprano *

Contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...

( Alto) * Castrato * Countertenor **

Sopranist A sopranist (also, sopranista or male soprano) is a male singer who is able to sing in the vocal tessitura of a soprano usually through the use of falsetto or head voice vocal production. This voice type is a specific kind of countertenor. In rar ...

Tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

Haute-contre The haute-contre (plural hautes-contre) was the primary French operatic tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century. History This voice ...

Tenore contraltino The tenore contraltino is a specialized form of the tenor voice found in Italian opera around the beginning of the 19th century, mainly in the Rossini repertoire, which rapidly evolved into the modern 'Romantic' tenor. It is sometimes referred to as ...

Tenore di grazia , also called tenor (''graceful'', ''light'', and ''lightweight'' tenor, respectively), is a lightweight, flexible tenor voice type.Soreanu, Cristina. "Nineteenth Century’s Donizettian Singers and their Contribution to the Development of the Voca ...

Baritenor Baritenor (also rendered in English language sources as bari-tenor or baritenore) is a portmanteau (blend) of the words "baritone" and "tenor." It is used to describe both baritone and tenor voices. In ''Webster's Third New International Dictionar ...

* Baritone * Bass-baritone * Bass **

Basso profondo Basso profondo (Italian: "deep bass"), sometimes basso profundo, contrabass or oktavist, is the lowest bass voice type. While ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' defines a typical bass as having a range that is limited to the second E below ...

Participants in opera

The participants in an opera performance are similar to, but more specialized than those in other theatrical productions. Opera performers are at the same time both singers and actors, and often dancers as well. Other participants are:

Opera lists

List of Christmas operas Christmas operas are operas which are thematically based on either the Nativity of Jesus or secular Christmas stories. The earliest Christmas operas appeared in the early 17th century, not long after the creation of the art form. Because of the ba ...

List of fictional literature featuring opera This is a list of literary fiction which feature opera in the plot. "Features" excludes fleeting mentions: for a literary work to be on this list opera must be a significant part of the plot, or, alternatively, provide significant context and ba ...

List of films based on operas La Favorita: 1953 (A film of Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Favorite featuring a very young Sofia Lazzaro--Sophia Loren) Rita: (based on Gaetano Donizetti's opera of the same name) "Der Liebestrank", Komische Oper von Gaetano Donizetti (a film of ...

* List of historical opera characters *

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 o ...

– an annotated chronological list of operas which are included for their historical significance or widespread popularity (or both). *

List of opera festivals This is an inclusive list of opera festivals and summer opera seasons, and music festivals which have opera productions. This list may have some overlap with list of early music festivals. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition, ...

List of opera genres This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

List of opera houses This is a list of notable opera houses listed by continent, then by country with the name of the opera house and city. The opera company is sometimes named for clarity. Africa Egypt * Alexandria Opera House, Alexandria * Cairo Opera Hous ...

– lists opera houses by name (or name of performing arts centres in which they are located, if appropriate and best known that way). * List of operas by composer – an extended list of more than 2,300 works by more than 720 composers. * List of operas by title – an alphabetical list by title of operas with Wikipedia articles. * List of operas set in the Crusades *

List of Orphean operas Operas based on the Orphean myths, and especially the story of Orpheus' journey to the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice, were amongst the earliest examples of the art form and continue to be written into the 21st century. Orpheus, the Gr ...

– list of operas dealing with the myth of Orpheus. *

List of radio operas This is a list of operas specifically written for radio performance. See also *Radio opera * List of television operas References Notes Sources *{{cite book , editor-last = Sadie, editor-first = Stanley, editor-link =Stanley Sadie , yea ...

List of television operas This is a list of operas specifically written for television performance. See also * List of radio operas * Radio opera References Further reading * * * * * "Television's audience for opera", ''The Guardian'', 8 December 1966, p. 8. ...

* Lists of opera companies

Opera discographies

* Opera discographies

Books about opera

The Complete Opera Book ''The Complete Opera Book'' is a guide to operas by American music critic and author Gustav Kobbé first published (posthumously) in the United States in 1919 and the United Kingdom in 1922. A revised edition from 1954 by the Earl of Harewood is ...

Opera and Drama Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libretti ...

Films about opera

* Il Bacio di Tosca * Karajan: The Maestro and His Festival * Pappano's Essential Ring Cycle * This is Opera * Wagner's Dream

References

Additional sources

* * * * * *

Warrack, John John Hamilton Warrack (born 1928, in London) is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. Warrack is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack. He was educated at Winchester College (1941-6) and then at the Royal College o ...

and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages,

External links

Operabase
– database for opera companies, artists, managers and performances

– a resource at Stanford University including libretti, source texts, performance histories, synopses, discographies and lists of rôle creators.
Operissimo
– resource for composers and works as well as houses, companies and artists. {{Opera topics, state=collapsed