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Opera Buffa
Opera buffa (, "comic opera"; : ''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'', ''dramma bernesco'', ''dramma comico'', ''divertimento giocoso''. Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy, ''buffa'' was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter song, patter. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' considers ''La Cilla'' (music by Michelangelo Faggioli, text by , 1706) and Luigi Ricci (composer), Luigi and Federico Ricci's'' Crispino e la comare'' (1850) to be the first and last appearances of the genre, although the term is still occasionally applied to newer work (for example E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (, also , ; 25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title ''Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade'', which he claimed in his memoirs the " Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him. Biography Memoirs There is an abundance of autobiographical information on Goldoni, most of which comes from the introductions to his plays and from his ''Memoirs''. However, these memoirs are known to contain many errors of fact, especially about his earli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 and Italian opera. It was also known as the ("War of the Corners"), with those favoring French opera in the King's corner, and those favoring Italian opera in the Queen's corner. It was sparked by the reaction of literary Paris to a performance of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's short intermezzo ''La serva padrona'' at the Académie royale de musique in Paris on 1 August 1752. ''La serva padrona'' was performed by an itinerant Italian troupe of comic actors, known as ''buffoni'' (''bouffons'' in French, hence the name of the quarrel). In the controversy that followed, critics such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Melchior Grimm, along with other writers associated with the ''Encyclopédie'', praised Italian opera buffa. They att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 has had several different usages, which fit into two general categories: the opera intermezzo and the instrumental intermezzo. Renaissance intermezzo The Renaissance intermezzo was also called the intermedio. It was a masque-like dramatic piece with music, which was performed between the acts of a play at Italian court festivities on special occasions, especially weddings. By the late 16th century, the intermezzo had become the most spectacular form of dramatic performance, and an important precursor to opera. The most famous examples were created for Medici weddings in 1539, 1565, and 1589. In Baroque Spain the equivalent entremés or paso was a one-act comic scene, often ending in music and dance, between ''jornadas'' (acts) of a play.L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Serva Padrona
''La serva padrona'' (''The Maid Turned Mistress'') is a 1733 intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) to a libretto by Gennaro Federico, after the Play (theatre), play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. It is some 40 minutes long, in two parts without overture, and was written as light-hearted staged entertainment between the acts of Pergolesi's serious opera ''Il prigionier superbo''. More specifically each of the two parts, set in the same dressing room, played during an intermission of the three-act opera to amuse people who remained in their seats. Federico's libretto was also set by Giovanni Paisiello, in 1781. Performance history ''La serva padrona'' and the opera seria it punctuates were premiered at the Teatro San Bartolomeo on 6 September 1733, the first performances there after an earthquake the previous year in Naples had closed all theatres. Both were written for the birthday of Holy Roman Empress Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel a few days earlier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Draghi (; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), usually referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th century and one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan school. Despite his short life and few years of activity (he died of tuberculosis at the age of 26), he managed to create works of high artistic value and historical importance, such as ''La serva padrona'' (''The Maid Turned Mistress''), which played an important role in the development and diffusion of the opera buffa in Europe, and '' L'Olimpiade'', considered one of the best of the opera seria of the first half of the 18th century, and the '' Stabat Mater'', among the most important works of sacred music of all time. Biography Born in Jesi in what is now the Province of Ancona (but was then part of the Papa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recitativo
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 lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition. Recitative can be distinguished on a continuum from more speech-like to more musically sung, with more sustained melodic lines. The mostly syllabic ''recitativo secco'' ("dry", accompanied only by continuo, typically cello and harpsichord) is at one end of the spectrum, through ''recitativo accompagnato'' (using orchestra), the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full-blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the music. Secco recitatives can be more improvisatory and free for the singer, since the accompaniment is so sparse; in contrast, when recitative is accompanied by orchestra, the singer must perform in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singspiel
A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like. Singspiel plots are generally comic or romantic in nature, and frequently include elements of magic, fantastical creatures, and comically exaggerated characterizations of good and evil. __TOC__ History Some of the first Singspiele were miracle plays in Germany, where dialogue was interspersed with singing. By the early 17th century, miracle plays had grown profane, the word "Singspiel" is found in print, and secular Singspiele were also being performed, both in translated borrowings or imitations from English and Italian songs and plays, and in original German creations. In the 18th century, some Singspiele were translations of English ballad operas. In 1736, the Prussian ambassador to England commissioned a translation of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zarzuela
() is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular songs, as well as dance. The etymology of the name is uncertain, but some propose it may derive from the name of a royal hunting lodge, the Palace of Zarzuela, near Madrid, where that type of entertainment was allegedly first presented to the court. The palace in turn was named after the brambles () that grew there. There are two main forms of ''zarzuela'': Baroque ''zarzuela'' (), the earliest style, and Romantic ''zarzuela'' (). Romantic zarzuelas can be further divided into two main subgenres, ''género grande'' and '' género chico'', although other sub-divisions exist. ''Zarzuela'' spread to the Spanish dominions, and many Spanish-speaking countries – notably Cuba – developed their own traditions. ''Zarzuela'' is also a strong tradition in the Philippines, where it is also referred to in certain languages as . Other regional an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballad Opera
The ballad opera is a genre of England, English ''comic opera'' stage play 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 distinguishing characteristic is the use of tunes in a popular style (either pre-existing or newly composed) with spoken dialogue. These English plays were 'operas' mainly insofar as they satirized the conventions of the imported ''opera seria''. Music critic Peter Gammond describes the ballad opera as "an important step in the emancipation of both the musical stage and the popular song." Earliest ballad operas Ballad opera has been called an "eighteenth-century protest against the Italian conquest of the London operatic scene."M. Lubbock, ''The Complete Book of Light Opera'' (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962), pp. 467–68 It consists of racy and often Satire, satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opéra Comique
''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular ''opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Théâtre de la foire, Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a lesser extent the Comédie-Italienne),M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet and Richard Langham Smith"Opéra comique" ''Grove Music Online''. Oxford Music Online. 19 November 2009 which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Associated with the Paris theatre Opéra-Comique, of the same name, ''opéra comique'' is not necessarily comical or shallow; ''Carmen'', perhaps the most famous ''opéra comique'', is a tragedy. Use of the term The term ''opéra comique'' is complex in meaning and cannot simply be translated as "comic opera". The genre originated in the early 18th century with humorous and satirical plays performed at the theatres of the Paris fairs which contained songs (''Vaudeville (song), vaudevilles''), with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic 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 reside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
