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[47] [49] The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe - sometimes to as far away as Moscow. [56] The genesis of commedia may be related to carnival in Venice, where the author and actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio (old man) Pantalone, by 1570.
The theatre of Italy originates from the Middle Ages, with its background dating back to the times of the ancient Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, in Southern Italy, the theatre of the Italic peoples and the theatre of ancient Rome. It can therefore be assumed that there were two main lines of which the ancient Italian theatre developed in the ...
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television. [1] Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.
The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labor done and the result produced. The Italian word in turn derives from the Latin opera.Opera is also the Latin plural of opus, with the same root, but the word opera was a singular Latin noun in its own right, and according to Lewis and Short, in Latin "opus is used mostly of the mechanical activity of work, as that of animals ...
Eduardo De Filippo as Pulcinella, a character from the commedia dell'arte Commedia dell'arte troupe I Gelosi performing, by Hieronymus Francken I, c. 1590. Commedia dell'arte [a] was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers, including Handel, Gluck and Mozart.
The early drama that emerged was very similar to the drama in Greece. Rome had engaged in a number of wars, some of which had taken place in areas of Italy, in which Greek culture had been a great influence. [8] Examples of this include the First Punic War (264-241 BC) in Sicily. [8]
In Italy, the work of Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa was outstanding. Paisiello started in opera buffa ( L'idolo cinese , 1767). In 1776 he was invited to St. Petersburg , where he composed Lucinda ed Armidoro (1777), Nitteti (1777) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782), on Beaumarchais's play, which would also later be versioned by Rossini.