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Interior of La Fenice opera house in Venice in 1837. Venice was, along with Florence and Rome, one of the cradles of Italian opera. 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 ...
Italian term Literal translation Definition A cappella: in chapel style: Sung with no (instrumental) accompaniment, has much harmonizing Aria: air: Piece of music, usually for a singer Aria di sorbetto: sorbet air: A short solo performed by a secondary character in the opera Arietta: little air: A short or light aria Arioso: airy A type of solo ...
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 ...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Italian word was first used in the sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648. [6] Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today.
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 composers used more precise designations to present their work to the public.
La traviata (Italian: [la traviˈaːta,-aˈvjaː-]; The Fallen Woman) [1] [2] is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La Dame aux camélias (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas fils, which he adapted from his own 1848 novel. The opera was originally titled Violetta, after the ...
Among the main lanes in London for the production of English language opera in those times were Drury Lane, the Princess's Theatre and the Lyceum. [3] The King's Theatre and the Covent Garden, which were the two major opera houses of the city, featured mostly Italian and French opera (the latter usually translated into Italian). This was a ...
In England, too, no national school emerged and the public remained faithful to Italian opera. In 1707, an attempt at English opera, Rosamund, by the musician Thomas Clayton and the writer Joseph Addison, was a resounding failure.