When Did Opera Music Start?

Opera music has been around for centuries, with the first known opera performances taking place in the 1600s. However, the opera as we know it today didn’t really start taking shape until the late 1700s. So when did opera music start?

Introduction

Opera is a form of theatre in which music has a leading role and the parts are taken by singers, but is distinct from musical theatre. Such a “work” (the literal translation of “opera”) is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house.

The Beginnings of Opera

Opera is a musical art form that originated in Italy in the late 16th century. The word “opera” is derived from the Italian word “opera”, which means “work”. Opera is a drama set to music and is usually sung in a foreign language. The first opera was Dafne, written by Jacopo Peri and performed in Florence in 1598.

The First Opera

The first opera was written in Florence, Italy in the year 1597. It was called Dafne, and was written by Jacopo Peri. It has since been lost, but we know that it was based on the ancient Greek myth of Daphne fleeing from Apollo.

The first opera that is still extant (meaning, we still have a copy of it) is Euridice, written by Italian composer Jacopo Peri in 1600. It tells the story of Orpheus, a poet and musician who goes to the underworld to try and rescue his wife Euridice.

It wasn’t until 1607 that the first public opera house opened in Venice, Italy. The theatre was called the Teatro San Cassiano, and the very first opera performed there was Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Opera quickly became very popular in Venice, and soon spread to other Italian cities such as Mantua and Rome.

The Spread of Opera

Opera music became popular in Europe during the late Renaissance period. The first opera was written in Florence, Italy in 1597. Opera quickly spread to other countries, including France, Germany, and England. By the early 1700s, opera was being performed in nearly every major city in Europe.

Opera music is a mix of vocal and instrumental parts. The vocal parts are sung by opera singers, while the instrumental parts are played by an orchestra. Opera songs are usually written in a foreign language, such as Italian or French. This makes them difficult to understand for many people.

Opera singers must have strong voices that can be heard over the music of the orchestra. They also must be able to act and express emotions through their singing. Opera singers often train for many years before they perform in front of an audience.

Opera music is usually very dramatic. It often tells a story that includes action, love, hate, and death. Most operas last for several hours and have many different parts, or scenes.

The Growth of Opera

It is generally agreed that the first opera was Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, which was produced in Florence in 1597. However, there is evidence that there were operatic productions in Venice as early as 1574. Opera quickly became a popular form of entertainment in Italy and spread to other countries in Europe.

The First Opera Houses

The first opera house was the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, Italy. It was opened in 1627 and cost a whopping 150,000 ducats! The first public opera house was the Teatro di Saddi in Venice, which opened its doors in 1637. The first operas were written in the early 1600s by a group of composers known as the Florentine Camerata. These composers were inspired by ancient Greek dramas and sought to revive that art form.

The Opera Seria

The opera seria was a development of the earlier courtly masques used as entertainment at aristocratic homes. These early works were scandalous for the time because they featured female performers, which was unheard of at the time. Many of the earliest operas were based on Greek mythology and featured characters such as Orpheus, Apollo, and Daphne. The Italian composer Jacopo Peri wrote the first real opera, Dafne, in 1597.

The Decline of Opera

Opera music has been around for centuries, but it has seen a decline in recent years. There are a number of reasons for this, including the rise of other musical genres, the cost of attending an opera, and the length of time it takes to watch one. Let’s take a closer look at the decline of opera music.

The French Revolution

The French Revolution had a profound effect on the course of opera music. Prior to the Revolution, the primary audience for opera was the nobility and aristocratic classes. With the advent of the Revolution, these classes were overthrown and opera became increasingly democratized. This change in audience had a number of impacts on the development of opera music.

One significant impact was that operas began to deal with more contemporary subjects, rather than focusing on classical mythology or other historical topics. This shift mirrored the preoccupations of the wider public during this period. In addition, composers began to experiment with different musical styles, incorporating elements from popular music into their operas. This trend continued into the early 19th century and helped to make opera music more accessible to a wider range of people.

The French Revolution thus had a profound impact on both the content and form of opera music. The changes that it brought about helped to shape the development of this genre in the years that followed.

The Rise of Nationalism

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as opera composers continued to experiment withform, structure, and instrumentation, a powerful wave of nationalism swept Europe and the Americas. While nationalism had always been an important factor in music—think of the patriotic airs that were popular in most countries—the idea now took on new urgency, as composers sought to define their countries’ unique “sound.” This was especially true in countries that were struggling to forge a national identity—such as Italy, which only became a unified country in 1861.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was one of the most important Italian opera composers of the 19th century. His operas reflect the turbulent history of Italy in this period, with stories that often end in tragedy. His best-known operas include La traviata (The Fallen Woman, 1853), based on the true story of a courtesan who dies of tuberculosis; Rigoletto (1851), the story of a hunchbacked court jester whose daughter is seduced and then murdered by rigoletto’s own boss; and Aida (1871), set in ancient Egypt and featuring spectacular processions and stage effects.

Verdi was not the only composer influenced by nationalism. In Russia, Modest Mussorgsky(1839–81) wrote operas based on Russian history and folklore, such as Boris Godunov (1874). In France, Georges Bizet(1838–75) set his opera Carmen (1875) in Spain—though he himself was French—and used Spanish folk melodies throughout the work.