In the mid s Willibald Christoph Gluck took opera in new directions, expanding the structure, harmony and narratives away from the highly formalised forms that had dominated the previous years. Opera became steadily more international and varied in style, Italian opera seria mixing with French opera comique and German singspiel amongst many other operatic genres.
Neither Gluck nor Haydn are all that frequently heard on modern stages but Mozart has an enormous number of works in the standard repertory, Don Giovanni , The Magic Flute and Cosi Fan Tutte three of many. Romantic opera has dominated operatic stages for the better part of two centuries. Emerging around the turn of the 19th century, Romanticism was the predominant artistic and literary movement until the 1st World War.
Opera became steadily bigger and more dramatic, vast choruses and a swelled orchestra, to upwards of players, building towards the immense operatic works of Richard Wagner. There are too many composers to mention here but Germany was dominated by Wagner, Italy by first Giuseppe Verdi and then Giacomo Puccini and Russia made its first real operatic impact with initially Mikhail Glinka and then Modest Mussorgsky and Pyotr Tchaikovsky amongst many others. Gioachino Rossini — had a particular talent for ebullient comedy and unforgettable melodies—like his The Barber of Seville Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
However, many bel canto composers enjoyed a good tragedy—often making their heroines go mad via a thwarted love affair. It was a good excuse to indulge in lengthy and elaborate vocal display. The late 19th century was dominated by two giants of opera: Italian Giuseppe Verdi and German Richard Wagner , both born in Verdi, whose operas include Rigoletto , Il Trovatore and Aida wrote in a tuneful and dramatic style.
Verdi understood the human voice and the internal processes behind the characters he created. Perhaps his most popular opera is La Traviata , which tells the story of Violetta, a beautiful courtesan who is fatally ill with tuberculosis. Meanwhile, in Germany, Wagner singlehandedly changed the course of opera with his huge ambition and talent by introducing new ideas in harmony, the use of leitmotifs and expanded use of the orchestra and operatic structure.
The early 20th century was dominated by another Italian with a fluent gift for melody, Giacomo Puccini — In the U. Claudio Monteverdi's opera, Orfeo , is performed before an exclusive audience at the Ducal palace in Mantua.
In keeping with local style, the opera includes a ballet scene. Henry Purcell composes his opera Dido and Aeneas for performance by the students at a girls' school in Chelsea. In the tradition of earlier, Venetian, opera it mixes comic scenes into the othewise serious story. Although very rarely performed today, Scarlatti's operas were enormously popular and influential in their own day. Pergolesi's intermezzo La serva padrona is performed between the acts of his opera seria Il prigioniero superbo at Naples, Teatro S Bartolomeo.
La serva padrona was one of the most popular intermezzos in the 18th century and has become the 'textbook' intermezzo familiar to most students of music. Mozart's first full opera buffa, La finta semplice , to a libretto based on Goldoni is performed at the Archbishop's palace in Salzburg. The day is uncertain but it was probably the first of May.
Mozart's first opera seria, Mitridate, re di ponte , is a success in Milan despite the composer's youth and the opera's running time of six hours. Although they never achieved the international stature of his instrumental works, or of the operas of his younger contemporary Mozart, they have begun to receive more attention in recent years.
Though it would be eclipsed by Rossini's later setting of the same story, the opera was an enormous success at the time. Although the legendary title character serves as the central force of the story, it is the three women, whose lives are altered through their encounters with him, who live in the memory.
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