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The Opera Portal

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work (called an opera) which combines a text (called a libretto) and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.

Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence around 1597), and was championed by Claudio Monteverdi with works such as L'Orfeo. It soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. However, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, except France, attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute, a landmark in the German tradition.

The first third of the 19th century saw the highpoint of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Meyerbeer. The mid to late 19th century is considered by some a golden age of opera, led by Wagner in Germany and Verdi in Italy. This 'golden age' developed through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Puccini and Strauss in the early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia. The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism (Schoenberg and Berg), Neo-Classicism (Stravinsky), and Minimalism (Philip Glass and John Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso became known to audiences beyond the circle of opera fans. Operas were also performed on (and written for) radio and television.

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The Fairy-Queen (Z.629) is a masque or semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a Restoration spectacular. It was first performed on 2 May 1692 at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, in London by the United Company. The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's wedding comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Presumably the author or at least co-author of the libretto is Thomas Betterton, the manager of Dorset Garden Theatre with whom Purcell worked regularly. This assumption is based on an analysis of Betterton's stage directions. A collaboration between several playwrights is also feasible. Choreography for the various dances was provided by Josias Priest, who also worked on Dioclesian and King Arthur, and who was associated with Dido and Aeneas. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to music; instead he composed music for short masques in every act but the first. The play itself was also slightly modernized in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many critics have stated erroneously that they bear no relationship to the play, but recent scholarship has shown that the opera, which ends with a masque featuring Hymen, the god of marriage, was actually composed for the fifteenth wedding anniversary of William and Mary.

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Médée

Credit: Giuseppe Palanti; restored by Adam Cuerden

Title page to a 1909 vocal score of Luigi Cherubini's opera Médée. Based on Euripides' tragedy Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée, the opera premièred on 13 March 1797, but was not a huge success. Cherubini created a shortened, Italian translation, but the never rose to popularity until around the mid-19th century. Originally with spoken dialogue between the arias, a German version of 1855 changed this dialogue into sung recitatives written by Franz Lachner. It was not until these recitatives were translated into Italian and added to Cherubini's Italian version in 1909 that the opera reached what would be its standard form throughout the 20th century, and one that remains a popular version to this day. The vocal score seen here is either the first or a very early publication of this hybrid version.

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In this month

3 May 2005 – Lorin Maazel's opera 1984 had its world premiere at London's Royal Opera House.
5 May 1726 – Handel's opera Alessandro premiered at the King's Theatre in London with the celebrated Italian castrato singer Senesino in the title role.
8 May 1895 – Henry Clifford, an opera by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz, premiered at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.
10 May 1901 – The German tenor Max Lorenz, a famous interpreter of Wagnerian roles, was born in Düsseldorf.
18 May 1910 – The French opera singer and composer Pauline Viardot (pictured) died in Paris at the age of 89.
19 May 1894 – Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, received its first UK performance with Arturo Pessina in the title role.
22 May 1813 – The composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig. Twenty years later, he was to complete his first opera, Die Feen.
25 May 1869 – The Vienna State Opera House was officially inaugurated with a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

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Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Irish composer, teacher and conductor. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. In 1882, aged 29, he became one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life. From 1887 he was also the professor of music at Cambridge. Stanford composed a substantial number of concert works, including seven symphonies, but his best-remembered pieces are his choral works for church performance, chiefly composed in the Anglican tradition. He was a dedicated composer of opera, but none of his nine completed operas which included The Canterbury Pilgrims and Much Ado About Nothing has endured in the general repertory. Some critics regarded Stanford, together with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, as responsible for a renaissance in English music. However, after his conspicuous success as a composer in the last two decades of the 19th century, his music was eclipsed in the 20th century by that of Edward Elgar as well as his former pupils.

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I sincerely believe that nothing will make better citizenship than familiarity with grand opera. It lifts one so out of the sordid affairs of life and makes material things seem so petty, so inconsequential, that it places one for the time being, at least, in a higher and better world.

— Oscar Hammerstein I

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1885 – Le Cid: "O souverain, O juge, O père!"

From Jules Massenet's Le Cid (1885). Sung by Enrico Caruso in 1916 for the Victor Talking Machine Company.

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Did you know?

... that an intense rivalry between composers Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (pictured) and Emilio Arrieta helped rekindle the popularity of Spanish opera during the mid 19th century?
... that Nino Martini appeared in numerous Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s while simultaneously starring regularly in leading tenor roles at the Metropolitan Opera?
... that Udo Zimmermann's opera, Weiße Rose tells the true story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister who were guillotined by the Nazis for leading a non-violent resistance group?

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WikiProjects

Parent projects

WikiProject Arts • WikiProject Music • WikiProject Theatre

Main project

WikiProject Opera

Descendant projects

WikiProject Richard Wagner • WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan

Similar projects

WikiProject Classical music • WikiProject Composers

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Main topics

Opera history: Origins of opera • Italian opera • Opera in German • French opera • Opera in English • Polish opera • Russian opera • Hungarian opera • Armenian opera • Opera in Latin America

Opera genres: Azione teatrale · Ballad opera · Comédie en vaudevilles · Comédie mêlée d'ariettes · Dramma giocoso · Dramma per musica · Farsa · Festa teatrale · Género chico · Grand Opera · Music Drama · Opéra-ballet · Opera buffa · Opéra bouffe · Opéra bouffon · Opéra comique · Opéra féerie · Opera semiseria · Opera seria · Operetta · Pastorale héroïque · Romantische Oper · Savoy opera · Semi-opera · Singspiel · Spieloper · Tragédie en musique · Verismo · Zarzuela · Zeitoper

Opera terms: Aria · Aria di sorbetto · Arioso · Bel canto · Breeches role · Burletta · Cabaletta · Cadenza · Cantabile · Castrato · Cavatina · Chest voice · Claque · Coloratura · Comprimario · Convenienze · Coup de glotte · Da capo aria · Diva · Entr'acte · Fach · Falsetto · Fioritura · Gesamtkunstwerk · Head voice · Intermezzo · Kammersänger · Leitmotif · Legato · Libretto · Literaturoper · Mad scene · Maestro · Melodrama · Melodramma · Monodrama · Messa di voce · Opera house · Passaggio · Portamento · Prima donna · Prompter · Recitative · Regietheater · Répétiteur · Sitzprobe · Spinto · Sprechgesang · Squillo · Stagione · Surtitles · Tessitura · Timbre · Vibrato

Opera voices: Baritenor · Baritone · Bass · Bass-baritone · Coloratura soprano · Contralto · Countertenor · Dramatic soprano · Haute-contre · Lyric soprano · Mezzo-soprano · Soprano · Soubrette · Spinto soprano · Tenor · Tenore contraltino · Tenore di grazia

Opera lists: Opera topics • List of operas by composer • Important operas • Major opera composers • Opera librettists • Opera houses • Opera companies • Opera festivals • Opera directors • Operetta composers • Orphean operas • Zarzuela composers • Opera genres • Operas set in the Crusades • The Record of Singing • Bayreuth canon

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1899 poster of Mme. M. Sissieretta Jones
Adolphe-Joseph-Louis Alizard from Le Charivari
Advertisement for the music score of La Bohème, 1895
Aida poster colors fixed
Al quartiere latino, bozzetto di Adolf Hohenstein per La Bohème (1896) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON000086 - Restoration
Albert Pierre-René Maignan - Jules Massenet - Ariane
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Alexandre Charles Lecocq - Giuseppe Verdi - La forza del destino
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Alexandre Lacauchie - Gilbert Duprez as Gaston in Verdi's Jérusalem
Alfredo Edel - Jules Massenet - Le mage
Alice Neilsen's production of Victor Herbert's The Fortune Teller
Amilcare Ponchielli (before 1886) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO000794 - Restoration
Amédée Forestier - Illustrated London News - Gilbert and Sullivan - Ruddygore (Ruddigore)
Anna Fernqvist, rollporträtt - SMV - H1 122 - Restoration
Atelier Nadar - Fly scene from Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers with Jeanne Granier as Eurydice and Eugène Vauthier as Jupiter, 1887 revival, wide-angle shot
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Atelier Nadar - Jacques Isnardon, Vaudeville
Auguste François-Marie Gorguet - poster for the première performance of Édouard Lalo's Le roi d'Ys (1888)
Barbier, Jules, Nadar, Gallica
Boris Kustodiev - Portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin - Google Art Project
Carl Nielsen c. 1908 - Restoration
Carloz Schwabe - Vincent d'Indy's Fervaal
Cavalleria Rusticana - Alfio and Turiddu embrace
Cavalleria Rusticana - Santuzza and Turiddu outside the church
Charles Gounod (1890) by Nadar
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Elliott & Fry - photograph W. S. Gilbert
Ethel Smyth
Eugène Du Faget - Costume designs for Guillaume Tell - 1-3. Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst
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Eugène Grasset - Jules Massenet - Werther
Falka - Weir Collection
Falstaff 3
Fausta Labia, porträtt - SMV - H5 028 - Restoration
François-Joseph Bélanger - Set design for Gluck's Alceste
Fromental Halévy, L'Éclair score cover - Restoration
Georges Rochegrosse - Henry Février - Henri Cain and Louis Payen after Victorien Sardou - Gismonda
Georges Rochegrosse - Jules Massenet - Roma
Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for Gabriel Fauré's Pénélope (1913)
Georges Rochegrosse - Poster for the prèmiere of Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande
Georges Rochegrosse's poster for Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte
Geraldine Ulmar in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado - photograph only
Giacomo Puccini (1924) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO003293 - Restoration
Gilbert Duprez & Rosine Stoltz in Donizetti's La Favorite
Giuseppe Barberis - Carlo Cornaglia - Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo at La Scala
Giuseppe Verdi, Giovanna d'Arco, Vocal Score - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, La traviata title page - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Lombardi alla prima crociata. Libretto, 1843 - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto, Vocal score illustration by Roberto Focosi - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra first edition libretto for the 1881 revision of the opera - Restoration
Giuseppe Verdi, Un Ballo in maschera, Vocal score frontispiece - restoration
H. M. Brock - Gilbert and Sullivan - D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Ruddigore revival 1921
H. M. Brock - Poster for Iolanthe
H.J. Whitlock - Photograph of Arthur Sullivan
Haydée, ou Le secret Act II - Philippe Chaperon
Hector Berlioz, Béatrice et Bénédict score title page - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, La Prise de Troie score cover - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens vocal score cover - Restoration
Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens à Carthage vocal score cover - Restoration
Henri C. R. Presseq - Camille Erlanger - Le juif polonais
Henry Atwell Thomas - Franz von Suppé - Fatinitza
Il signor Tambourossini - Delaroche
Il trovatore by Luigi Morgari
Illustrated London News - Giuseppe Verdi's Attila at Her Majesty's Theatre, London
Iolanthe piano transcriptions by Ernst Perabo
Ivor Novello
Jacques Offenbach - A. Jannin - Robinson Crusoé
Jacques Offenbach by Nadar
Jean de Paleologu - Jules Massenet - Sapho
Jeremiah Gurney - Photograph of Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
Johann Strauss II by Fritz Luckhardt
John Phillip Sousa - De Wolf Hopper - El Capitan1
Joseph Albert - Ludwig und Malwine Schnorr von Carolsfeld - Tristan und Isolde, 1865f
Jules Massenet - Le Cid 2e Acte, 3e Tableau - L'Illustration
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Jules Massenet by Eugène Pirou
La Juive Act 1 set 1835 - Restoration
Le comte Ory - Dubois & chez Martinet - Final scene
Lilly Walleni in Daria at Kungliga Operan 1907 - SMV - NV059
Louis Guéymard as Robert le Diable by Gustave Courbet - The Metropolitan Museum of Art 436015 (cropped)
Lucy Arbell as Queen Amahelli in Massenet's Bacchus, wide view
Lucy Arbell in Massenet's Thérèse
Lucy Arbell photographed by Paul Nadar
Luigi Verardi after Dominico Ferri - Gaetano Donizetti - Carrefour de St Jean et Paul. Dans l'Opéra Marino Faliero
Luigi Verardi after Dominico Ferri - Vincenzo Bellini - Théatre Royal Italien. Salle d'armes dans l'Opéra I Puritani
M. Browne - Herbert Railton - Sydney Grundy - Arthur Sullivan - Haddon Hall
Mademoiselle Maupin de l'Opéra (Julie d'Aubigny)
Mademoiselle Priola de l'Opéra Comique, rôle de Javotte dans "Le Roi l'a dit" de Delibes
Magna Lykseth in Tristan och Isolde at Kungliga Operan 1909 - SMV - GL164
Marcel Jambon - Giuseppe Verdi - Otello Act I set design model
Maria Carrara Verdi, Barberina Strepponi, Giuseppe Verdi, Giuditta Ricordi, Teresa Stolz, Umberto Campanari, Giulio Ricordi, Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1900) - Archivio storico Ricordi FOTO003107 - Restoration
Marian Anderson
Maritana - Nov 22 1845 Illustrated London News
Max Brückner - Otto Henning - Richard Wagner - Final scene of Götterdämmerung
Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots - Décor Acte II
Michael William Balfe - Atelier Nadar
Napoli, strada Acquaquilia, bozzetto di Riccardo Salvadori per A Basso Porto (1894) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON002556
Nelly Martyl by Jean Reutlinger (Image 10715)
Paul Maurou - Poster for Edmond Audran's Gillette de Narbonne
Percy Anderson - Poster for The Duchess of Dantzic
Philippe Chaperon - Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots Act I (1896)
Philippe Chaperon - Rigoletto
Philippe Chaperon by Atelier Nadar
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Pierre-Auguste Lamy (?) - Les contes d'Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach, Giulietta act
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PikiWiki Israel 13773 AIDA AT MASADA 2011
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Poster for Burnand and Sullivan's Cox and Box - Royal Gallery of Illustration
Poster for Gilbert and Clay's Ages Ago at the Royal Gallery of Illustration
Poster for Jules Massenet's La Navarraise with Emma Calvé in the rôle of Anita
Poster for Le pardon de Ploërmel 1859
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Prudent-Louis Leray - Poster for the première of Georges Bizet's Carmen
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Robert Jacob Hamerton - Poster for F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan's The Contrabandista
Rosa Raisa (1917) - Archivio Storico Ricordi FOTO002701 - Restoration
Set design by Philippe Chaperon for Act1 sc2 of Aida by Verdi 1871 Cairo - Gallica - Restored
Set design by Philippe Chaperon for Act4 sc2 of Aida by Verdi 1880 Paris
Strauss, Richard - Ariadne auf Naxos - Restoration
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The Mikado Chappell Vocal Score cover (c.1895)
Thespis - Illustrated London News Jan 6 1872
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Verdi conducting Aida in Paris 1880 - Gallica - Restoration
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Wilhelm - Costume design for Arac, Gunon, and Scynthius (Princess Ida, 1884)
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