Western Opera Music

What is an Opera?• An art form in which singer

actors as well as musicians perform a dramatic work.

• Incorporates many of the elements of spoken theater, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and even includes dance.

• The presentation is a combination of a text called libretto and a musical score, and is staged.

How did Western Opera came about?

• It had its origin in the Last years of the 16th century and spread through the rest of Europe.

• Opera began as an entertainment at the courts.

• Has exerted great influence on other forms of music.

• Mozart is the most renowned figure of late 18th-century.

Comic operas- deal with ordinary

people and places and end happily.

Opera seria- treats mythological or

historical subjects typically ends tragically.

What is the Opera today?• In present day, comic opera, singing

alternates with passages that are half sung and half spoken and accompanied by a keyboard.

• Richard Wagner developed for his sprawling operas shaped the subsequent course of many musical forms.

Instruments in an OrchestraStrings

- violins, violas, cellos, basses, and harpsWoodwinds

- oboes, flutes, saxophones, clarinets, and bassoons

Brass- trumpets, french horns, and trombones

Percussion- timpani, bells, chimes, and xylophones

Baroque Opera(1600-1750)

• The opera was used to entertain the upper classes.

• “Dafwenas”- first opera ever written, was performed in 1597 in Florence Italy composed by Jacopo Peri.

• “Euridice” – by Giulio Caccini, having a solo singer who can tell a story through singing presented inn a sort of a club called “camerata.”

• “Orfeo”- by Claudio Monteverdi.

Classical Opera(Late 18th Century)