The beginning and Baroque
Gaetano Donizetti, was born in Bergamo on November 29th 1797. Bergamo, city with a rich and interesting history started even before the Romans with the Celts, is located not far from Milan in the same metropolitan area, only 30 km away from lakes Como and Iseo and also close to the Alps, which foothills begin right on its north side.
The compelling power of Zandonai’s best opera Francesca da Rimini is the best known of Riccardo Zandonai’s opera, a work of musical richness and compelling dramatic power. D’Annunzio’s play, written in the years of his obsession for Wagner, has many parallels with Tristan und Isolde, as for instance the minstrel account of Isolde’s story at the beginning of the opera and the “goblet scene” in act two. The epitome of a tragic love The first act takes place in Ravenna: Francesca da Polenta, daughter of the lord of the city, is about to marry Guido Malatesta, called Gianciotto because of his deformity (he’s crippled): she’s led to believe that the groom to be is the handsome Paolo, Gianciotto’s brother. In the second act, the following winter, the Guelphs Malatesta, at war with the Ghibellines, are besieging their castle in Rimini. Francesca meets Paolo in the castle and blames him for deceiving her into marriage. Gianciotto arrives followed by their brother Malatestino, who is wounded. In act three, a few months later, Francesca is in her room reading when Paolo, back from a long journey, enters. After confessing each other their love, they go back to the reading which features the […]
Not only composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi but also Gaspare Spontini was born nearby Jesi. The town is however mainly important for being the birthplace of one of the most important and fascinating figure in medieval history, the second emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty Frederick II of Swabia (1194-1250) also referred to as the Stupor Mundi “Wonder of the world”.
What is Rigoletto it about? This sounds like a simple question, which could be answered by telling the story of the Duke of Mantua, the city of Mantua, his hunchback jester and the jester’s daughter, Gilda. A story of love, deception, revenge, and death. The story, of course, is so close to the one told by playwright and poet Victor Hugo in his play Le Roi s’amuse (The King has fun), that they could appear the same thing. But anyone who loves opera will not be satisfied by this explanation. In the best operas, music is much more than an accompaniment to the story: it is through the power of music that the story unfolds into the drama. Verdi fell literally in love with Hugo’s play and was determined to translate it into music; despite his librettist Francesco Maria Piave‘s concerns, particularly over the fourth act culminating in the deposition of a dying Gilda in a bag. In a letter dated June 1850, Verdi explains the reasons he suggested as a title for the opera Monterone’s curse or, by the short, The Curse. “The subject is the curse as a moral element: A distraught father who mourns the honor taken away from his daughter, a […]
Rome, the Domus Aurea | Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea
The libretto for Monteverdi’s Opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea was mainly drawn from the roman historians Tacitus. Its leading character is Poppea, the beautiful mistress who became wife to the Roman Emperor Nero, one of the most loved and, at the same time, hated emperor of the ancient Rome. Nero after the great fire of Rome, built on the Colle Oppio, the most lavish and vast villa of the ancient Rome, the Domus Aurea.
Mantua | Monteverdi’s Orfeo and the beginning of Opera
Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua attended the successful performance of Peri’s Euridice in Florence, which was probabily witnessed also by Monteverdi himself. The Duke realized immediately the originality of this new entertainment and the prestige that would reflect on the lord that sponsored it.
The Comic Opera revolution | From Opera Seria to modern opera
At the beginning of the eighteenth century starts to develop a type of opera uniquely based on comic characters. It was a consequence of Zeno’s reform which separated the comic scenes within an opera, from all the rest. Two types of performances started then to take shape, marking a turning point in the history of opera. They were the interludes or intermezzi and a music comedy in Neapolitan dialect, called Commedeja pee Mmuseca.
Moving forward from Baroque opera | Zeno, Metastasio, Gluck
Gluck finally estabilished an indissoluble link between music and words, with music becoming the main element for the success of an opera. As in the striking aria “What shall I do without Euridice?”. It is through to the incomparable beauty and expressiveness of the melody sung by Orpheus that Love is presuaded to bring Euridice back to life.
Venice | the invention of public theatre
Venice was an important and rich commercial centre, welcoming foreign merchants, businessmen dignitaries and aristocrats on the Grand Tour. The demand for entertainment was therefore high, particularly during the Carnevale, Some enterprising impresarios came up with the idea of setting up a public opera house, charging the public for the hire of boxes on a subscription system. The business turned out to be profitable. In a few years 16 theatres were built requiring a big number of new operas. By the end of 1600 the repertoire counted about 300 operas.
Claudio Monteverdi | A revolutionary composer
Monteverdi reinvents vocal music as a new relationship between the composer and his audience, using to that end his melodies of unprecedented expressivity. He creates modern opera as the public’s right to a performance he can understand, appreciate, being moved or laugh at.
Opera | A Renaissance creation
The main difference between Opera and the previous polyphonic vocal music is the unique melodic line, resulting from the merging of bass and singing. In polyphonic music different vocal lines work independently, overlapping one another and making a text often incomprehensible. Opera instead offered a new way for making words expressive and intelligible, by creating a single melodic line, supported by an accompaniment.
Vocal Types | Opera voices
Operatic voices are divided into 4 categories: soprano (high female), alto (low female), tenor (high male) and bass (low male). There are also 2 intermediate voices: mezzo soprano, female voice and baritone, male voice between tenor and bass. There are many more subtle distinctions used to define the range, tone, colour and timbre of a voice. They developed as a consequence of increasingly demanding roles which required more specific vocal types.
Opera | Useful basic definitions of commonly used terms
Opera is a drama created through music. It is the result of the joint effort of some of the best poets and composers in music history who worked together in perfect synergy to create a work as a whole.
Opera events in Italy