Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) had a particular talent for ebullient comedy and unforgettable melodies-like his The Barber of Seville ( Il Barbiere di Siviglia). One important style during this time was the Italian bel canto movement (literally meaning “beautiful singing”), which was all about vocal brilliance and ornamentation bolstered by a simpler harmonic structure.
Opera continued to flourish, and got bigger, louder and longer during the Romantic period (1830–1900). Mozart was also a master of high drama, as seen in his masterpiece Don Giovanni. It’s fast, irreverent and funny, but also full of stunning music. Take his The Marriage of Figaro ( Le Nozze di Figaro), a farce where servants ultimately outwit their aristocratic masters, based on a play by French writer Beaumarchais. The ultimate Classical opera composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91). This was brought about by the social movement known as the Enlightenment, with less elaborate musical forms and more realistic plots (read: fewer gods, more humans) and a reaction against excessive vocal display. Opera content began to change in the Classical period (1750–1830). Today those roles are sung by countertenors, or by women. The few who survived and made it to the top were the singing stars of the 17th and 18th century.
This period also saw the rise of castrati-male singers who were castrated as boys to preserve their soprano voices. One of the greatest composers of Italian Baroque opera was a German who lived most of his life in London- Georg Frideric Handel (1685–1759). From that beginning, two types of opera began to emerge: opera seria, or stately, formal and dignified pieces to befit the royalty that attended and sponsored them, and opera buffa, or comedies.īy the Baroque era (1600–1750), opera had taken Europe by storm and was a spectacular, expensive affair full of florid arias and ornate stage sets with moving parts. Enter Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), who composed Dafne (1597), which many consider to be the first opera. In Florence, a small group of artists, statesmen, writers and musicians known as the Florentine Camerata decided to recreate the storytelling of Greek drama through music.
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