With its unforgettable melodies and emotionally intense tales, it’s no wonder that the Practice of Opera Singing in Italy was added to the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2023. Here at Welsh National Opera, our Autumn Season is a true celebration of Italian Opera, with our productions of Verdi’s Rigoletto and Puccini’s Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi now on tour. But, given that it is World Opera Day today, we thought we’d dive a little deeper into Italy’s operatic history.
LATE RENAISANCE AND BAROQUE ERA
Developing at the court of the Medici family in 15th-century Florence, Jacopo Peri is the composer who is thought to have written the first opera, Dafne, in 1597. Peri was part of a group of artists in Florence who aimed to recreate Greek drama through music. However, it is Claudio Monteverdi who is considered to be the first great opera composer, with his groundbreaking Orfeo (1607) being the earliest surviving opera that is still regularly performed today. These early Italian operas made use of recitative singing and arias, just like today’s operas.
CLASSICAL ERA
With the decline of opera seria, a ‘serious’ style of Italian opera that dominated Europe until approximately 1770, opera buffa, a more comedic style of Italian opera, took over. During this period, composers like Mozart and Handel drew inspiration from Italian opera and chose to use Italian libretti (vocal score). Mozart’s most popular operas demonstrate a blend of the heightened drama of seria with the witty humour of buffa, and his Italian-language operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, remain as some of the most popular and regularly performed operas of the modern day.
ROMANTIC ERA
With an emphasis on heightened emotions, larger orchestras and more complex harmonies, the Romantic era popularised the use of bel canto; a virtuosic style of singing beautiful melodies. Italian composers Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini are considered to be the primary composers of the bel canto style, however Verdi’s Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata are also in this style. Verdi is credited with transforming opera during this period, with Otello described by critics as the pinnacle of Italian opera.
Some musicologists believe that Verdi’s La traviata influenced the birth of the verismo style of opera which dominated the late Romantic era. Verismo was a movement that incorporated realistic themes into an opera, portraying the harder aspects of life with a realism that audience members could relate to. For example, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi deals with the verismo-style subject matter of death and greed with the melodic lines decorated with shouting and laughter to enhance the realism. Puccini’s other verismo operas, La Bohème and Madam Butterfly, remain some of the most popular operas in history.
Even today, Italy is celebrated for its operatic culture and is home to approximately 60 opera houses, including the famous La Scala in Milan, with opera stars such as the Italian tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli holding a celebrity status there.
So, why not celebrate World Opera Day and experience the enduring impact of Italian Opera Singing this Autumn, with our fresh new take on Verdi’s Rigoletto and our five-star production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi on tour until 16 November 2024.