PLOT, MUSICAL AND THEATRICAL ELEMENTS OF AN OPERA

• Vocal music - one of the best tools for expressing one’s feelings.
• Romanticism - coincided with the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe that brought about the rise of socialism and capitalism.
• Opera - A musical composition having all or most of its text set to music arias, recitative, chorus, duets, trios, etc. sung to the orchestral accompaniment.
• Opera Buffa - deals with mythical plots and Greek gods and goddesses. Use a variety of comedic plot lines and funny characters to entertain the audience.
• Opera Seria - Serious Opera, Usually implies heroic or tragic drama that employs mythological characters, which was inherited from the Baroque period.
• Libretto - It contains the text of an opera (story or plot)
• Librettist - a person who writes the text of an opera
• Score - The book that the composer and librettist put together.
• Recitative - Declamatory singing, used in the prose parts and dialogue of opera.
• Aria - A song which poetically and musically reflects dramatic feeling;

  An air or solo singing part
• Tenor - highest male voice (hero, lover)
• Baritone - middle male voice (villain, antagonist)
• Bass - lowest male voice (priest, king, father, devil)
• Soprano - highest female voice
• Mezzo-Soprano - middle female voice
• Contralto - lowest female voice
• Franz Schubert - considered the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic ones
• The proper name for his songs are lieder, which is the German word for “song”
• Giuseppe Verdi - He studied in Busseto and later went to Milan where his first opera “Oberto” was performed in La Scalla
• Giuseppe Verdi - All of his works are serious love stories with unhappy endings.
• Giacomo Puccini - belonged to a group of composers who stressed realism
• Richard Wagner - Advocate of a new form of opera known as “music drama”; Was very inspired by Ludwig Beethoven.
• Georges Bizet's full name - Alexandre-César-Léopold Bizet
• Georges Bizet's most famous opera is “Carmen”
• Compositions of Franz Schubert: Ave Maria, Swan Song
• Compositions of Giuseppe Verdi: La Traviata, Rigoletto, Falstaff, Otella and Aida
• Compositions of Giacomo Puccini: La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot