HISTORY OF OPERA

The story of opera can be traced back to ancient Greece where people would perform musical dramas with an occasional song from the choir to further the plot.

In the European culture of the 1500s, one of the most popular forms of music was a madrigal, a song with at least three different voices singing different words at different times. As the text became increasing important to listeners many found the use of multiple voices and words distracting. The result was the creation of recitatives; a mainstay in opera, where the accompaniment holds a note while one singer sings the musical line.

Using recitatives, Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) created the very first opera, Dafne, which debuted in 1594. Later, Peri wrote a piece of music for the comedy La pellegrina that was performed at the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando to Christine of Lorraine. This music is called an intermedi, which is a musical interlude between acts in a play. When Peri created his second opera, L’Euridice both the recitative and intermedi were used.

By combining the styles of recitatives, intermedi and sacred music-drama style of oratorio, Claudio Monteverdi created opera’s first masterpiece, L’Orfeo, which premiered in Mantua, Italy in 1607. Venice soon became Europe’s home for opera. As popularity began to spread throughout Europe, the plots became more complicated, performances were divided into three acts, songs were added and the sets and costumes got bigger and more glamorous. This was the birth of grand opera.