Reference
- AriaThe term first appeared at the end of the 14th century signifying a manner or style of singing or playing. This meaning continued into the 15th and 16th centuries (when the word was joined to certain place names, as in aria veneziana or aria napoletana), but the term came increasingly to mean tune or lyrical piece. Aria could also refer to a melodic scheme or pattern used for singing texts of similar poetic structure, such as the sonnet, terza rima, or ottava rima, and was sometimes used to designate strophic pieces for three or four voices in homophonic texture—pieces that might otherwise be called canzonetta or villanella. The term was further attached to instrumental pieces, either accompaniments of songs or independent works such as the romanesca and ruggiero...
- ArietteIn French opera of the first half of the 18th century, a virtuoso aria, written in imitation of the Italian style. It might contain runs, trills, or long sustained notes in the vocal part, and was frequently in da capo form...
- DivertissementA group of musical pieces (dances, vocal solos, or ensembles) inserted within the acts or between the acts of an opera, play, or ballet. Divertissements are sometimes related to the dramatic action, but more often are decorative digressions. The genre originated in France at the end of the 17th century.
- IntermezzoIn the 18th century, a comic work performed between the acts of a serious opera. Its origins lie in the intermedio (to which the term is also sometimes applied) and in the comic scenes of 17th-century Italian opera. The segregation of the comic scenes (scene buffe) into separate and independent works around 1700 and in the years following was an aspect of the reform of opera seria [see Opera]. Among the most celebrated works of the type is Pergolesi's La serva padrona...
- OvertureA composition for orchestra intended as an introduction to an opera or other dramatic or vocal work. During the 17th and much of the 18th centuries, the most common designations for overtures were sinfonia and (less often) introduzione. During the same period, overtures to operas and other large dramatic works often served as preludes to acts other than merely the first...
- RitornelloIn the 17th century, an instrumental section of an opera, cantata, strophic aria, or other vocal work. Ritornellos may be either recurrent, functioning as refrains, or nonrecurrent; in the latter case, the term probably refers to the "return" of the instrumental ensemble, not the thematic material. Ritornellos generally differ from sinfonias in being more dependent structurally on the vocal sections they punctuate, though considerable overlap in terminology occurs.
- Semi-operaIn England in the late 17th century and the first years of the 18th, a dramatic work in which the principal characters employed only speech but in which there were elaborate musical scenes for lesser characters. The first such work was Thomas Betterton's version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, produced in 1674 with music by Pelham Humfrey, Matthew Locke, and others. The best-known examples are Purcell's Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692), and The Indian Queen (1695).
Perspectives
A Dictionary of Opera Characters
A unique and authoritative A-Z reference work that will answer all your questions on who's who in opera. Contains over 2,500 lively entries on operatic characters, with information on the creator of the role and notable performances. From Aeneas to Zaida, A Dictionary of Opera Charactersprovides extensive coverage of all the characters in operas from around the world and gives synopses for over 200 operas and operettas. It includes feature articles written by well-known personalities from the world of opera, such as Placido Domingo and Dame Janet Baker, plus, new to this edition,articles contributed by Christine Brewer and Joyce DiDonato. Recommended opera-related web links are listed for relevant and up-to-date extra information. The appendix of contemporary opera of the last ten years provides detailed synopses followed by the cast list of people who sang at the worldpremiere. This book is an invaluable source of reference for professionals and amateurs alike, and a fascinating read for anyone curious about opera.
The Oxford Dictionary of Opera
La Scala, Luciano Pavarotti, Sweeney Todd, Maria Callas, Le Nozze di Figaro. These are just a few of the more than 1000 profiles on musical figures, 700 entries on famous works, and 200 important locales found in The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Covering everything from composers, individual operas, well-known arias, and principle characters, to technical terms, librettists, and opera-houses, this is the most comprehensive one-volume reference work on all aspects of opera. Here opera buffs will have at their fingertips opera synopses and first performance details, bibliographies of works about opera, entries on singers (including their debuts and career highlights, with notes on voice type, style, and reputation), definitions and discussions of technical terms and operatic styles, and surveys of the history of opera worldwide. The editors include not only the basic information one would expect to find in an authoritative reference, but also many colorful asides that make browsing a pleasure. For example, we learn that Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 1865) was an outcome of Wagner's reading of Schopenhauer, how Verdi referred to the years between 1844 and 1859 (during which he was commissioned to write nineteen operas) as his "anni di galera" (his prison years), and how Toscanini resigned his directorship at La Scala over political tensions with the Fascists (he had previously refused to conduct the Fascist anthem at performances)...
What’s a squillo, and why do opera singers need it?
- What’s a squillo, and why do opera singers need it?Discover the techniques opera singers use to project their voices over the orchestra and the importance of a singer’s squillo.
Introduction: Overtures and Preludes
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in the concert. Overtures combine music with theater and create mood.
Recitative Singing
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowSingers are allowed to adopt ordinary speech rhythms in this delivery style. Jonathan Miller and Charles Hazlewood discuss differences between arias and the recitative. A BBC Production.
Terminology
- Ground, ground bassA pattern of notes, most often a single melodic phrase set in the bass, that is repeated over and over again during the course of a vocal or instrumental composition. Although ground bass is usually used interchangeably with basso ostinato to describe this technique in the music of any period [see Ostinato], ground refers most particularly to English music of the late 16th and the 17th century, where it means either a repeating bass line or the entire composition in which that bass appears (e.g., William Byrd, A Grownde, ed. in Mw 11)...
- Leitmotif, LeitmotivA musical fragment, related to some aspect of the drama, that recurs in the course of an opera. The term was coined by F. W. Jähns and appears in his study of Carl Maria von Weber (1871); it gained greater currency after Baron Hans Paul von Wolzogen used the concept as a means of elucidating Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen...
- libretto(lӘbrĕt'ō) [Ital.,=little book], the text of an opera or an oratorio. Although a play usually emphasizes an integrated plot, a libretto is most often a loose plot connecting a series of episodes. Characterization and emotion are suggested by the words of a libretto but are expressed by the music. The first major librettist was Ottavio Rinuccini, an Italian poet of the 16th cent. Outstanding in the 17th cent. was Philippe Quinault, and in the 18th cent. important librettists were the poet Pietro Metastasio, many of whose 50 libretti were set numerous times by major composers, Ranieri di Calzabigi, and Lorenzo Da Ponte. The 19th-century librettists of note included Augustin Eugène Scribe, W. S. Gilbert, and the composers Arrigo Boito and Richard Wagner; prominent in the 20th cent. was Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
- recitative(rĕs´´ĭtӘtēv'), musical declamation for solo voice, used in opera and oratorio for dialogue and for narration. Its development at the close of the 16th cent. made possible the rise of opera. The Florentine composers Peri, Caccini, and Galilei sought a style in which the words could be clearly understood, the rhythms of natural speech would be followed, and the music would convey the feeling of a whole passage. Toward the middle of the 17th cent. arose recitativo secco, which employed a quick succession of notes having little melodic character and serving only to advance the action, punctuated by occasional chords in a figured bass accompaniment...
- Stile rappresentativoThe dramatic or theatrical style of recitative used in the earliest operas and semidramatic works of the first decades of the 17th century. It is characterized by freedom of rhythm and irregularity of phrasing; the vocal line readily forms dissonances with an accompaniment improvised by one or several chordal instruments reading from a figured bass. The term stile rappresentativo first appeared in print on the title page of Giulio Caccini's Euridice (1600). It was used more or less interchangeably with the term stile recitativo for the first third of the 17th century; but by 1635, Giovanni Battista Doni suggested that the stile recitativo was more songlike in style.
Vocal tips for opera singers: Joyce DiDonato Masterclass in full (The Royal Opera)
- Vocal tips for opera singers: Joyce DiDonato Masterclass in full (The Royal Opera)World renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato gives a vocal masterclass with artists from the National Opera Studio as part of the Royal Opera House Insights series.