Portal:Opera

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The Opera Portal

The Teatro alla Scalain Milan, Italy. Founded in 1778, La Scala is one of the world's most famous opera houses.

Opera is an art in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work (called an opera) which combines a text (libretto) and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.

Sydney Opera House, Australia. Built in 1973, and now an icon of modern architecture. Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florenceabout 1597) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schützin Germany, Lullyin France, and Purcellin England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. However, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, except France, attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seriawas the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluckreacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. . . . edit

Selected article

The Theater an der Wien (The Theatre on the Wien River) is a theatrein Vienna. It has a fabled history, and continues to be an important venue to this day. The theatre opened on 13 June 1801 with a prologue written by Schikaneder followed by a performance of the opera "Alexander" by Alexander Teyber. The theater was the brainchild of the Viennese theatrical impresario Emanuel Schikaneder, who is best known to history as Mozart's librettistand collaborator on the opera The Magic Flute(1791).

In the Mozart bicentennial year, the Theater an der Wien presented a series of major Mozart operas and it has since become a full-time venue for opera and other forms of classical music under the direction of Roland Geyer. The first opera to be given was Mozart's Idomeneo.

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Composer of the month

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813, Leipzig, Germany - 13 February 1883, Venice, Italy) was a German composer, conductor, music theoristand essayist, primarily known for his operas(or "music dramas", as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner wrote the scenarioand librettofor his works.

Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies and orchestration, and elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with particular characters, locales or plot elements. Wagner pioneered advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, which greatly influenced the development of European classical music.

He transformed musical thought through his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"), the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, epitomized by his monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876). Wagner, settled into his newfound domesticity, turned his energies toward completing the Ring cycle. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were performed at Munich, but Wagner wanted the complete cycle to be performed in a new, specially-designed opera house.

In 1871, he decided on the small town of Bayreuth as the location of his new opera house. The Wagners moved there the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival House") was laid. The Festspielhaus finally opened in August 1876 with the premiere of the Ring cycle and has continued to be the site of the Bayreuth Festival ever since.

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Singer of the month

John Clark, better known as Signor Brocolini (September 26, 1841– June 7, 1906), was an Irish-born American operaticsinger remembered for creating the role of the Pirate King in the original New York Cityproduction of The Pirates of Penzanceby Gilbert and Sullivan, in 1879-80. First a journalist, then a baseballplayer, Brocolini began his singing career in the 1870s and performed into the 1890s, taking his stage name from the borough of Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up, and Italianizing it. He began his career working for newspapers, soon becoming a reporter in Brooklyn.

In 1875, his friends at the newspaper decided to raise money to send him to study singing in Milan, Italy. Brocolini wrote, "The complete change in my life was effected in less than three hours.... They put in what money they could themselves, called on my wealthy friends in Brooklyn for subscriptions, and in less than three hours they raised $5500 for me." In Italy, he studied voice with Signor San Giovanni, and by the next spring (1876), he had been engaged to sing at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Brocolini was the only American up to that time, other than Adelina Patti, to start an operatic career in London. Mentored by Sir Michael Costa and James Henry Mapleson, he sang principal bass roles at Her Majesty's and toured with Therese Tietjens in 1876.

In November, he traveled to New York to appear as Captain Corcoran in the first authorized American production of Pinafore at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, which premiered on December 1, 1879. He then created the role of the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance on December 31, 1879 at the same theatre, earning a good notice from The New York Times. He continued to play the Pirate King in New York and on tour through June 1880. After Carte's production closed, Brocolini played the Pirate King in a non-D'Oyly Carte production, including in Boston the last two weeks of July.

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Did you know...

...that Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (first performed in Warsaw in 1628) was the first opera by a woman composer?

...that the Balık sisters from Turkey are the only identical twins singing opera?

...that opera singer Rosemary Kuhlmann was an assistant to the international vice-president of PepsiCo for 16 years from the age of 56, despite intending to stay for only four months?

...that Gaetano Donizetti's opera Le duc d'Albe didn't receive its first performance until more than 40 years after his death?

...that Bantcho Bantchevsky, former singer and voice coach, committed suicide during a nationally-broadcast performance from the Metropolitan Opera?

...that the Théâtrophone service (1890-1932) allowed the subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over the telephone lines?

...that in the 1720s and 1730s, at the height of the craze for castrato, it has been estimated that up to 4000 boys were castrated annually?

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Project introduction

Opera WikiProject was formed by a group of editors to develop Wikipedia articles on operas and opera terminology, opera composers, librettists and singers, directors and managers, companies and houses, and recordings. New members are always welcome.

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Selected picture

Papageno gate sculpture is the only part of Theater an der Wienoriginal building that has been preserved. It is a memorial to Schikaneder, who is depicted playing the role of Papageno in The Magic Flute, a role he wrote for himself to perform. He is shown with his three children, playing the Three Boys in the same opera. Archive• Read More...edit

Opera news

April , 2008: Plácido Domingo was voted by BBC Music Magazine as the greatest tenor of all time by 16 renowned opera critics in a quest to find the world's top 20 operatic tenors.
March 26, 2008: Plácido Domingo added the 130th role to his repertoire as "Bajazet" in Handel's Tamerlano at the Teatro Real – a record repertoire by any operatic tenor.
October 5, 2007: Appomattox, by Philip Glass has its world premiere at San Francisco Opera.
September 6, 2007: Luciano Pavarotti died at the of age 71 from pancreatic cancer.
June 4, 2007: Peruvian tenor, Juan Diego Flórez received his country's highest decoration – the Gran Cruz de la Orden El Sol del Perú.

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Quotes

“ Massenetfeels it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets. I shall feel it as an Italian, with desperate passion. ”

Giacomo Puccini “ I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear. ”

Giuseppe Verdi “ What a wonderful thing it is to be sure of one's faith How wonderful to be a member of the evangelical church, which preaches the free grace of God through Christ as the hope of sinners If we were to rely on our works, my God, what would become of us? ”

George Frideric Handel “ My heyday is over, and another must take my place. The world wants something new. Others have ceded their places to us and we must cede ours to still others... I am more than happy to give mine to people of talent like Verdi. ”

Gaetano Donizetti “ Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them. ”

Charles Gounod edit