Opera

An opera is a performance that tells a story through music and singing. Operas were the popular form of entertainment in their day and were written in the native language of their composer. Although operas can be performed anywhere, the most common place to find an opera performance is in an opera house or a theater. Opera houses have been specifically designed for the grand scale of an opera and often are built with excellent acoustics to help amplify the singer’s voices. They will have an orchestra pit, which is an area below the stage for all the instruments and the conductor to perform in. Some of the most famous opera houses around the world include The Metropolitan Opera in New York City, The Royal Opera House in London, The Sydney Opera House in Australia, and La Scala in Italy.

Terminology

• Aria: An aria is a solo song in an opera. The word ‘aria’ is Italian for ‘air’ and can be thought of as a moment when the character ‘airs’ their thoughts. These can be a moment alone on stage, or they can be with other characters listening.
• Baroque : Relating to or denoting a style of European music, art, and architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
• Bel canto: Translates as “beautiful singing”; a popular singing style in Italian opera from the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries.
• Castrati: Male singers who retained their treble voices through a process of early castration.
• Conductor: A person who leads the orchestra and singers in an opera company or other musical performance.
• Da capo: “From the head”; an aria in which the first part is repeated, the singer being expected to add ornamentation in the repeated section.
• Intermedio: A dramatic and musical work to be performed between the acts of a play. Popular in Italy, this art form was developed in the 16th century and is one of the forerunners of opera.
• __ Masque__ : A popular, lavish form of entertainment, favored by the Royal courts.
• Opera Buffa: A style of comic opera developed in Italy.
• Opera Seria: A style of opera developed in Italy on a serious (usually classical or mythological) theme.
• Orchestra: A group of instruments, usually falling within four categories: strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion.
• Recitative: An operatic conversation or musical dialogue. In many operas, the recitative is where the story happens.
• Verismo : A genre of opera based in reality, as composed principally by Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo.
• Voice type/fach: In opera, your voice type describes how high or low you can sing, and your fach refers to the other qualities within your voice. This is important if you are hoping to use the aria to audition for work in opera, or for further training in opera.