Until 50 years ago, opera was one of one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the Western world. For centuries, opera composers and singers enjoyed the sort of popularity that is nowadays more familiar to pop stars. This adulation reached a high point in the first quarter from the 20th century, when singers for example the excellent tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) became multi-millionaires and household names correct across the globe. The world’s initial operatic masterpiece was written by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567- 1643). Produced in 1607, it was known as Oreo. Monteverdi spent most of his late working existence in Venice, where, in 1637, the world’s first opera house was opened.

Handel and Mozart

One of the most exciting operas performed in early 18thcentury Italy were by a young German composer known as George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). He and other composers of this period produced operas based loosely on historical events and legends from ancient Greece and Rome. They were known as opera seria (severe opera). Handel’s greatest works of this kind include Julius Caesar (1724), Rodelinda (1725) and Alcina (173′5). To modern audiences, these serious operas seem to lack drama. They sound like concerts in costume, with singers performing a series of dazzling show-pieces. But this was exactly what 18th-century audiences wanted. They went to the opera for an evening of light entertainment, to chat, gamble, eat and drink, occasionally stopping to listen to their favourite singer performs his or her show-piece.

The greatest 18th-century opera composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91). His operas cannot be matched for their stunning music, intriguing characters and suitability for staging within the theatre. In operas such as The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), Mozart ingeniously combines comedy and seriousness. His expressive music creates fascinating, believable characters that cannot be described as merely good or evil. They have both nasty and sympathetic sides, like individuals in real existence.

19th-century opera

The early 19th century saw the centre of opera shift back to Italy, largely thanks to a remarkable young composer known as Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868). Rossini wrote 36 enormously well-known operas between 1810 and 1829, and then composed no more in the remaining 40 years of his life. His most famous work is The Barber of Seville (1816). The vocal music style utilized by Rossini demanded incredible flexibility from singers, and an athletic vocal technique. For most of the 19th century, the globe of opera was divided into two camps, German and Italian.