{"id":1180,"date":"2015-07-19T14:35:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T14:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2015-07-15T14:37:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T14:37:29","slug":"the-beginnings-of-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/the-beginnings-of-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"The beginnings of Opera\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Find the best Opera singers and performers available for hire in the UK<\/a> today.\u00a0From solo artists to a large scale celebration of classical music. Enjoy t<\/span>he perfect assortment of arias from the world’s most famous operas such as Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and Verdi’s “La Traviata”\u00a0to perfectly complement your event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opera was born in Italy at the end of the 16th century. A group of Florentine musicians and intellectuals\u00a0were fascinated by Ancient Greece and opposed to the excesses of Renaissance polyphonic music. They wanted to revive what was thought to be the simplicity of ancient tragedy. In the first operas (400 years ago), the intention was to make music subservient to the words. They were made up of successive recitatives with a small instrumental accompaniment, punctuated by musical interludes. After Florence and Rome, Venice rapidly became the centre of opera, where the first commercial opera house opened in 1637, thus making the art form accessible to a wider public. Opera soon spread throughout Europe, and in 1700 Naples, Vienna, Paris and London were major operatic centres.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Italy, the voice remained predominant. The bel canto tradition went on, combined with\u00a0opera buffa\u00a0characters and themes. Examples are Rossini\u2019s\u00a0The Barber of Seville\u00a0(1816), Bellini\u2019s Norma\u00a0(1831) or Donizetti\u2019s\u00a0The Love Potion, 1832). Giuseppe Verdi was the last great Italian composer of the 19th century. In a passionate and vigorous style, he wrote pieces which allied spectacular show and subtle emotions (La Traviata, 1853,\u00a0A\u00efda, 1871).<\/span><\/p>\n

The 20th century: the rise of individuals;<\/span>
\nThe beginning of the 20th century continued the trends of the late 19th. Puccini was the last great Italian composer, who wrote among others\u00a0Tosca\u00a0(1900),\u00a0Madam Butterfly\u00a0(1904) and Turandot\u00a0(1926). Other famous operas of the time were\u00a0Pelleas and Melisande\u00a0by Debussy (1902),\u00a0Salome\u00a0by Strauss (1905), and\u00a0The Cunning Little Vixen\u00a0by Janacek (1924).<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, individual works rather than general trends appeared. Alban Berg\u2019s operas (Wozzeck, 1925,\u00a0Lulu, 1937) contrasted with Kurt Weill\u2019s works, inspired from jazz and other popular music (The Threepenny Opera, 1928). Benjamin Britten composed \u2018traditional\u2019 operas like\u00a0Peter Grimes\u00a0(1945), but also chamber operas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 21st century: a score still to be written\u2026
\n<\/span>Today, the operatic offer is more varied than ever. Staging and settings have become key elements of new productions. The great pieces of the repertoire are repeatedly reinterpreted and still very successful. They are presented next to new contemporary operas and earlier rediscovered works. In this way, opera is in permanent evolution, for the enjoyment of the widest public.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Find the best Opera singers and performers available for hire in the UK today.\u00a0From solo artists to a large scale celebration of classical music. Enjoy the perfect assortment of arias from the world’s most famous operas such as Mozart’s “Le … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41,194,193,366,293],"tags":[245,239,274,291,502,350,300],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}