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From the very first opera performance in Italy in 1607, to the origins of some of the world’s most recognisable music, and modern day experimental productions, we’ll share a timeline of how opera has changed over the last 400 years.
Opera originated in Italy around 1600, but its story began many years earlier with the birth of Jacopo Peri in 1561. During his time at the famed Medici court, Peri cultivated the idea of dramatic singing through his work with Florentine poets, musicians, and writers.
Its origins can be traced back to the late 16th century in Italy, where it quickly gained popularity and spread to other European countries. Since then, opera has evolved and undergone many changes, adapting to the cultural and musical trends of the times.
7 paź 2024 · The collaborators of the first operas (in the early 17th century) believed they were creating a new genre in which music and poetry, in order to serve the drama, were fused into an inseparable whole, a language that was in a class of its own—midway between speaking and singing.
6 gru 2022 · 1723 Beginning of Handel’s great operatic stardom in London with Cuzzoni (soprano) and Senesino (castrato). 1724 Metastasio writes his first libretto. 1726 War of the Divas Cuzzoni and Bordoni at the Handel Opera in London. 1730 Metastasio goes to Vienna.
Opera content began to change in the Classical period (1750–1830). This was brought about by the social movement known as the Enlightenment, with less elaborate musical forms and more realistic plots (read: fewer gods, more humans) and a reaction against excessive vocal display.
John Blow's tragic opera, Venus and Adonis, today considered the first English opera, has its première, either in London or at the court of Windsor. Read more... 15 Feb 1686. Lully's final collaboration with the librettist Quinault, the tragédie lyrique Armide, has its première at the Paris Opéra.
