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Housewife07 has been a stay-at-home-wife for the past 4 years. She grew up playing violin and piano, and started to take voice lessons 11 years ago. She has studied classical voice in college and privately. She had her solo debut with orchestra 5 years ago as a soprano, and she is now thrilled to be singing the mezzo-soprano repertoire! She's currently on a musical break due to health issues.	OPERA Opera is a wonderful art form that combines both music, lyrics, theater, dancing and visual arts together to create something unique and special. Because opera singing does not require the use of microphones, the training is very long and extensive. Unlike a regular instrument which is already built, the voice has to be worked by the singer on top of technique and interpretation. Opera comes in many languages: Italian, German, French, English, Russian, Czech, Hongarian, Spanish, Swedish et j'en passe! It is not a necessity for the singer to be fluent in all languages, but it is important that one knows the meaning of each word and sentence in order to best interpret the character. Serious opera is called opera seria and comical opera is called opera buffo. Opera descends from the courtly entertainment, a form of play that was performed for nobility before the Renaissance. In late 16th century, a group of Italian thinkers called The Florentine Camerata, was inspired by the Renaissance movement and merged the concept of the pastorale, a form of poetry, and monody, a form of speech-song taken from the Greeks, and therefore invented opera. However, many agree that the first opera, Orfeo, was invented by Claudio Monteverdi and performed in 1607. There were castrati in the baroque movement: men who had their family jewels cut off to create a unique feminine sound. Needless to say, they do not exist anymore! The most famous one was Farinelli. There was a lot of written coloratura in the baroque movement, which is basically lots of notes sung fastly together. The style Bel Canto started in the baroque era and is represented by such composers as Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti. Here's a Rossini video from the opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella) with the amazing Cecilia Bartoli as an example of coloratura: Also, composer Gluck brought a new sense of drama with his operas. His music preceeded the classical period mostly defined by Mozart, who had a wonderful sense of characterization blended with gorgeous music that had never been heard before. Needless to say, he was a genius! Here's the popular Queen of the Night aria from his opera The Magic Flute sung in German by soprano Diana Damrau: The Queen of the Night is telling her daughter in a dream that she needs to kill Sarastro, and it is later revealed in the story that he is actually her father. Hear all those high notes! Composers Verdi, Puccini and Wagner define the romantic era, my personal favorite one. Romantic operas were performed with a bigger orchestra, requiring heavier voices. Verdi used a few Shakespeare stories such as Otello, Macbeth and Falstaff. He also wrote the popular operas La Traviata, Il Trovatore and Aida. His choruses are also very moving. Here's an extract from La Traviata : Puccini's most famous opera, Madama Butterfly, is a fictional story of a geisha marrying an American. His last unfinished opera Turandot is based on an old Chinese tale. Wagner created bigger than life operas with characters often being gods and goddesses. He wrote the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen which is composed of four long operas. Here's the famous Ride of the Valkyries: Meanwhile, in France, there were such operas as The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach, Hamlet by Thomas and Delibes' Lakmé. Here's a fun aria by Offenbach called “Les oiseaux dans la charmille”: The singer is an automatic doll the main character has actually fallen for! The most famous French opera is Carmen by Bizet: the love story of a soldier and a gypsy set in Seville, Spain. Here's the aria “Habanera”: Here's the Toréador song sung by Ruggero Raimondi: Later on, the impressionist movement brought us Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Modern operas were introduced in the 20th century, including Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with its famous song “Summertime”, Barber's Vanessa and Britten's Peter Grimes. Opera in the 50's There were a lot of fabulous opera singers in the 50's, most noticeably Greek soprano Maria Callas, who really captured the musical emotion of opera. Here's her “Vissi d'arte” from the opera Tosca by Puccini: She unfortunately lived a tragic life and died alone in Paris...You probably have heard that she dated Onassis before he went on to marry Jackie Kennedy. Opera singers often performed on The Ed Sullivan show: Operetta, lieder & oratorio Operetta is a lighter form of opera, is often comical and also contains spoken dialogue. Composer Johann Strauss was most noted for his operettas: Lied, meaning “song” in German, was invented to entertain small salons and is usually sung accompanied by piano, but there are lieder composed for orchestra as well. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a celebrated lied singer: Oratorio is a music work that is usually performed without a set, in concert form, and is often times of religious nature, such as Handel's Oratorio: My personal favorite is Verdi's Requiem, which is more like an opera: Opera stories are filled with passion, love, hatred, murder, jealousy and rivalry. Nowadays, opera companies put on subtitles for better enjoyment either on top of the set or in front of your seat. It is not necessary to dress very formal anymore when going to the opera, except of course for opening nights for patrons. It is more and more accessible: in movies, commercials and pop opera singers. I hope that you enjoy some level of opera as it is indeed a marvellous art form! Let's discuss HERE.

Housewife07 has been a stay-at-home-wife for the past 4 years. She grew up playing violin and piano, and started to take voice lessons 11 years ago. She has studied classical voice in college and privately. She had her solo debut with orchestra 5 years ago as a soprano, and she is now thrilled to be singing the mezzo-soprano repertoire! She's currently on a musical break due to health issues.

OPERA

Opera is a wonderful art form that combines both music, lyrics, theater, dancing and visual arts together to create something unique and special. Because opera singing does not require the use of microphones, the training is very long and extensive. Unlike a regular instrument which is already built, the voice has to be worked by the singer on top of technique and interpretation. Opera comes in many languages: Italian, German, French, English, Russian, Czech, Hongarian, Spanish, Swedish et j'en passe! It is not a necessity for the singer to be fluent in all languages, but it is important that one knows the meaning of each word and sentence in order to best interpret the character. Serious opera is called opera seria and comical opera is called opera buffo.

Opera descends from the courtly entertainment, a form of play that was performed for nobility before the Renaissance. In late 16th century, a group of Italian thinkers called The Florentine Camerata, was inspired by the Renaissance movement and merged the concept of the pastorale, a form of poetry, and monody, a form of speech-song taken from the Greeks, and therefore invented opera. However, many agree that the first opera, Orfeo, was invented by Claudio Monteverdi and performed in 1607.

There were castrati in the baroque movement: men who had their family jewels cut off to create a unique feminine sound. Needless to say, they do not exist anymore! The most famous one was Farinelli. There was a lot of written coloratura in the baroque movement, which is basically lots of notes sung fastly together. The style Bel Canto started in the baroque era and is represented by such composers as Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti. Here's a Rossini video from the opera La Cenerentola (Cinderella) with the amazing Cecilia Bartoli as an example of coloratura:

Also, composer Gluck brought a new sense of drama with his operas. His music preceeded the classical period mostly defined by Mozart, who had a wonderful sense of characterization blended with gorgeous music that had never been heard before. Needless to say, he was a genius! Here's the popular Queen of the Night aria from his opera The Magic Flute sung in German by soprano Diana Damrau:

The Queen of the Night is telling her daughter in a dream that she needs to kill Sarastro, and it is later revealed in the story that he is actually her father. Hear all those high notes!

Composers Verdi, Puccini and Wagner define the romantic era, my personal favorite one. Romantic operas were performed with a bigger orchestra, requiring heavier voices. Verdi used a few Shakespeare stories such as Otello, Macbeth and Falstaff. He also wrote the popular operas La Traviata, Il Trovatore and Aida. His choruses are also very moving. Here's an extract from La Traviata :

Puccini's most famous opera, Madama Butterfly, is a fictional story of a geisha marrying an American. His last unfinished opera Turandot is based on an old Chinese tale. Wagner created bigger than life operas with characters often being gods and goddesses. He wrote the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen which is composed of four long operas. Here's the famous Ride of the Valkyries:

Meanwhile, in France, there were such operas as The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach, Hamlet by Thomas and Delibes' Lakmé. Here's a fun aria by Offenbach called “Les oiseaux dans la charmille”:

The singer is an automatic doll the main character has actually fallen for! The most famous French opera is Carmen by Bizet: the love story of a soldier and a gypsy set in Seville, Spain. Here's the aria “Habanera”:

Here's the Toréador song sung by Ruggero Raimondi:

Later on, the impressionist movement brought us Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Modern operas were introduced in the 20th century, including Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with its famous song “Summertime”, Barber's Vanessa and Britten's Peter Grimes.

Opera in the 50's

There were a lot of fabulous opera singers in the 50's, most noticeably Greek soprano Maria Callas, who really captured the musical emotion of opera. Here's her “Vissi d'arte” from the opera Tosca by Puccini:

She unfortunately lived a tragic life and died alone in Paris...You probably have heard that she dated Onassis before he went on to marry Jackie Kennedy.

Opera singers often performed on The Ed Sullivan show:

Operetta, lieder & oratorio

Operetta is a lighter form of opera, is often comical and also contains spoken dialogue. Composer Johann Strauss was most noted for his operettas:

Lied, meaning “song” in German, was invented to entertain small salons and is usually sung accompanied by piano, but there are lieder composed for orchestra as well. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a celebrated lied singer:

Oratorio is a music work that is usually performed without a set, in concert form, and is often times of religious nature, such as Handel's Oratorio:

My personal favorite is Verdi's Requiem, which is more like an opera:

Opera stories are filled with passion, love, hatred, murder, jealousy and rivalry. Nowadays, opera companies put on subtitles for better enjoyment either on top of the set or in front of your seat. It is not necessary to dress very formal anymore when going to the opera, except of course for opening nights for patrons. It is more and more accessible: in movies, commercials and pop opera singers. I hope that you enjoy some level of opera as it is indeed a marvellous art form!

Let's discuss HERE.