A Brief History of Opera

Late Renaissance and Baroque

Time period: Late 1500s – early 1700s
Major Composers: Claudio Monteverdi, George Frideric Handel

Background:
The foundations of opera can be traced to the late Renaissance era, to a group called the Florentine Camerata. This group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals gathered in Florence under the patronage of Count Giovanni Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. Several of the members of the group were composers, and these gatherings eventually led to Jacopo Peri composing Dafne, widely considered to be the first opera. Like other operas composed during this time, its subject is based in poetry.

Opera gained popularity during the Baroque period. Composers created a complex fabric of music that included heavy musical ornamentation for the voice. Singers needed to have flexible voices capable of handling the vocal embellishments that characterized music of this era. Themes explored in operas written during this period include poetry, religious stories, and mythology.

Many of the first operas composed early in the Baroques period survive only in fragments or have been lost altogether. However, Claudio Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, which received its premiere in 1643, continues to be performed. One composer active during the latter part of the era is George Frideric Handel, perhaps most widely recognized today for his oratorios such as Messiah. Examples of his operatic works include Serse (Xerxes) and Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar).

David Walker as Ottone and Karen Wierzba as Poppea in Glimmerglass Opera's 2001 production of Handel's Agrippina. Photo by George Mott and courtesy of Glimmerglass Opera.		Daniel Taylor as Tolomeo and Isabel Bayrakdarian as Cleopatra in Canadian Opera Company's 2002 production of Handel's Julius Caesar. Photo by Michael Cooper and courtesy of Canadian Opera Company.

Page 1 of 6                             Next >>

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506