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146-561: Maria Stuarda ( Mary Stuart ) is a tragic opera ( tragedia lirica ), in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti , to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari , based on Andrea Maffei 's translation of Friedrich Schiller 's 1800 play Maria Stuart . The opera is one of a number of operas by Donizetti which deal with the Tudor period in English history , including Anna Bolena (named for Henry VIII 's second wife, Anne Boleyn ), Roberto Devereux (named for

292-588: A Monastery , and War and Peace ; as well as Dmitri Shostakovich in The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District , Edison Denisov in L'écume des jours , and Alfred Schnittke in Life with an Idiot and Historia von D. Johann Fausten . Czech composers also developed a thriving national opera movement of their own in the 19th century, starting with Bedřich Smetana , who wrote eight operas including

438-573: A cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato ) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. Over the 18th century, arias were increasingly accompanied by the orchestra. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Wagner revolutionized opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what Wagner termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner 's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked

584-506: A complex web of leitmotifs , recurring themes often associated with the characters and concepts of the drama, of which prototypes can be heard in his earlier operas such as Der fliegende Holländer , Tannhäuser and Lohengrin ; and he was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as tonality , in his quest for greater expressivity. In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal , he abolished

730-471: A concern for expressive recitative which matched the contours of the French language. In the 18th century, Lully's most important successor was Jean-Philippe Rameau , who composed five tragédies en musique as well as numerous works in other genres such as opéra-ballet , all notable for their rich orchestration and harmonic daring. Despite the popularity of Italian opera seria throughout much of Europe during

876-584: A hearing. Berlioz's epic masterpiece Les Troyens , the culmination of the Gluckian tradition, was not given a full performance for almost a hundred years. In the second half of the 19th century, Jacques Offenbach created operetta with witty and cynical works such as Orphée aux enfers , as well as the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann ; Charles Gounod scored a massive success with Faust ; and Georges Bizet composed Carmen , which, once audiences learned to accept its blend of Romanticism and realism, became

1022-487: A highly varied body of operatic works, often with libretti by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Other composers who made individual contributions to German opera in the early 20th century include Alexander von Zemlinsky , Erich Korngold , Franz Schreker , Paul Hindemith , Kurt Weill and the Italian-born Ferruccio Busoni . The operatic innovations of Arnold Schoenberg and his successors are discussed in

1168-428: A hundred years!" Although there was an attempt to mount Maria Stuarda at La Scala in late 1834, it came to nothing and, finally, the opera was planned to be given on 28 December 1835 at La Scala , Milan with the famous mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran (a singer who often sang soprano parts) in the title role. Donizetti "tailored that role" for her with "improved recitatives, and extended scenes". In addition, he created

1314-465: A hunting party on the estates where Mary is imprisoned, she agrees to the meeting, albeit with revenge on her mind (Cabaletta to the duet: Sul crin la rivale la man mi stendea / "Over my head my rival stretched out her hand"). Scene 2: Fotheringay Castle Mary reflects on her youth in France with her companion, Anna (Cavatina: Oh nube! che lieve per l'aria ti aggiri / "Oh cloud! that wanders light upon

1460-453: A large variety of works for stage. Perhaps, the most famous Iranian opera is Rostam and Sohrab by Loris Tjeknavorian premiered not until the early 2000s. Chinese contemporary classical opera , a Chinese language form of Western style opera that is distinct from traditional Chinese opera , has had operas dating back to The White-Haired Girl in 1945. In Latin America, opera started as

1606-472: A letter and a miniature portrait of Mary. Joyously, Leicester recalls his love for Mary (Aria of Leicester, then duet with Talbot: Ah! rimiro il bel sembiante / "Ah! Again I see her beautiful face"). Talbot asks what he intends to do and Leicester swears to try to free her from her imprisonment ( Vuò liberarla! Vuò liberarla! / "I want to set her free"). Talbot leaves and, as Leicester is about to do so, Elizabeth enters. Clearly knowing what has gone on between

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1752-488: A letter to librettist Jacopo Ferretti (as quoted by Ashbrook): Inevitably perhaps, when Buondelmonte was first given on 18 October 1834 in Naples, it was not successful; it received only six performances and it was never performed again. When forced to simplify part of the music for the original Elisabetta, Donizetti scribbled on the margin "But it's ugly!", and further on refused a change, writing "Do it, and may you live for

1898-417: A new overture. The censor had approved the libretto, although Ashbrook speculates that some of the original wording had been changed to gain that approval. In the end, the opening night performance was postponed due to Malibran's indisposition, but when it did occur on 30 December, it was clear that both lead role singers were in poor voice. Donizetti described the evening as "painful, from start to finish". It

2044-506: A new phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi, onward, exercising tremendous influence on his successors Giacomo Puccini , Richard Strauss , and Benjamin Britten . After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo 's Pagliacci that came to dominate

2190-471: A new seriousness to the genre, which had never been wholly "comic" in any case. Another phenomenon of this period was the 'propaganda opera' celebrating revolutionary successes, e.g. Gossec's Le triomphe de la République (1793). By the 1820s, Gluckian influence in France had given way to a taste for Italian bel canto , especially after the arrival of Rossini in Paris . Rossini's Guillaume Tell helped found

2336-476: A nineteenth-century peak of Polish national opera . In the 20th century, other operas created by Polish composers included King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Ubu Rex by Krzysztof Penderecki . The first known opera from Turkey (the Ottoman Empire ) was Arshak II , which was an Armenian opera composed by an ethnic Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian in 1868 and partially performed in 1873. It

2482-500: A putative lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England ) and Il castello di Kenilworth . The lead female characters of the operas Anna Bolena , Maria Stuarda , and Roberto Devereux are often referred to as the "Three Donizetti Queens". The story is loosely based on the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) and her cousin Queen Elizabeth I . Schiller had invented the confrontation of the two Queens, who in fact never met. After

2628-746: A result of European colonisation. The first opera ever written in the Americas was 1701's La púrpura de la rosa , by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco , a Peruvian composer born in Spain; a decade later, 1711's Partenope , by the Mexican Manuel de Zumaya , was the first opera written from a composer born in Latin America (music now lost). The first Brazilian opera for a libretto in Portuguese was A Noite de São João , by Elias Álvares Lobo . However, Antônio Carlos Gomes

2774-513: A separate French tradition was founded by the Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully at the court of King Louis XIV . Despite his foreign birthplace, Lully established an Academy of Music and monopolised French opera from 1672. Starting with Cadmus et Hermione , Lully and his librettist Quinault created tragédie en musique , a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lully's operas also show

2920-499: A series of problems surrounding its presentation in Naples after the final dress rehearsal – including having to be re-written for a totally different location, a different time period, and with Buondelmonte as its new title – Maria Stuarda as we know it today premiered on 30 December 1835 at La Scala in Milan. In a variety of areas – drama, literature (fiction or otherwise) – England in

3066-418: A seventeen-year-old law student with no experience, who became the librettist, thus giving Donizetti the opportunity to work closely with him, or to even write entire scenes himself and to greatly influence the structure of the work. Schiller's play had been translated into Italian by Andrea Maffei (who also translated a number of others as well) and it was this translation upon which Bardari relied. Although he

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3212-715: A speech-inflected style, and self-contained arias . The 19th century saw the rise of the continuous music drama . Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri 's mostly lost Dafne , produced in Florence in 1598) especially from works by Claudio Monteverdi , notably L'Orfeo , and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in

3358-469: A superb sense of drama, harmony, melody, and counterpoint to write a series of comic operas with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte , notably Le nozze di Figaro , Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , which remain among the most-loved, popular and well-known operas. But Mozart's contribution to opera seria was more mixed; by his time it was dying away, and in spite of such fine works as Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito , he would not succeed in bringing

3504-436: Is Maria's Oh nube! che lieve per l'aria t'aggiri ("Oh cloud, that wanders light upon the breeze") which appears in her entrance scene. Therefore, adapting to many of the conventions of 19th Century Italian opera, which had become the tradition before he began composing, Donizetti's work increasingly shows a shift to more dramatically complex musical forms, the aim of which is to enhance the often-dramatic confrontations between

3650-561: Is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers . Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts , such as acting , scenery , costume , and sometimes dance or ballet . The performance is typically given in an opera house , accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble , which since

3796-457: Is dying, may pardon be granted"). Leicester comes to bid her farewell. Both are distraught and he expresses outrage. Mary asks him to support her at the hour of her death and protests her innocence once again (Aria: Ah! se un giorno da queste ritorte / "Ah! Though one day from this prison your arm wanted to abduct me, now you lead me to my death"). She is then led to the scaffold. Notes Cited sources Other sources Opera Opera

3942-617: Is generally regarded as the most outstanding Brazilian composer, having a relative success in Italy with its Brazilian-themed operas with Italian librettos, such as Il Guarany . Opera in Argentina developed in the 20th century after the inauguration of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires—with the opera Aurora , by Ettore Panizza , being heavily influenced by the Italian tradition, due to immigration. Other important composers from Argentina include Felipe Boero and Alberto Ginastera . Perhaps

4088-620: Is most famous for his Italian comic operas , especially The Marriage of Figaro ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , as well as Die Entführung aus dem Serail ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ), and The Magic Flute ( Die Zauberflöte ), landmarks in the German tradition. The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini all creating signature works of that style. It also saw

4234-528: Is represented unsuspicious, impatient of contradiction and violent in her attachments." When it came to what had been handed down about Elizabeth I to Donizetti and other Italian composers, opera stage director Stephen Lawless notes that the continental view would have been very different from the Anglo-centric one of Elizabeth as Good Queen Bess, as Gloriana , and as the one who routed Catholicism from England's shores. But from an Italian perspective, Elizabeth

4380-520: Is returned to captivity. Scene 1: A room in Elisabetta's apartments Cecil enters with the death warrant and attempts to persuade her to sign it. While she hesitates, Elizabeth contemplates the situation (Aria: Quella vita a me funesta / "That life, so threatening to me"). Cecil urges her to sign it "so that every ruler will know how to pardon you for it" and, as she is about to do so, Leicester arrives. Seeing him, Elizabeth exclaims "you are hastening

4526-512: Is the Leicester-Elizabeth duet (beginning with Leicester's Era d'amor l'immagine / "She was the picture of love") which appears before Maria's entrance and where Leicester pleads for Maria while Elizabeth's "ironic interjections provide a contrast of rhythmic emphasis and melodic pattern to the tenor's balanced lyric phrases". Most significantly, the other is in the great dramatic scene (unusually long and elaborate tempo di mezzo , between

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4672-482: Is the first opera score to have survived until the present day. However, the honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed goes to Claudio Monteverdi 's L'Orfeo , composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas , employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of

4818-611: Is the portrait of Elizabeth found, not too unexpectedly, in Bardari's libretto". As far as Italian opera of the primo ottocento is concerned, these attitudes found their way into the works which poured forth: they covered a large portion of the Tudor era, including works about Henry VIII's first daughter, Mary, who became Mary I of England , known as "Bloody Mary" for enforcing the country's strict return to Catholicism. The appeal of these operas has been expressed by Professor Alexander Weatherson in

4964-830: Is the shift away from long, suspended melodies, to short quick mottos, as first illustrated by Giuseppe Verdi in his Falstaff . Composers such as Strauss, Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky adopted and expanded upon this style. Operatic modernism truly began in the operas of two Viennese composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his student Alban Berg , both composers and advocates of atonality and its later development (as worked out by Schoenberg), dodecaphony . Schoenberg's early musico-dramatic works, Erwartung (1909, premiered in 1924) and Die glückliche Hand display heavy use of chromatic harmony and dissonance in general. Schoenberg also occasionally used Sprechstimme . The two operas of Schoenberg's pupil Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (incomplete at his death in 1935) share many of

5110-456: Is then despondent (Duet: Da tutti abbandonata / "Forsaken by everyone… my heart knows no hope"). But assuring Mary that he will do whatever is necessary to obtain her freedom, Leicester leaves her to meet Elizabeth. He then attempts to plead with the Queen for her forbearance. When Mary is brought in by Talbot, Elizabeth reacts with hostility ( È sempre la stessa: superba, orgogliosa / She is always

5256-521: The English Restoration , foreign (especially French) musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell 's Psyche , patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully . William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first musical adaption of a Shakespeare play (composed by Locke and Johnson). About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as

5402-586: The Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass . Spain also produced its own distinctive form of opera, known as zarzuela , which had two separate flowerings: one from the mid-17th century through the mid-18th century, and another beginning around 1850. During the late 18th century up until the mid-19th century, Italian opera was immensely popular in Spain, supplanting the native form . In Russian Eastern Europe, several national operas began to emerge. Ukrainian opera

5548-568: The dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes . Since his theatre was not licensed to produce drama, he asked several of the leading composers ( Lawes , Cooke , Locke , Coleman and Hudson ) to set sections of it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain. With

5694-462: The libretto (meaning "small book"). Some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte . Traditional opera, often referred to as " number opera ", consists of two modes of singing: recitative , the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which

5840-463: The 1640s. His most important follower Francesco Cavalli helped spread opera throughout Italy. In these early Baroque operas, broad comedy was blended with tragic elements in a mix that jarred some educated sensibilities, sparking the first of opera's many reform movements, sponsored by the Arcadian Academy , which came to be associated with the poet Metastasio , whose libretti helped crystallize

5986-451: The 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel . Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. The most renowned figure of late 18th-century opera is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who began with opera seria but

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6132-546: The 18th century another genre was gaining popularity in France: opéra comique . This was the equivalent of the German singspiel , where arias alternated with spoken dialogue. Notable examples in this style were produced by Monsigny , Philidor and, above all, Grétry . During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, composers such as Étienne Méhul , Luigi Cherubini and Gaspare Spontini , who were followers of Gluck, brought

6278-682: The 1980s, the only performances which began the 20th century revival were those of what Ashbrook described as 19th Century "sanitized" versions. The first one of the century was that given in 1958 in Bergamo, with the US premiere, in concert form, following on 16 November 1964 in Carnegie Hall . The premiere in England took place on 1 March 1966 in London. There was also a Maggio Musicale Fiorentino production in 1967 which starred Leyla Gencer and Shirley Verrett . By

6424-460: The 19th century in Russia, there were written such operatic masterpieces as Rusalka and The Stone Guest by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky , Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin , Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky , and The Snow Maiden and Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . These developments mirrored

6570-408: The 2009 Donizetti Society Newsletter as follows (with the addition of relevant opera titles associated with the named composers): But Weatherson concludes: Having seen Schiller's play in Milan in an Italian translation, Donizetti approached the famed librettist Felice Romani , who had written a successful libretto in 1830 for Anna Bolena , the opera which secured the composer's place as one of

6716-558: The 20th century for his innovative works. His later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera Jenůfa , which was premiered in 1904 in Brno . The success of Jenůfa (often called the " Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen ,

6862-541: The 20th century, English opera began to assert more independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and in particular Benjamin Britten , who in a series of works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed an excellent flair for the dramatic and superb musicality. More recently Sir Harrison Birtwistle has emerged as one of Britain's most significant contemporary composers from his first opera Punch and Judy to his most recent critical success in The Minotaur . In

7008-564: The Baroque period, Italian opera never gained much of a foothold in France, where its own national operatic tradition was more popular instead. After Rameau's death, the Bohemian-Austrian composer Gluck was persuaded to produce six operas for the Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show the influence of Rameau, but simplified and with greater focus on the drama. At the same time, by the middle of

7154-574: The Beach ), Mark Adamo , John Corigliano ( The Ghosts of Versailles ), Robert Moran , John Adams ( Nixon in China ), André Previn and Jake Heggie . Many contemporary 21st century opera composers have emerged such as Missy Mazzoli , Kevin Puts , Tom Cipullo , Huang Ruo , David T. Little , Terence Blanchard , Jennifer Higdon , Tobias Picker , Michael Ching , Anthony Davis , and Ricky Ian Gordon . Opera

7300-703: The Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is Rusalka which contains the well-known aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" ("Song to the Moon"); it is played on contemporary opera stages frequently outside the Czech Republic . This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements – The Jacobin , Armida , Vanda and Dimitrij need stages large enough to portray invading armies. Leoš Janáček gained international recognition in

7446-590: The Dauphin François. They express their joy as Elizabeth enters. She considers the proposal, one which would create an alliance with France, but she is reluctant to give up her freedom and also pardon her cousin Mary Stuart, the former Queen of Scots, whom she has imprisoned because of various plots against her throne (Cavatina: Ahi! quando all'ara scórgemi / "Ah! when at the altar a chaste love from heaven singles me out"). Elizabeth expresses her uncertainty while at

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7592-404: The Italian cultural scene of the time, including Vincenzo Monti , Antonio Rosmini , Gino Capponi , Mario Rapisardi , Carlo Tenca , the painter Francesco Hayez , and the sculptors Vincenzo Vela and Giovanni Duprè . Key cultural figures from the rest of Europe also passed through the lounge of his house in Milan, including Liszt and Stendhal . In 1879 Andrea Maffei was made a senator of

7738-641: The Kingdom of Italy and participated in Italian political life. In the mid-19th century he frequently lived at Riva del Garda , where he organised his rich art collection and where, in 1935, the town's Liceo classico was named after him. He died in Milan in 1885. Skilled in foreign languages, he translated several works of English and German literature into Italian, particularly the plays of Schiller , Shakespeare 's Othello and The Tempest , many works of Goethe (including Faust ) and John Milton 's Paradise Lost . In his translations he sought to adapt

7884-710: The London stage from the mid-19th century into the 1870s. London's Daily Telegraph agreed, describing The Yeomen of the Guard as "a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage". Sullivan produced a few light operas in the 1890s that were of a more serious nature than those in the G&;S series, including Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone , but Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts—a record until Broadway's La bohème ) survives as his only grand opera . In

8030-547: The Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Christoph Willibald Gluck 's reforms. He advocated that opera seria had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet , and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published " Poème lyrique ", an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos . Several composers of

8176-556: The Tudor era (and Scotland at the time of Mary Stuart and beyond in particular, Donizetti's own Lucia di Lammermoor being an example) exerted a fascination upon continental Europeans in an extraordinary way. In literature, it has been noted that more than 20,000 books have appeared about Mary's life and that, within two years of her death, stage plays also began to appear. In addition to Schiller's Maria Stuart , there had been another influential play, Count Vittorio Alfieri 's Maria Stuarda written in 1778 in which "that unfortunate queen

8322-560: The US took place at the San Francisco Opera on 12 November 1971 with Joan Sutherland in the title role, while the first staged performances of the "Three Queens" operas together in the US took place in 1972 at the New York City Opera , all three operas staged by Tito Capobianco . Presentations of the trio earned some degree of fame for American soprano Beverly Sills who took the starring role in each. Dame Janet Baker sang

8468-499: The acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre of intermezzi , which developed largely in Naples in the 1710s and 1720s, were initially staged during the intermissions of opera seria. They became so popular, however, that they were soon being offered as separate productions. Opera seria was elevated in tone and highly stylised in form, usually consisting of secco recitative interspersed with long da capo arias. These afforded great opportunity for virtuosic singing and during

8614-485: The advent of grand opera typified by the works of Daniel Auber and Giacomo Meyerbeer as well as Carl Maria von Weber 's introduction of German Romantische Oper (German Romantic Opera). The mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard Wagner in Germany. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in

8760-457: The art form back to life again. The bel canto opera movement flourished in the early 19th century and is exemplified by the operas of Rossini , Bellini , Donizetti , Pacini , Mercadante and many others. Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate, requiring supreme agility and pitch control. Examples of famous operas in

8906-411: The bel canto style include Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola , as well as Bellini's Norma , La sonnambula and I puritani and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor , L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale . Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi , beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco . This opera, and

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9052-400: The breeze"). The sounds of a royal hunt are heard and, hearing the hunters cry out that the Queen is close by, Mary expresses her disgust (Cabaletta: Nella pace del mesto reposo / "In the peace of my sad seclusion, she would afflict me with a new terror"). To her surprise, Leicester approaches and warns Mary of Elizabeth's imminent arrival, counseling her to behave humbly towards the Queen, who

9198-459: The characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as singspiel , opéra comique , operetta , and semi-opera , the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso . The terminology of

9344-631: The characters in his operas. Ashbrook notes two of these conventions: the tradition of the soprano's aria di sortita (given upon her first appearance onstage) and the typical, often florid, aria which becomes the opera's finale. Therefore, in the case of the soprano's entrance aria, Ashbrook observes: Examples occur in Anna Bolena and Maria Padilla , both of which precede this opera, but Ashbrook recognized at least two instances which evidence Donizetti's distinctive musical genius in Maria Stuarda . One

9490-410: The circle of opera fans. Since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on (and written for) these media. Beginning in 2006, a number of major opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. Since 2009, complete performances can be downloaded and are live streamed . The words of an opera are known as

9636-755: The difficulties of a run in Italy, a London première was planned, but Malibran's death at the age of 28 in 1836 cancelled the project. Except for the several performances of the Buondelmonte version noted above, productions of Maria Stuarda were staged in Reggio Emilia and Modena (1837), in Ferrara and Malta (1839–40), in Florence , Ancona , Venice and Madrid (1840), Bologna (1841), Porto (1842), Granada , Málaga , and Barcelona plus Venice and Padua (1843), Lisbon (1844), and finally Pesaro (1844–45), all variously trimmed versions. Naples finally heard

9782-408: The distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless flow of "endless melody". Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth with part of the patronage from Ludwig II of Bavaria , exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in

9928-506: The drama is understated, enigmatic and completely un-Wagnerian. Other notable 20th-century names include Ravel , Dukas , Roussel , Honegger and Milhaud . Francis Poulenc is one of the very few post-war composers of any nationality whose operas (which include Dialogues des Carmélites ) have gained a foothold in the international repertory. Olivier Messiaen 's lengthy sacred drama Saint François d'Assise (1983) has also attracted widespread attention. In England, opera's antecedent

10074-558: The early 19th century has been led by a conductor . Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western classical music , and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres , including some that include spoken dialogue such as Singspiel and Opéra comique . In traditional number opera , singers employ two styles of singing: recitative ,

10220-573: The early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia . The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism ( Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg ), neoclassicism ( Igor Stravinsky ), and minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ). With the rise of recording technology , singers such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known to much wider audiences that went beyond

10366-427: The emergence of the separate but closely related art of musical theatre in the late 19th century. Sullivan wrote only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the efforts of a number of young English composers beginning about 1876), but he claimed that even his light operas constituted part of a school of "English" opera, intended to supplant the French operettas (usually performed in bad translations) that had dominated

10512-602: The execution" and signs the death warrant. Leicester pleads for mercy, Elizabeth rejects the plea, and Cecil urges her to remain firm (Trio Deh! per pietà sospendi l'estremo colpo almeno / "Alas! For pity's sake spare the final blow at least"). The confrontation ends with Elizabeth holding firm despite Leicester's accusations of cruelty; she orders him to witness Mary's execution. Scene 2: Maria's room Mary contemplates her fate, and that of Leicester also: "I have brought misfortune to all". Talbot and Cecil enter and Cecil tells Mary that he holds her death warrant. After Cecil leaves

10658-520: The first actual "opera singers", Madama Europa . Opera did not remain confined to court audiences for long. In 1637, the idea of a "season" (often during the carnival ) of publicly attended operas supported by ticket sales emerged in Venice . Monteverdi had moved to the city from Mantua and composed his last operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea , for the Venetian theatre in

10804-672: The first decade of the 21st century, the librettist of an early Birtwistle opera, Michael Nyman , has been focusing on composing operas, including Facing Goya , Man and Boy: Dada , and Love Counts . Today composers such as Thomas Adès continue to export English opera abroad. Also in the 20th century, American composers like George Gershwin ( Porgy and Bess ), Scott Joplin ( Treemonisha ), Leonard Bernstein ( Candide ), Gian Carlo Menotti , Douglas Moore , and Carlisle Floyd began to contribute English-language operas infused with touches of popular musical styles. They were followed by composers such as Philip Glass ( Einstein on

10950-461: The first true English-language opera. Blow's immediate successor was the better known Henry Purcell . Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead, he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within

11096-431: The form and style that would dominate opera throughout the twentieth century. Rather than long, suspended melodies, Falstaff contains many little motifs and mottos, that, rather than being expanded upon, are introduced and subsequently dropped, only to be brought up again later. These motifs never are expanded upon, and just as the audience expects a character to launch into a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing

11242-529: The genre of opera seria , which became the leading form of Italian opera until the end of the 18th century. Once the Metastasian ideal had been firmly established, comedy in Baroque-era opera was reserved for what came to be called opera buffa . Before such elements were forced out of opera seria, many libretti had featured a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an "opera-within-an-opera". One reason for this

11388-452: The golden age of opera seria the singer really became the star. The role of the hero was usually written for the high-pitched male castrato voice, which was produced by castration of the singer before puberty , which prevented a boy's larynx from being transformed at puberty. Castrati such as Farinelli and Senesino , as well as female sopranos such as Faustina Bordoni , became in great demand throughout Europe as opera seria ruled

11534-410: The greatest French grand opera , Don Carlos , and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff , which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century. These final two works showed Verdi at his most masterfully orchestrated, and are both incredibly influential, and modern. In Falstaff , Verdi sets the pre-eminent standard for

11680-613: The growth of Russian nationalism across the artistic spectrum, as part of the more general Slavophilism movement. In the 20th century, the traditions of Russian opera were developed by many composers including Sergei Rachmaninoff in his works The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , Igor Stravinsky in Le Rossignol , Mavra , Oedipus rex , and The Rake's Progress , Sergei Prokofiev in The Gambler , The Love for Three Oranges , The Fiery Angel , Betrothal in

11826-452: The internationally popular The Bartered Bride . Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory, but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892 and London in 1895 it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera company worldwide. Antonín Dvořák 's nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey

11972-516: The late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this influence. In 1644, Sigmund Staden produced the first Singspiel , Seelewig , a popular form of German-language opera in which singing alternates with spoken dialogue. In the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Theater am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg presented German operas by Keiser , Telemann and Handel . Yet most of

12118-554: The late 1950s onwards, cast a mezzo-soprano as either Maria or Elisabetta. The role of Maria was written for Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis , who sang the soprano roles of Donna Anna, in Don Giovanni , and Norma but also the mezzo-soprano role of Rosina, in The Barber of Seville . After the King of Naples banned the opera when it was in rehearsal, it became Buondelmonte with one or other of

12264-492: The late 1980s, after a critical edition was prepared from the autograph, what was revealed at that point was that Donizetti had re-used a couple of numbers in La favorite , and that in post- Favorite performances, starting with one in Naples in 1865, they had been replaced by different numbers from his other lesser-known operas. The critical edition was first given in Bergamo in 1989 in a two-act version. The first staged performance in

12410-402: The leaders of his day. Wanting a strong and powerful subject for his new work, the composer's idea was to have Romani prepare a libretto about Mary Stuart, but the librettist appears to have ignored him, perhaps because of his desire to get away from writing for the theatre, which he increasingly found to be distasteful. Therefore, the composer sought the services of Giuseppe Bardari (1817–1861),

12556-598: The leadership Zacharia Paliashvili , who fused local folk songs and stories with 19th-century Romantic classical themes. The key figure of Hungarian national opera in the 19th century was Ferenc Erkel , whose works mostly dealt with historical themes. Among his most often performed operas are Hunyadi László and Bánk bán . The most famous modern Hungarian opera is Béla Bartók 's Duke Bluebeard's Castle . Stanisław Moniuszko 's opera Straszny Dwór (in English The Haunted Manor ) (1861–64) represents

12702-438: The major German composers of the time, including Handel himself, as well as Graun , Hasse and later Gluck , chose to write most of their operas in foreign languages, especially Italian. In contrast to Italian opera, which was generally composed for the aristocratic class, German opera was generally composed for the masses and tended to feature simple folk-like melodies, and it was not until the arrival of Mozart that German opera

12848-499: The most daring and revolutionary. In it, Verdi blurs the distinction between the aria and recitative as it never before was, leading the opera to be "an unending string of duets". La traviata was also novel. It tells the story of courtesan, and it includes elements of verismo or "realistic" opera, because rather than featuring great kings and figures from literature, it focuses on the tragedies of ordinary life and society. After these, he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps

12994-537: The most obvious stylistic manifestation of modernism in opera is the development of atonality . The move away from traditional tonality in opera had begun with Richard Wagner , and in particular the Tristan chord . Composers such as Richard Strauss , Claude Debussy , Giacomo Puccini , Paul Hindemith , Benjamin Britten and Hans Pfitzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance. Another aspect of modernist opera

13140-414: The most popular of all opéra comiques. Jules Massenet , Camille Saint-Saëns and Léo Delibes all composed works which are still part of the standard repertory, examples being Massenet's Manon , Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila and Delibes' Lakmé . Their operas formed another genre, the opéra lyrique , combined opéra comique and grand opera. It is less grandiose than grand opera, but without

13286-417: The most significant figure was undoubtedly Wagner . Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber and Meyerbeer , he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with

13432-437: The music of the ending of act 2, in the dramatic action it has been noted as fitting to the "sparse, clearly-constructed action leading to an inescapable end. And since that end is the focus of all interest, it is not surprising that the final act is musically as well as dramatically the culmination of the work, growing out of but eclipsing all that has gone before". With the delay between the cancelled performances in Naples and

13578-454: The musical stage in England. The only exceptions were ballad operas , such as John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera (1728), musical burlesques , European operettas , and late Victorian era light operas , notably the Savoy operas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan , all of which types of musical entertainments frequently spoofed operatic conventions; these genres contributed significantly to

13724-435: The musical structure of the opera is fairly straightforward and follows many of the conventions of the day. For example, Elisabeth, Mary, and Leicester "are each given a "double-aria" (a cantabile followed by a cabaletta ) at their first appearances and Mary is also given one at the opera's end. However, the composer's strength lies in being able to tailor the framework to "a specific set of dramatic circumstances". Singled out

13870-476: The new genre of grand opera , a form whose most famous exponent was another foreigner, Giacomo Meyerbeer . Meyerbeer's works, such as Les Huguenots , emphasised virtuoso singing and extraordinary stage effects. Lighter opéra comique also enjoyed tremendous success in the hands of Boïeldieu , Auber , Hérold and Adam . In this climate, the operas of the French-born composer Hector Berlioz struggled to gain

14016-582: The ones that would follow in Verdi's career, revolutionized Italian opera, changing it from merely a display of vocal fireworks, with Rossini's and Donizetti's works, to dramatic story-telling. Verdi's operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian nationalism in the post- Napoleonic era, and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement for a unified Italy. In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular operas: Rigoletto , Il trovatore and La traviata . The first of these, Rigoletto , proved

14162-594: The opera has seen 86 performances of 18 productions in 16 cities, according to Operabase . Other US companies have presented some or all of the "Three Donizetti Queens" operas. Among them has been the Dallas Opera with both Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda to date. The Minnesota Opera staged all three between 2009 and 2012. In April 2012, the Houston Grand Opera presented the Minnesota Opera's production of

14308-478: The opera in 1865, but the work was ignored for the next 130 years. It has been suggested that, with the exception of Venice and Naples, most of these locations "were of peripheral importance" and therefore the opera "never found its way to the stages of Vienna, Paris, or London", the Italian reception being a major requirement to launch an international success. Prior to the discovery of the original autograph in Sweden in

14454-475: The operas of Mozart , who wrote in Vienna near the century's close. Leading Italian-born composers of opera seria include Alessandro Scarlatti , Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora . Opera seria had its weaknesses and critics. The taste for embellishment on behalf of the superbly trained singers, and the use of spectacle as a replacement for dramatic purity and unity drew attacks. Francesco Algarotti 's Essay on

14600-544: The other dominating force in English opera at this time was George Frideric Handel , whose opera serias filled the London operatic stages for decades and influenced most home-grown composers, like John Frederick Lampe , who wrote using Italian models. This situation continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, including in the work of Michael William Balfe , and the operas of the great Italian composers, as well as those of Mozart, Beethoven, and Meyerbeer, continued to dominate

14746-572: The period, including Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta , attempted to put these ideals into practice. The first to succeed however, was Gluck. Gluck strove to achieve a "beautiful simplicity". This is evident in his first reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice , where his non-virtuosic vocal melodies are supported by simple harmonies and a richer orchestra presence throughout. Gluck's reforms have had resonance throughout operatic history. Weber, Mozart, and Wagner, in particular, were influenced by his ideals. Mozart, in many ways Gluck's successor, combined

14892-428: The pezzo concertato and the stretta) at the end of act 1 (act 2 in some productions) – the confrontation between the two queens – which gives "the climactic moment something of the immediacy of the spoken theatre. In any sense, this dialogue is one of the most original and powerful passages that Donizetti ever composed" or, as another critic puts it, "so that the outrageous text is heard in shocking relief." In regard to

15038-476: The premiere of Maria Stuarda in Milan almost a year and a half later, Donizetti was to replace the prelude with a full overture and added a new version of a duet between Elizabeth and Leicester using previously written music. Scene 1: Elisabetta's court at Westminster The Lords and Ladies of the Court enter after a tournament to honor the French ambassador, who has brought a marriage proposal to Queen Elizabeth from

15184-484: The queens (probably Elisabetta) turned into the tenor title-role and de Begnis singing a role called Bianca. Malibran (who sang Norma but also Leonore and Cenerentola and had a range of G3-E6) then decided that she wanted to sing Maria Stuarda, which she did until it was banned again. It was performed for a time subsequently in "sanitised" form and was eventually revived in 1958, still sanitised. As musicologist and Donizetti expert William Ashbrook notes, in many respects

15330-473: The queens exchanged". An incident occurred at a rehearsal of the opera which is recounted by Harold Rosenthal : The rehearsal continued, she sang, the matter went no further. After its successful dress rehearsal, the King of Naples suddenly banned performances of the opera "perhaps because his Queen, Maria Christina, was a direct descendant of Mary Stuart" or "the sight of one queen calling another 'vile bastard' on

15476-502: The quintessential designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson 's Lovers Made Men (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1656,

15622-473: The room, Talbot informs her that Leicester has been ordered to witness her execution. Beside herself with grief, Mary imagines that the ghost of Lord Darnley is in the room with her, while Talbot offers comfort (Duet: Quando di luce rosea il giorno a me splendea / "While with the light of dawn my life still sparkled"). However, Talbot then presses her about "one more sin": her "unity with" ("uniti eri") Babington , to which she initially responds "Ah! be silent; it

15768-640: The same characteristics as described above, though Berg combined his highly personal interpretation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique with melodic passages of a more traditionally tonal nature (quite Mahlerian in character) which perhaps partially explains why his operas have remained in standard repertory, despite their controversial music and plots. Schoenberg's theories have influenced (either directly or indirectly) significant numbers of opera composers ever since, even if they themselves did not compose using his techniques. Andrea Maffei As well as Verdi, Maffei also built up close relationships with others in

15914-484: The same time, Talbot and the courtiers plead for Mary's life (Cabaletta: Ah! dal Ciel discenda un raggio / "Ah! may some ray descend from heaven"). Just as Elizabeth inquires where Leicester is, he enters and Elizabeth tells him to inform the French ambassador that she will indeed marry François. He betrays no signs of being jealous, and the Queen assumes that she has a rival. Alone with Leicester, Talbot reveals to him that he has just returned from Fotheringay and gives

16060-421: The same, proud, overbearing") and, after each character collectively expresses his or her feelings, Mary approaches and kneels before the Queen (Aria: Morta al mondo, ah! morta al trono / "Dead to the world, and dead to the throne… I come to beg your pardon"). The confrontation soon becomes hostile. Elizabeth accuses Mary of having murdered her husband, Lord Darnley , as well as acts of treason and debauchery, all

16206-559: The section on modernism . During the late 19th century, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II , an admirer of the French -language operettas composed by Jacques Offenbach , composed several German-language operettas, the most famous of which was Die Fledermaus . Nevertheless, rather than copying the style of Offenbach, the operettas of Strauss II had distinctly Viennese flavor to them. In rivalry with imported Italian opera productions,

16352-419: The sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the " Camerata de' Bardi ". Significantly, Dafne

16498-562: The simplistic view that the opera presents Mary as noble victim and Elizabeth as vengeful monster [but] here, the rival queens are both profoundly tragic, complex figures", was given by English Touring Opera in 2005 and Maria Stuarda was presented at both the Teater Vanemuine in Estonia and Pacific Opera in Victoria, B.C. during the 2011/12 season. Between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2013,

16644-411: The sound of our humble prayer") and, together, she and the crowd pray for God's mercy. When Cecil arrives to tell her that the time for her execution has come, he informs her that Elizabeth has granted her final wishes, including allowing Anna to accompany her to the scaffold. Then Mary offers a pardon to the queen (Mary, Anna, Talbot, Cecil, chorus: Di un cor che more reca il perdóno / "From a heart that

16790-605: The spoken dialogue of opèra comique . At the same time, the influence of Richard Wagner was felt as a challenge to the French tradition. Many French critics angrily rejected Wagner's music dramas while many French composers closely imitated them with variable success. Perhaps the most interesting response came from Claude Debussy . As in Wagner's works, the orchestra plays a leading role in Debussy's unique opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) and there are no real arias, only recitative. But

16936-401: The stage in every country except France. Farinelli was one of the most famous singers of the 18th century. Italian opera set the Baroque standard. Italian libretti were the norm, even when a German composer like Handel found himself composing the likes of Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare for London audiences. Italian libretti remained dominant in the classical period as well, for example in

17082-596: The stage of the Teatro San Carlo […] was too much for the Neapolitan sensibility". But it has also been simply noted by Professor Weatherson that "politics were the cause" in that reputed secret seditious behavior against Elizabeth I by Mary "made the decapitated monarch unpopular in Bourbon Naples". Donizetti responded to the ban by suggesting another subject, that being Giovanna Gray ("Lady Jane Gray"), but after it

17228-513: The structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden )

17374-593: The style he wanted. Opera would never be the same after Wagner and for many composers his legacy proved a heavy burden. On the other hand, Richard Strauss accepted Wagnerian ideas but took them in wholly new directions, along with incorporating the new form introduced by Verdi. He first won fame with the scandalous Salome and the dark tragedy Elektra , in which tonality was pushed to the limits. Then Strauss changed tack in his greatest success, Der Rosenkavalier , where Mozart and Viennese waltzes became as important an influence as Wagner. Strauss continued to produce

17520-443: The title role (in English translation) in a production at English National Opera conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras beginning in 1973, which was recorded and filmed. The opera has been given in a variety of European and North American locations in recent times, which begin to increasingly establish it as part of the standard repertoire. A production which was noted as "no longer a display piece for rival divas, nor does it maintain

17666-519: The trend. The changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below . The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin word opera , a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus . According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the Italian word was first used in

17812-416: The two men, she questions him, asks about a letter from Mary, and then demands to see it. Reluctantly, Leicester hands it over, noting that Mary has asked for a meeting with her cousin and he pleads with the Queen to agree to do so. Also, upon her questioning, he confesses his love for Mary (Duet of Leicester and Elizabeth: Era d'amor l'immagine / "She was the picture of love"). Told that Elizabeth can join

17958-448: The various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below . During both the Baroque and Classical periods , recitative could appear in two basic forms, each of which was accompanied by a different instrumental ensemble: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by basso continuo , which was usually a harpsichord and

18104-505: The while Leicester attempting to calm both sides. Stung by Elizabeth's false accusations, Mary calls her the Figlia impura di Bolena ("Impure daughter of Boleyn ") and continues with the final insult: Profanato è il soglio inglese, vil bastarda, dal tuo piè! ("The English throne is sullied, vile bastard, by your foot"). Elizabeth is horrified and demands that the guards take Mary away, declaring "The axe that awaits you will show my revenge". Mary

18250-577: The work, but casting mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in the title role. (A mezzo singing the role is not uncommon today, as has been noted below.) She had sung the role of Elisabetta in Geneva in 2005 and, when the Metropolitan Opera gave Maria Stuarda in January/February 2013, it also starred DiDonato as Maria. As with Anna Bolena , which preceded it in 2011, this was the company's first staging of

18396-513: The work. Welsh National Opera presented all three of Donizetti's "Queens" operas throughout the UK from September to November 2013. This historic season was premiered in Cardiff then toured to venues in England and Wales in 2013. Originally the roles of Maria and Elisabetta were written for sopranos. However, given the precedent of Malibran singing the role of Maria, many modern-day productions, dating from

18542-399: The world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini 's La bohème , Tosca , and Madama Butterfly . Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono , have experimented with modernism . The first German opera was Dafne , composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until

18688-499: Was Tsefal i Prokris by the Italian composer Francesco Araja (1755). The development of Russian-language opera was supported by the Russian composers Vasily Pashkevich , Yevstigney Fomin and Alexey Verstovsky . However, the real birth of Russian opera came with Mikhail Glinka and his two great operas A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). After him, during

18834-400: Was 53 and Mary was 44. However, the libretto does retain the fictional meeting between Mary and Elizabeth in a very dramatic confrontation. While its musical elements are noted below, "the confrontation....so essential to the dramatic structure of both play and opera, it is, surely, a translation into action of a clash which was implicit in history – of a clash which took place in the letters

18980-470: Was a fatal error", but, when he insists, adds that "dying my heart affirms it." Scene 3: The courtyard at Fotheringay People gather at the site of the execution, lamenting that a queen's death will bring shame upon England. Mary enters and says her farewells to the crowd, which includes Talbot, telling them she will be going to a better life. She calls them to a final prayer (Mary, with Chorus: Deh! Tu di un úmile preghiera il suono odi / "Ah! May Thou hear

19126-528: Was a heretic and, indeed, a bastard since "her father Henry VIII had never obtained an annulment from the Pope to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to marry his second wife (Elizabeth's mother) Anne Boleyn" Therefore, to European Catholics, Mary was a martyr and the legitimate ruler of England, a sympathetic character contrasted with Elizabeth, who was traditionally cast in a darker role, often "as unrestrainedly jealous, willful, and easily over-wrought. This

19272-428: Was able to match its Italian counterpart in musical sophistication. The theatre company of Abel Seyler pioneered serious German-language opera in the 1770s, marking a break with the previous simpler musical entertainment. Mozart 's Singspiele , Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and Die Zauberflöte (1791) were an important breakthrough in achieving international recognition for German opera. The tradition

19418-449: Was able to move beyond the Italian influences and create his own unique and distinctly English voice. His modernized ballad opera, Love in a Village (1762), began a vogue for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century. Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced "a light, airy, original, and pleasing melody, wholly different from that of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had either pillaged or imitated". Besides Arne,

19564-555: Was also rejected, he set about revising and removing large segments of the score and, by quickly employing Pietro Salatino as new librettist, created a different work. He named it Buondelmonte referring to a character who appears in Dante 's Paradiso "who apparently caused a war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines". But prior to its first performance, the composer expressed his concerns in

19710-409: Was an attempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to the public opera houses . These separate plots were almost immediately resurrected in a separately developing tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte , a long-flourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. Just as intermedi had once been performed in between

19856-528: Was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama , part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance . The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne , however, is lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice , dating from 1600,

20002-699: Was brought to Russia in the 1730s by the Italian operatic troupes and soon it became an important part of entertainment for the Russian Imperial Court and aristocracy . Many foreign composers such as Baldassare Galuppi , Giovanni Paisiello , Giuseppe Sarti , and Domenico Cimarosa (as well as various others) were invited to Russia to compose new operas, mostly in the Italian language . Simultaneously some domestic musicians of Ukrainian origin like Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky were sent abroad to learn to write operas. The first opera written in Russian

20148-517: Was developed by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873) whose most famous work Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Cossack Beyond the Danube) is regularly performed around the world. Other Ukrainian opera composers include Mykola Lysenko ( Taras Bulba and Natalka Poltavka ), Heorhiy Maiboroda , and Yuliy Meitus . At the turn of the century, a distinct national opera movement also began to emerge in Georgia under

20294-475: Was developed in the 19th century by Beethoven with his Fidelio (1805), inspired by the climate of the French Revolution . Carl Maria von Weber established German Romantic opera in opposition to the dominance of Italian bel canto . His Der Freischütz (1821) shows his genius for creating a supernatural atmosphere. Other opera composers of the time include Marschner , Schubert and Lortzing , but

20440-425: Was forced to eliminate "almost all of the play's political and religious references and (reduce) the number of characters from 21 to six, the libretto does adds the love story of Mary Stuart and Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester , which had no basis in fact, albeit that Leicester had been considered by Elizabeth to be a possible husband for Mary. At the time of the events portrayed, Dudley was actually 55, Elizabeth

20586-728: Was fully staged in 1945 in Armenia. The first years of the Soviet Union saw the emergence of new national operas, such as the Koroğlu (1937) by the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov . The first Kyrgyz opera, Ai-Churek , premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on 26 May 1939, during Kyrgyz Art Decade. It was composed by Vladimir Vlasov , Abdylas Maldybaev and Vladimir Fere . The libretto

20732-428: Was quickly clear that the audience disapproved, as did the authorities for different reasons because, instead of singing donna vile as the substitute language for vil bastarda ("vile bastard"), Malibran rejected the censor's revisions and sang the original words. Several better-performed presentations later, the Milan censors clamped down, imposed conditions which Malibran would not accept, and she withdrew. Realizing

20878-528: Was the 17th-century jig . This was an afterpiece that came at the end of a play. It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect, jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with even more lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery than had been seen before. Inigo Jones became

21024-418: Was the first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, with his greatest success being Thomas and Sally in 1760. His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. Although Arne imitated many elements of Italian opera, he was perhaps the only English composer at that time who

21170-415: Was to establish serious opera in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 36. Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England dwindled for several decades. A revived interest in opera occurred in the 1730s which is largely attributed to Thomas Arne , both for his own compositions and for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of large-scale works in English. Arne

21316-539: Was written by Joomart Bokonbaev, Jusup Turusbekov, and Kybanychbek Malikov. The opera is based on the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas . In Iran, opera gained more attention after the introduction of Western classical music in the late 19th century. However, it took until mid 20th century for Iranian composers to start experiencing with the field, especially as the construction of the Roudaki Hall in 1967, made possible staging of

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