Opera

Опера

Audio: Opera

Opera is a synthetic genre uniting music, singing, drama, poetry, stage design, and often dance into a single theatrical whole. One of the summits of European culture from 1600 to the present.

Opera was born around 1600 in Florence, when the circle of the Camerata sought to revive ancient Greek tragedy. Its first masterpiece was Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607). Since then opera has passed through the Baroque, Mozart's Classicism, bel canto, Wagner's Romantic music drama, and verismo.

Its building blocks are the aria (a solo lyric utterance), the recitative (sung declamation that carries the plot), ensembles, choruses, and orchestral interludes. The founder of Ukrainian opera is Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (Zaporozhets za Dunayem, 1863), and its classic is Mykola Lysenko (Taras Bulba, Natalka Poltavka).

Cultural Versus

Opera

Sub-category:: classical

Opera is a synthetic genre uniting music, singing, drama, poetry, stage design, and often dance into a single theatrical whole. One of the summits of European culture from 1600 to the present.

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Sub-category:: blues-soul

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