The Romantic opera period, roughly spanning from 1820 to 1910, saw opera evolve as a popular

form of entertainment, emphasizing emotional expression, often featuring grandiose themes and
showcasing virtuosic singing and dramatic spectacle, with composers like Richard Wagner and
Giuseppe Verdi as key figures.

 Emphasis on Emotion and Individual Expression:

Romantic opera prioritized emotional depth and the exploration of individual feelings and
experiences.

ROMANTIC OPERA COMPOSERS

Franz peter Schubert

• The proper name for Franz Schubert’s song is actually

‘’lieder’’ which is the German word for ‘song’.

• Schubert develop lieder so that they had a powerful dramatic impact on the listeners

• He is considered the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic ones.

• “GRETCHEN AM SPINNRADE”

• “ERLKONIG”

• “ELLENS GESANG III (AVE MARIA)”

• “SCHWANENGE SANG (SWAN SONG)”

PIANO WORKS:

• STRING QUARTETS

• SYMPHONY NO. 8 IN B MINOR

• (UNFINISHED SYMPHONY)’=

Giuseppe Verdi
born: October 8, 1813
(parma, italy)
died: January 27, 1901

• He insisted on a good libretto and wrote operas with political overtone and for middle class
audiences

• All of his work are serious love story with a unhappy ending story

• His final opera ends with ‘’ALL THE WORLD’S A JOKE’’

• FIRST OPERA TITLED “OBERTO (performed in La Scala and the most important opera house
at the time)

• “LA TRAVIATA’’

• RIGOLETTO

• FALSTAFF

• OTELLO
 • AIDA

Giacomo Puccini
born: December 22, 1858
(lucca, italy)
died: November 29, 1924

• He studied at the Milan Conservatory.

• He belong to the group of composers who stressed realism, therefore he drew material from
everyday life, rejecting heroic themes from mythology and history

PUCCINI’S FAMOUS OPERA:

• LA BOHEME

• TOSCA

• MADAME BUTTERFLY

• TURANDOT

Richard wagner
born: may 28, 1813
(leipzig, germany)
died: February 13, 1883

• He was very inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven.

• He also explored the limits of the traditional system that gives key and chords their own
identities which paved the way of the rise of atonality in the 20th century

• He was an advocate of a new form of opera which he called ‘’music drama’’ where musical
and dramatic elements were fused together.

Famous work:

• Tristan and Isolde

• Die, Walkyrie

• Die, Meistersinger

• Including those of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings film series

Georges bizet
born: October 25, 1838
(paris, france)
died: june 3, 1875

• George Bizet registered with the legal name Alexandre Cesar Leopold Bizet, but was
baptized George Bizet and was always known by the latter name.

• He entered the Paris Conservatory of music at a very young age.

• His famous opera is ‘’CARMEN’’, however, when CARMEN first opened in Paris, the reviews
were terrible and criticized in horrible ways that result in poor audience attendance.

• During the first round of carmen performances, Bizet died, He was only 36 and four months
later ‘’carmen’’ opened in Vienna, Austria and was a smash hit. It is now one of the most
popular operas ever written.
 • FAMOUS OPERA “CARMEN”

COMPONENTS OF AN OPERA

Libretto

The text of an opera. Librettist and the composer work closely together to tell the story

Score

 The book that the composer and librettist put together.

Recitative

 Declamatory singing, used in the prose parts and dialogue of opera.

 Different roles in operas are created taking into account different types of voices.

 Each role requires a different type of singers, not only able to sing a given vocal range but
also with certain voice characteristics, color, and power.

Aria

 An air solo singing part sung by a principal character.

 This song is what the public will remember best when leaving the opera house.

 Properly and well sung, a beautiful aria can bring an audience to its feet and decide the fate
of an entire opera

For the Male Voice:

 Tenor – highest male voice

For the Female Voice:

 Soprano - highest female voice

 Coloratura - highest soprano voice

 Lyric- bright and full sound

 Dramatic - darker full sound

 Mezzo Soprano - most common female voice; strong middle voice, tone is darker or deeper
than soprano

 Contralto - lowest female voice and most unique among female

 Duet, trio, and other small ensemble

 Chorus

 Orchestra
  Acts – main division of an opera

 Scene- setting or place

Composers like Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner saw the opportunity to explore ways to develop the vocal
power of a singer. Greater range of tone color, dynamics, and pitch were employed

Dynamics and vocal embellishment were used to further affect the way singer sings. Some musical
terms are used like:

 A Capella - one or more singers performing without instrumental accompaniment

 Cantabile – in an singing style

 Capo – head, the beginning

 Coda – Closing section appended to a movement or song

 Dolce – sweetly

 Falsetto – A weaker and more airy voice usually in the higher pitch ranges

 Glissando - Sliding quickly between 2 notes

 Passagio - parts of a singing voice where register register transition occur

 Rubato - Slight speeding up or slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the
soloist

 Tessitura – the most comfortable singing range of a singer

 Vibrato – rapidly repeated slight pitch variation during a sustained note, to give a richer and
more varied sound

LA TRAVIATA

 Music by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

 Libretto in Italian by Francesco Maria Piave, based on "La Dame aux Camélias," play by
Alexandre Dumas after his novel by the same name.

 The play is known in English as "Camille." Premiere: Venice, March 6, 1853.

 Categorized as a Romantic tragedy

 Set in Paris, France during 1850

 Originally in three acts, but present-day productions are usually in four acts dividing the
original Act II

 ACT I: Violetta's Paris salon, luxuriously furnished

 ACT II: A villa near Paris

 ACT III: Ballroom in Flora's mansion

 ACT IV: Violetta's bedroom

At one of her brilliant supper parties, the beautiful but frail demi-mondaine (a woman
supported by a wealthy lover-Merriam Webster Dictionary), Violetta Valéry, meets the well-
born Alfredo Germont. They immediately fell in love and she decided to abandon her life of
pleasure.
MADAME BUTTERFLY

 Music by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

 Libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Ilica. From the short story by John
Luther Lung, derived from Pierre Loti's tale Madame Chrysantheme.
 Romantic tragedy. Set numbers; recitative. Setting: Nagasaki, Japan, at the beginning
of the 20th century.

Two acts; Act 2 with two parts

ARTS

 Theatrical began from myth, ritual, and ceremony.

 Theater means "place of seeing", but it is more than the buildings where performance
take place.

 To produce theater, a playwright write the scripts, the director rehearses the performers,
the designer and technical crew produce props to create the scenes, and actors and
actresses perform on stage.

• Theater building were called theatron.

• The theater were large, open-air structures constructed on the slopes of hills. They consisted
of 3 main elements: the orchestra, the skene, and the audience

• Orchestra- a large circular or rectangular area at the center part of the theatre, where the
play, dance, religious rites, and acting took place.

• Theatron- viewing place on the slope of a hill

• Skene- stage

• Parodos- side entrance

• The theater of Ancient Rome started in the 3rd century BC.

• It had varied and interesting art forms such as festivals performances of street theatre,
acrobatics, the staging of comedies of Plautus, and the high-verbally elaborate tragedies of
Seneca.

• According to Roman historian Livy, the Etruscan actors in the 4th century BC, were the first
experienced theater actor

• Roman drama began with the plays of Livius Andronicus

• Greek theatres had a great influence on the Roman's theater, too.

• Triumvir Pompey was one of the first permanent (non-wooden) theaters in Rome, whose
structure was somewhat similar to the Theatron of Athens.

Medieval Theater (500 C.E.-1400)

• During the Medieval era, theater performances were not allowed throughout Europe.

• To keep theater alive, minstrels, though denounced by the Church, performed in markets,
public places, and festivals

• They travelled from one town to another as puppeteers, jugglers, story tellers, dancers,
singers, and other performers in other theatrical acts.

• These minstrels were viewed as dangerous and pagan.

• Churches in Europe started staging their own theater performances during Easter Sundays
with biblical stories and events.

• Example of this kind of play is the Mystére d'Adam or "The Mystery of Adam".

• The story revolves around Adam and Eve and ends with the devil capturing and bringing
them to hell.

• Over the centuries, the plays revolved around biblical themes from the Story of the Creation
to the Last Judgement.