He also wrote opera seria, such as Otello (1816) and Guillaume Tell (1829). His Barber of Seville, and La Cenerentola are still world famous today. His first success was La Cambiale di Matrimonio (1810), an opera buffa. It was initiated by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868). Romantic opera, which placed emphasis on the imagination and the emotions began to appear in the early 19th century. In opera buffa the emphasis was on stage action and acting, which required singers who were also excellent actors capable to perform the drama convincingly, but with a smaller cast of characters and simplier plots, requiring less use of scenery and stage machinery. The first Italian opera produced outside Italy occured in Warsaw in 1628.īy the end of the 1600s two different types of opera appeared Opera Comica or opera buffa and opera seria. Monteverdi set some of the important standards in Italian opera.

The chief composer of Venetian opera was Monteverdi, who had moved to the republic from Mantua in 1613. It was in the Serenissima that the first public opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, was opened in 1637. It was from this moment on that opera moved from noble patronage into the commercial world, making opera accessible to a broader, paying, public, than being restricted to nobility as was previously the case. Opera took an important new direction when it reached the republic of Venice.

Opera music origin