Opera is many things: poetry, drama, dance, and visual effects. But above all it is one of the grandest and most complex forms of music ever introduced to Western culture. The operatic voice has a sound like no other: ringing, full,... [more]

Opera is many things: poetry, drama, dance, and visual effects. But above all it is one of the grandest and most complex forms of music ever introduced to Western culture. The operatic voice has a sound like no other: ringing, full, perfectly cultivated and impossibly precise. People either love the sound or hate it, but very few can remain completely neutral, and no one can deny the skill and discipline it takes to perfect an operatic voice. Operatic composers first came into existence during the very last part of the sixteenth century, during the golden age of artistic advance known as the Italian Renaissance. A music theorist named Vincenzo Galilei invented the monodic line: a distinct melody line used to declaim text. However, it took the great genius Claudio Monteverdi to make opera into a popular art form. Previous attempts had consisted mainly of a series of recitatives (melodic recitation of poems) but Monteverdi interspersed arias with recitative, and utilized a large cast and an even larger orchestra to create an overwhelmingly dramatic stage event. In the Baroque era that spanned much of the eighteenth century, opera became the most popular kind of entertainment in the Western world. It spread from Italy to the France of Louis the Sun King, and shortly thereafter to England, Germany, and Austria. In compliance with their dramatic, larger-than-life monarch's wishes, French composers wrote grand, tragic operas with an emphasis on poetic lyrics. Elsewhere in the world however, composers such as Antonio Vivaldi and G.F. Handel wrote works that showcased the immense abilities of the vocalists. The aim of these operas was to impress the audience, not to touch it emotionally. The composer who was most responsible for changing the structure and form of opera -- and who did so without ever intending to -- was W.A. Mozart. His music was inspired, his creativity knew no bounds, and he chose subject matter that was unusual, often comical, and even more often, controversial to the point that it was banned by the government. The sound of opera now is different than it was 50 years ago. Composers like Philip Glass and Karlheinz Stockhausen utilize space-age instruments and a fusion of sounds to create a new kind of music altogether. Albums such as "Aria" set classic operatic melodies to ambient electronic beats. While some fans of opera contend that nothing written after 1900 is true to the genre, most people would say that composers are simply changing the form in order to better suit the new century. [show less]