There are many genres, mainly four major genres
The Italian opera "Aida", the French opera "Faust", the German opera "The Flying Dutchman", the Russian opera " Eugene Onegin".
At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, opera was born in Italy, which was the result of the development of musical art during the Renaissance. Opera is a new art, commonly known as opera, which comes from the Italian word opera in musica, which is the abbreviation of musical works. Opera is the plural of opus (work). It is a comprehensive art that combines music and comedy. It was first called "favola in musica" or "drama per musica".
Opera is a comprehensive art form that integrates music, drama, poetry, stage art, dance, etc. It is a highly concentrated stage performance art, and it is also the most difficult and most artistically charming important art in vocal art. form.
Opera was born in Florence, Italy, at the end of the 16th century. It is a product of the famous European Renaissance movement. In 1597, the poet Nunilic, the composer Pericaccini and others wrote the world's first opera "Daphne" based on the mythical story. Unfortunately, it has long been lost. In 1600, the composer Din Perry wrote "Jewish". "Ridice" is recognized as the first Western opera in the West, ushering in a new era of opera. By the first half of the 17th century (1637), the world's first opera house was established in Venice, Italy, called "San Cassiano Opera House", which marked that opera had begun to reach the common people. In addition, operas at this time were being created The development and innovation in opera have changed opera from a simple narrative form to a dramatic form, thus making opera a big step forward. By the end of the 17th century, music development reached a glorious era, producing several epoch-making great musicians, including Italy's Scarlatti, France's Rameau, and Germany's Bach and Handel. Scarlatti, who had the greatest influence in Rome at that time, wrote 115 operas in his life, determined the basic form of ABA for opera arias, and added ornamentation and cadenza when the A section was repeated, which greatly developed the singing of the human voice. Art has enriched the expressiveness of singing and promoted the improvement of singing technology, but at the same time it has also brought about the unhealthy trend of just showing off skills. At that time, castrati singers were active on the opera stage, and people selected some boys with beautiful voices to sing. Castration surgery was performed on them so that they could retain the strength of men while preserving the high pitch range; another undesirable phenomenon is that in order to attract the audience, the theater introduces some strange scenes that have little to do with the plot, luxurious decorations or grand This weakens the drama and expression of ideological connotation of the opera, and reduces the integrity and artistry of the opera.
Gluck was a reformer in the history of opera. He advocated that music should be subordinated to the effect of drama, advocated the perfect unity of drama and musicality in opera, opposed the exaggerated practice of pretentiousness, and advocated the elimination of those things that are the same as drama and lines. Unrelated decorative music. At the same time, Gluck also advocated creation in national languages ??to develop operas from various countries. His reforms led opera to the path of Italian Romanticism.
Rossini was the pioneer of Italian romantic opera. He created masterpieces such as "The Barber of Seville" and "William Tell", which marked the maturity of Italian opera. The characteristics of their works by equally famous composers such as Donizetti and Bellini are that the singers not only need to have superb vocal skills, but also the music melodies are beautiful and charming, pushing the art of opera to an unprecedented peak so far. , the most difficult operas to sing were basically written by these three composers. People often call the operas of this period the bel canto period of opera.
After these three composers, the main representative of Italian opera is Verdi. He composed 26 operas in his lifetime, almost all of which are artistic masterpieces, such as "Rigoletto" , "La Traviata", "Il Trovatore", "Aida", "Othello", etc. are still in the repertoire of the world's top opera houses.
During the Romantic period, European opera experienced unprecedented prosperity, and a large number of excellent opera works emerged from various countries, such as Berlioz's "The Fall of Faust" and Gounod's "Faust". ", Bizet's "Carmen", etc. In the second half of the 19th century, another wave of works appeared in the Italian literary and art circles that criticized romantic fantasy and revealed the realism of human nature.
Such as Mascagni's "Cavalier Rusticana", Leon Cavallo's "Pagliacci", etc. Puccini is a composer with a realist tendency, but his works have a strong lyrical color, beautiful melodies, and stage performances. The effect is very good, and the shadow of realism style can also be found in his works such as "Carmen" and "Tosca", but on the whole, they are also romantic and lyrical.
Italian opera has dominated the European opera stage for a long time. With its development and popularity, and the efforts of musicians from various countries, various opera genres have gradually formed, such as Italian opera, German opera, French opera, Russian opera. But Italian opera has always dominated.
German opera first appeared in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Hamburg opera had a certain reputation, but it had not yet formed a genre. Gluck advocated the nationalization of opera, which gradually led to its growth and formation of the "German National Opera" genre that occupied a place. Mozart brought German opera to a high artistic level. His "Escape from the Harem" and "The Magic Flute" are already masterpieces of German opera. Weber is an important composer of German opera. His "Die Freud" marks the beginning of German romantic opera. The tune has the characteristics of national folk music. The chorus plays an important role in the whole opera and has a strong national character. Another most important figure in the formation of German opera was Wagner. He advocated the synergy of all arts to create a comprehensive art. He believed that music should become a tool to express the connotation of drama and serve the plot. He improved the status of the orchestra in opera. A large number of works he created throughout his life, such as "The Flying Dutchman", "Tanhauser", "Ross Green", "The Ring of the Nibelung", etc., are all from Germany. A model for opera.
French opera began in 1650 with the opera "Pastoral Opera" sung in French, composed by a priest named Beran. By the 1820s, French grand operas similar to full-length operas had appeared in France. French operas were also characterized by their scripts being more literal, their language more subtle, and their voices more mellow, making them more elegant, noble, romantic, sentimental, and lyrical. It has a strong personality and is called "lyrical opera", such as Gounod and Thoma's operas "Faust", "Mignon", "Romeo and Juliet", etc., and later Bizet's "Carmen", Debussy The appearance of "Pelléas et Melisanfa" brought French opera to its peak of glory.
When Russian music was not well known in Europe, composer Glinka's "Ivan Susanin" and "Ruslan and Lyudmila" became the foundation of Russian opera. This work had a great influence on the subsequent development of opera. Subsequently, Tchaikovsky wrote "Eugene Onegin" and "The Queen of Spades", and Rimsky-Korsakov created "The Golden Rooster", "Satko", Mussorgsky's "Bohays Godunov", Borodin's "King Igor", etc. are all typical Russian operas, maybe Due to language reasons, Russian opera is far less popular than Italian opera, German opera, and French opera.
In addition, with the continuous development of opera and the exchange of world cultures, opera has also been popularized and promoted in other countries and regions. Some new works created based on the characteristics of the nation are constantly coming out. Among them, especially The ones pointed out include Dvo?ák's "Rusalka" and Smetana's "The Betrayed Bride", etc. These works are pearls in the world's opera treasure house.
With the development of the times, at the beginning of the 20th century, some art forms - musicals - that integrated jazz, tap dance, comedy drama and operetta appeared in the United States and Britain. The musical's performance techniques are flexible, and its music, dance, and stage art are all very modern. Therefore, it has quickly become the most important and fastest-growing cultural achievement in the twentieth century. Popular all over the world. Classic plays such as "The Sound of Music", "Cats", "Les Misérables", "Miss Saigon", etc. have been widely recognized by the world's art circles, have achieved good box office value, and have spread all over the world.
Compared with Western opera, Chinese opera emerged and developed later. With the outbreak of the "May 4th" movement, some new and advanced ideas began to be introduced into China. The composer Li Jin at that time Hui created a number of children's plays, such as "The Little Painter", "The Sparrow and the Child", etc. These works can be said to be the germination of Chinese opera.
In 1934, Tian Han and Nie Er created my country's first opera to express the revolution, "The Yangtze River Storm". What really made the development of Chinese opera was after the Yan'an Rectification Movement and Chairman Mao's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art". It set off a new Yangko movement that was very popular, and created a number of operas with strong flavor of the times and Chinese characteristics, such as "Brothers and Sisters Opening up Wasteland", "Couple Literacy", "White-Haired Girl", "Liu Hulan" and so on. The release of "The White-Haired Girl" in 1945 marked the formation of my country's new opera. After the liberation of the country, a large number of influential works such as "The Marriage of Xiao Erhei", "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang", "Night on the Grassland", "Honghu Red Guards", "Sister Jiang", etc. emerged one after another, and the opera stage was suddenly presented A new situation of blooming flowers emerges. "Ten years of turmoil" severely undermined my country's opera industry. After the "Gang of Four" was crushed, our country's operas gained new vitality. Especially after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, a number of Chinese operas of various styles and genres appeared on the land of China, with the characteristics of Western operas. Models include "Sorrow", "The Wilderness", "The Hundred Bride", etc., and models of national operas include "The Party's Daughter", "Kapok Blossoms", etc. These operas have strong artistic, contemporary and characterization characteristics. There have been considerable improvements in many aspects, and Chinese opera has become increasingly mature and slowly developed.