Top 10 opera facts

Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), known under the pseudonym Il Zazzerino, was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, Dafne (around 1597), and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, Euridice (1600).

Richard Wagner. Wagner's music was assimilated with the german domination ethos. The main reason for that is fact that the Third Reich propaganda officially approved it and Hitler himself was a big Wagner fan.

A Gypsy. The famous opera by Georges Bizet is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée, written and first published in 1845. The contemporary critics were unaccustomed to seeing the lives of the common folk, much less the world of gypsies, in the opera - and at first condemned Bizet's masterpiece.

The Coloratura soprano. It is a very agile, light voice with a high upper extension, capable of fast vocal coloratura. Lyric coloraturas have a range of approximately middle C (C4) to high F (F6). The term "coloratura" refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody.

Chambermaid. In theatre, a soubrette is a comedy character who is vain and girlish, mischievous, lighthearted, coquettish and gossipy - often a chambermaid or confidante of the ingenue, she often displays a flirtatious or even sexually aggressive nature.

The Barber of Seville is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. Rossini's Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". Even after two hundred years, it remains a popular work.

Fidelio. Beethoven struggled to produce an appropriate overture for Fidelio, and ultimately went through four versions. The libretto, with some spoken dialogue, tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison. Bouilly's scenario fits Beethoven's aesthetic and political outlook: a story of personal sacrifice, heroism, and eventual triumph.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala is perhaps the most famous opera house in the world, the one most associated with “opera.” Built in 1778 with four tiers with separate loges, it is the home of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. The name "Teatro alla Scala" comes from the name of Princess Beatrice Regina della Scala, wife of the prince Bernabo Visconti. La Scala has a capacity of 3600 people.

Gaetano Donizetti. L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a comic opera (melodramma giocoso) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. The opera premiered on 12 May 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan.

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi". His most renowned works are La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, all of which are among the important operas played as standards.