The Opera in the XVII century
A brief history of Italian Opera — part two
(previous part here)
In the Renaissance the musical recitals were performed in the Palaces of the richest and powerful families.
However for the great and immediate success of Operas a new space was created, completely dedicated to these performances: the theater.
The plots of the stories narrated in the Operas were either mythological or historical and soon the main forms of opera’s expression began to take shape: the Recitativo and the Aria.
The Recitativo was the part of the Opera dedicated to acting and to the dramatic story development.
The Aria, rather, was the moment where the protagonists revealed their passions and their feelings.
Also the orchestras became larger with more new instruments and with Monteverdi orchestration starts to take its first steps, with the introduction of new effects like tremolo and pizzicato for strings.
Claudio Monteverdi was the unique protagonist of the beginning of the Opera.
His brilliant insights and his innate sense of theater had a profund effect on the development of this Art.
In the next article we will talk about the Opera’s first masterpieces.
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