March | State of Luxury & Lifestyle

An opera is drama through music – a play where the entire story is told through song. The word is actually the plural of opus, latin for the “work” of a composer, so an opera can be thought of as many of these works strung together. It has its roots in late-16th-century Florence, Italy, where a group known as the Florentine Camerata tried their hand at recreating Greek dramas told through music. Jacopo Peri is credited with writing the first, Dafne, in 1597. All of Europe was feeling opera almost immediately – but they were still written only in Italian for nearly 200 years, later expanding to German, French and other languages. To put on such dramas, ornate sets were built and even more ornate opera houses constructed for the enormous stages required to hold them – and their audiences. Opera composers became stars, their works still performed today and known by singular names to even those who don’t know opera. In the Baroque era, 1600-1750, it was George Frideric Handel (Aggripina, Rinaldo).

In the classical period, 1750-1830, it was the one and only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute). The Romantic period, 1830-1900, saw opera becoming grander than ever, thanks to Gioachino Rossini (The Barber of Seville, Cinderella), Richard Wagner (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Ride of the Valkyries), Giuseppe Verdi (La Traviata, Aida) and Georges Bizet (Carmen). In the 20th century, there was Giacomo Puccini (Madama Butterfly, La Bohème).