4.18 Romantic Opera

bel canto

Italian style in which beautiful voices are the focus (orchestra is secondary

Gioacchino Rossini

Famous for both opera buffas (now) and bel canto opera (then), suddenly gave up opera (1792-1868)

Gaetano Donizetti

After Rossini, wrote more than 60 operas and died young (1797-1848)

Vincenzo Bellini

Most refined of early bel canto composers, not as many operas (1801-1835)

Carl Maria von Weber

Founder of German Romantic opera, had supernatural subject matter (1786-1826)

Giuseppe Verdi

Famous opera composer involved in the Risorgimento (1813-1901)

Richard Wagner

German opera composer (that got exiled for 13 years by helping with a failed revolution) that had a "hypnotic personality" and wrote anti-Semitic writings and operas later used by Nazis (1813-1883)

Giacomo Puccini

Main Italian opera composer after Verdi, w/ realist tendencies and varied locales in his operas

Gesamtkunstwerk

Wagner's "total work of art"

Leitmotiv

leading musical motive associated with some person, thing, idea, or symbol; guides the listener through a story

thematic transformation

variation-like technique in which the changing of motives could show a person/idea developing and changing “under the impact of dramatic action”