Wonderful Opera

The world should really be grateful to Italy for gifting it an extra-ordinary musical legacy, The Opera!. The musical tradition is definitely the jewel in the crown of the western musical traditions. With Jacopo Peri’s Lost Dafne, produced in the late 16th century, Opera became popular throughout the Europe. Different artists propagated Opera in different countries across Europe, for eg. Schutz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England. However, Opera in the 18th century was majorly dominated by the Italians and among various style Opera Seria was the most popular. Out of this scenario, emerged Mozart who composed 600 compositions and is still considered one of the stalwarts of the Opera Tradition.

Mozart began with Opera Seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, like The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, The Magic Flute, etc. Other famous Opera artists are Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Pacini, Mercadante, etc. Opera was also conducted by other countries such as Germany, France, England, Russia, Spain and many others, in their own style and manner. In the modern age, like other art forms, Opera also went through a transition that of atonality and advocates of this change included Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, Giacomo Puccini, Paul Hindemith, Hans Pfitzner. Famous singers of the 21st century include, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras.

These days important opera houses and production companies have started broadcasting their performances to local cinemas in United States and many other countries. The broadcasting of Metropolitan Opera began on high-definition television began in 2006. Many performances are now shown live in movie theaters. Other Opera festivals held around the world also broadcast their productions. These include, La Scala in Milan, the Salzburg Festival, La Fenice in Venice, Maggio Musicale in Florence, etc.

Musical Theater

Musicals or Musical Theater is one of the most sought after forms of Theater. It is a huge canvas that displays colors of music, song, dance, dialog and story. Every moment except for delivering a dialog, is choreographed in Musicals. Musical Theater is also one of the most famous theater form. The history of Music in Theater dates back to the early Greek theatrical traditions, continuing through Renaissance, early comedies of early 18th and 19th century, etc. The Masque theater can be hailed as the immediate ancestor of the Musicals.

However, the much needed impetuous to Musical Theater was given between the 1940 – 1950 in America, after cessation of World War II. After that, Musical Theater, took a rebirth in Oklahoma and after that did not look back. Since then it has emerged as one of the most successful forms of Dramatic Arts. Musicals as it involves music is strongly influenced by the contemporary music of the age, which lead to the emergence of  Rock musicals, pop musicals, European musicals, etc. The basic story of a musical can be both fiction or derived from social realities. More often than not it has been observed that Musicals depict a lot of social reality. They also satirize the existing social conditions.