THE HISTORY OF OPERA

People have been telling stories through music for millennia throughout the world. Opera is an art form with roots in Western Europe that is over 400 years old. Here is a brief timeline of its lineage. RENAISSANCE

1600-1750

A Note About Liberetti

In opera, the libretto has often been sourced from plays, novels, famous myths, and even films, and it communicates both the dialogue and the events of the story. The term libretto comes from the Italian word for book, “libro,” and can refer to both the words that are sung in an opera or the printed version of the words in the program or in a separate book. (This is also why in Musical Theater, the script is referred to as “the book.”)

Up until the eighteenth century, operas were associated with the name of the work’s librettist (the author of the text) rather than the composer, and typically the libretto was written before the composer began writing any music. However, when creating a new opera in the twenty-first century, the librettist often collaborates with the composer. Typically, the librettist’s name is listed immediately following the composer’s name on a program. Some of the most famous librettists have had a single text set in multiple operas by different composers, as in the case of Pietro Metastasio in the eighteenth century, or have established longer collaborations with a composer, such as in the case of Lorenzo Da Ponte and his libretti for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.