Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once opera seria was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as something of a historical genre. The popular rival to opera seria was opera buffa, the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte.
Francesco Giuseppe Baldassare Morlacchi was an Italian composer of more than twenty operas. During the many years he spent as the royal Royal Kapellmeister in Dresden, he was instrumental in popularizing the Italian style of opera.
Giuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Neapolitan school of opera composers. He composed fifty-one operas and is considered to be one of the last Italian opera buffa composers.
Giove in Argo is an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel. It is one of Handel's three pasticcio works made up of music and arias from his previous operas. The libretto was written by Antonio Maria Lucchini. The opera was first performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, London, on 1 May 1739.
Calandro is an opera buffa in three acts composed by Giovanni Alberto Ristori to a libretto by Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino. The libretto was based on the comedy Il Calandro by Bernardo Dovizi. In turn, Dovizi's play borrowed elements of the plot from Plautus's Menaechmi and the character Calandro from Boccaccio's Decameron It was first staged on 2 September 1726 in Dresden.
The year 1662 in music involved some significant events.
Giovanni Domenico Freschi was an Italian composer and Roman Catholic priest. From the age of 22 until his death he worked as a church musician and composer in Vincenza. He was also active as an opera composer from 1671 to 1685.
Giovanni Andrea Bontempi was an Italian castrato singer, later composer, historian, music theorist, and assistant kapellmeister to Heinrich Schütz at Dresden from 1657. He was born Giovanni Andrea Angelini, in Perugia but later took the surname of his patron Cesare Bontempi. His Il Paride was the first Italian-language opera to be given in Dresden. It was first performed in November 1662 at the Dresden Castle to celebrate the marriage of Erdmude Sophia, the daughter of the Elector of Saxony, and Christian Ernst, Count of Brandenburg. He composed two other operas, both of which also premiered in Dresden: Dafne performed in 1671 to open the Opernhaus am Taschenberg, and Jupiter und Jo first performed in 1673.
Marco Giuseppe Peranda was an Italian musician and composer active in Germany.
The Opernhaus am Taschenberg was a theatre in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, built from 1664 to 1667 by Wolf Caspar von Klengel. It was the first opera house of the capital of Saxony, Residenz of the Elector of Saxony. Seating up to 2000 people, it was at the time one of the largest opera houses in Europe. It was also called Klengelsches Opernhaus and Komödienhaus am Taschenberg.
David Hansen is an Australian countertenor.
L'Argia is an opera in a prologue and three acts composed by Antonio Cesti to a libretto by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni. It was first performed in the court theatre at Innsbruck on 4 November 1655 to celebrate the visit of Queen Christina of Sweden who was on her way to exile in Rome. Over the next 20 years it had multiple performances in Italian cities including Venice and Siena where it inaugurated Siena's new opera house in 1669. Its first performance in modern times took place at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in 1996. Set on the Island of Cyprus in ancient times the opera's convoluted plot, full of disguises and mistaken identities, revolves around the amorous misadventures of Selino who has been pursued to Salamis by his deserted wife Princess Argia.
Giovanni Filippo Apolloni was an Italian poet and librettist. Born in Arezzo, he has sometimes been referred to as "Giovanni Apollonio Apolloni", but the second given name is spurious. He served as the court poet to Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria at Innsbruck form 1653 until 1659. On his return to Italy he entered the service of Cardinal Volumnio Bandinelli. After Bandinelli's death in 1667 Appolloni was in the service of the Chigi family in Rome and Siena for the rest of his life. He wrote the librettos for a number of operas, the most well-known of which were Antonio Cesti's L'Argia and La Dori, as well as several oratorios and the texts for cantatas by both Cesti and Alessandro Stradella.
Romolo ed Ersilia is a three-act opera composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian-language libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The opera was commissioned by Empress Maria Theresa to celebrate the marriage of her son Leopold to Maria Luisa of Spain. The opera was first performed on 6 August 1765, the day after their wedding, in the court theatre of the Imperial Palace in Innsbruck. The opera received its first performance in modern times in 2011 during the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.
Solimano is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian-language libretto by Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca. Loosely based on an episode in the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, the opera premiered on 5 February 1753 at the Opernhaus am Zwinger in Dresden. The lavish premiere production was designed by Giuseppe Galli Bibiena and featured Angelo Amorevoli in the title role.
Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca was an Italian poet and librettist. A student and protégé of Metastasio, he was primarily active in the court theaters of Dresden and Vienna. His most successful work was the libretto for the opera Solimano, first set by Johann Adolph Hasse in 1753 and subsequently set by 18 other composers in the course of the next 50 years.
Giuseppe Balducci was an Italian composer, primarily of operas. Born in Iesi, he spent most of his career in Naples and was one of the originators of the "salon opera" genre, the forerunner of chamber opera.
