A Brief History of Western Music
Baroque Opera
The earliest operas were composed at the very end of the 16th century. But, the idea of combining music and drama is much older: some parts of Ancient Greek plays were sung instead of spoken. In fact, the first operas were heavily influenced by Ancient Greek tragedies. The birth of opera is extremely important to the history of music: opera influenced many other genres of musical theatre that came after it.
Structure
Similar to a play, an opera consists of several acts (usually three or four, although this number can vary). Opera involves a combination of an orchestra, a chorus, and solo singers. The following components are present in an opera:
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Aria - A song with soloists and orchestral accompaniment. Unlike recitatives (see below), arias are lyrical and highly emotional.
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Recitative - A song which is performed with a speech-like style of singing. It is less lyrical than an aria, and is used to show dialogue between characters, and to further the plot of the opera. There are two types of recitatives:
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Recitativo Secco - ​Italian for "dry recitative"; this type of recitative involves only the singer(s), supported by basic keyboard/bass accompaniment known as basso continuo.
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Recitativo Accompagnato - Italian for "accompanied recitative"; this type of recitative has the singer(s) accompanied by the entire orchestra.
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Ensembles - Movements which are performed by the orchestra alone.
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Choruses - Movements which involve the entire chorus singing; choruses may be used as narration, or to show the collective dialogue of a group/crowd.
History
The very first operas were composed by the Florentine Camerata, a group of poets and musicians under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi (1534 - 1612). One of the members of the Camerata, Girolamo Mei (1519 - 1594), conducted an investigation of Greek music and its role in theatre. Mei concluded that the Greeks' music had a powerful emotional effect because it consisted of a single melody, with or without accompaniment. Another Camerata member, Vincenzo Galilei (ca. 1520 - 1591), the father of Galileo Galilei, expanded on Mei's ideas. He denounced the Italian madrigal and its use of complex polyphony; he argued that only a single line of melody could properly express the meaning/emotions of a given text.
Other members of the Camerata included the poet Ottavio Rinuccini (1562 - 1621), and composers Jacopo Peri (1561 - 1633) and Guilo Caccini (ca. 1550 - 1618). These individuals were instrumental in the development of opera, and collaborated in creating new works. Peri and Caccini each created a musical setting of Rinuccini's play Euridice.
Euridice and Recitatives
Euridice, a play by Ottavio Rinuccini, is based on the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Guilo Caccini and Jacopo Peri both created their own musical versions of Rinuccini's play. When Peri was composing his version, he wanted to create a new style that is halfway between speech and singing, in order to emphasise the emotion and drama of the text being sung. This style of composition later became known as recitative. Below, you can listen to a small excerpt from Peri's version of Euridice, where you can hear this speech-like style of singing:
Jacopo Peri
Claudio Monteverdi
The Works of Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) was an Italian composer who is most famous for his operas, such as L'Orfeo, L'Arianna, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, and L'incoronazione di Poppea. His opera L'Orfeo is also based on Rinuccini's Euridice, except Monteverdi used an expanded five-act version of the text by the poet Alessandro Striggio. Monteverdi used many arias, duets, ensembles, and dances in his opera, in order to contrast with the recitatives.
Monteverdi's recitatives follow a similar style to Peri's, but Monteverdi's melodic lines and harmonic movements are much more broadly developed. This difference can be heard in the recitative "Tu se' morta" from L'Orfeo:
Additionally, Monteverdi makes use of a full orchestra, unlike Peri, who used only a few lutes and a harpsichord in L'Euridice. Monteverdi also placed many orchestral movements throughout his operas. All of these innovations influenced later composers of opera.