Opera In The 19th Century

In the nineteenth century, the period saw surprisingly growth in purely instrumental music such as orchestra and chamber works. However, opera still continued played a main role of musical life in Western Europe. Many opera theatres were founded and managed by an impresario for profit. There was also has financial support by government subsidies or private support. Thus, audiences of opera are basically from upper or middle classes of society. Some of the people attended the opera just to allege their social status but not for the music. Apart from that, opera getting more popular and famous than before the century as opera excerpts were spread along the street and also can be heard at home. This is because the completed score of operas was

During the first half of the nineteenth century, average about forty operas were produced in the Italy per year. Star singers were still paid more than composers and librettists. The performance can be cut or changed at the insistence of singers, impresarios and state censors. Nevertheless, the composers are getting well-known through the century. For example, the successful opera by leading composer will be performed several times and restage in different cities. One of the leading composers from Italy who won the reputation than Ludwig van Beethoven during his generation was Gioachino Rossini. Also, he was a most influential opera composer at development of Italian opera. In the early nineteenth century, ideas of imagination and the individual emotion began to emphasis in music. Therefore, Rossini blended the opera buffa and seria traits into his opera works for making the opera more appealing, varied and more natural to human character. In Italy, the voice still remained the main figure of the opera than costumes, scenery and story. The voice used to leading the orchestra, whereas the melody, presented straightforward with clarity. The most significant element in his opera was displaying beautiful singing voice called bel canto. The hallmarks of bel canto singing are an agile, flexible technique to sing with elegant and smoothness vocal line, flawless phrasing, and effortless to control all types of melody such as high notes and dispatching virtuosic florid embellishment. One of the musical examples to display bel canto singing was Rossini's aria from his comic opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) which composed and first performance at Rome in 1816. He combines the elements of opera buffa with bel canto style into it. The aria in act one, Largo al factotum della città, sung happily and lightly by the barber named Figaro with a bright baritone voice. Rossini wrote many operas in