The important solo parts were often sung by castrati (the male singers who were castrated as boys in order to keep a soprano/alto voice). This genre had plots based on serious subjects taken from myth and history. Operas written in a more common style, with spoken dialogue, were called Singspiel in German, Opéra Comique in French, and Ballad Opera in English. Serious operas were called, unsurprisingly, Opera Seria, while comic operas were Opera Buffa. The 18th Centuryġ8th-Century opera continued the tradition of Baroque music and was dominated by the Italian school. Apart from Monteverdi's works, the chief 17th-Century opera still performed today is Dido and Aeneas (1689), written in English by Purcell. His early works, including Orfeo, (1607) were composed for the court of the little Italian state of Mantua he later wrote for the first public opera house, which opened in Venice in 1637. A better-known early operatic composer was Monteverdi. The first true opera is thought to be Dafne (1598), composed by Peri for the court of the Medici in Florence. Opera developed from the pageants and musical entertainments that were popular in the courts of Europe in the 16th Century. However, even if the producer sets the work in a dog-food factory or a lap-dancing club, the original composer was writing in a particular style or tradition and a little knowledge of the background will help a listener's chances of being entertained. Opera today still seems exotic to many people and opera-lovers will be the first to admit that the plots of their favourite works are utterly irrational. Dr Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Opera an exotic and irrational entertainment.
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