Introduction
Opera was a drama which majorly consisted of singing and it took a long period of time to be established in Italy (Metastasio, 235). Italian opera is concerned with singing in which the human voice is regarded as superior to all other instruments. The origin of Italian opera can be traced back to 16th Century when it was invented by a group of intellectuals who were trying to recreate Greek drama. The Italians since the invention of opera, preferred the use of human voice to any other instrument during opera performances in which they believed that voice is superior to instruments (Chanan, 261). They also believed that their opera continued to be more and more entertaining because their singers who were well trained were able to change their voices to produce a variety of sounds.
Main body
The opera can be divided into three components which are: the text, the music, and the visual (Hanning, 79). The three components of opera are normally well organized so as to teach and entertain the audience. An idea or a message contained in the text had to be conveyed through the music to the audience in a desired way so as to accomplish the intended purpose of educating and entertaining them. From the time of origin of opera in Italy, the composers and singers were well trained and the major ingredients of the opera were voice and the singer.
Composers of opera were making very skillful use of metaphor during their work so as to serve some specific objectives. In the opera, characters compared themselves to: a sparrow, a hawk, a hungry tigress or even a lion. The metaphor were used to pass specific messages to audience other than entertainment (Chanan, 67). Therefore, the metaphor were carefully selected and used so as to achieve the intended objectives. Composers of opera used metaphor to create mental pictures in the audience and arouse certain emotions in them.
Italians viewed metaphor as a very effective way of conveying messages to people. It was because of this reason, that the Italians encouraged the use of metaphor in music. Italians also believed that opera originated in Italy and there is no country that can compete with them in singing. Some characteristics of Italians that are admired by many people around the world are: warmth, openness, inclusiveness and a lot of joy in life (Metastasio, 67). These characteristics are found in many singers of the Italian opera and this is why they believed that their songs were superior to others.
Conclusion
In conclusion, opera was composed and sung as elegant poems which contained messages of divine rights of kings, virtue, honor and glory. The music was played by first playing the instruments slowly followed by a gradual increase in the pace so as to arouse certain emotions in audience. For example, to express affections, the composer of opera tried to arouse certain types of emotions in the audience such as anger, love and hate among others. The singing was also done by producing the sound at a low tone before raising it gradually to reach the peak of the entertainment. This implied that there was a well organized coordination between the voice and the instruments in order to produce quality music but a very important point to note is that there was very little use of instruments during the Italian opera performances. Currently, opera singers in Italy are loved and very much respected just as they were love and respected over four hundred years ago.
Works Cited
Chanan, Michael. Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism. London: Verso, 1994.
Hanning, Barbara. Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera. Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1980.
Metastasio, Pietro. Three Melodramas by Pietro Metastasio. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1981.