Opera seria (; plural: opere serie; usually called dramma per musica or melodramma serio) 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.
Italian opera seria (invariably to Italian libretti) was produced not only in Italy but almost throughout Europe, and beyond (see Opera in Latin America, Opera in Cuba e. g.). Among the main centres in Europe were the court operas based in Warsaw (since 1628), Munich (founded in 1653), London (established in 1662), Vienna (firmly established 1709; first operatic representation: Il pomo d'oro, 1668), Dresden (since 1719) as well as other German residences, Saint Petersburg (Italian opera reached Russia in 1731, first opera venues followed ), Madrid (see Spanish opera), and Lisbon. Opera seria was less popular in France, where the national genre of French opera (or tragédie en musique) was preferred.
Acclaimed composers of opera seria included Antonio Caldara, Alessandro Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Johann Adolph Hasse, Leonardo Leo, Baldassare Galuppi, Francesco Feo, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and in the second half of the 18th century Christoph Willibald Gluck, Niccolò Jommelli, Tommaso Traetta, Josef Mysliveček, Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun, Antonio Salieri, Antonio Sacchini, Giuseppe Sarti, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello, Domenico Cimarosa, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. By far the most successful librettist of the era was Metastasio, others were Apostolo Zeno, Benedetto Pamphili, Silvio Stampiglia, Antonio Salvi, Pietro Pariati, Pietro Ottoboni, Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino, Nicola Francesco Haym, Domenico Lalli, Paolo Antonio Rolli, Giovanni Claudio Pasquini, Ranieri de' Calzabigi and Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca.
Structure
Opera seria built upon the conventions of the High Baroque era by developing and exploiting the da capo aria, with its A–B–A form. The first section presented a theme, the second a complementary one, and the third a repeat of the first with ornamentation and elaboration of the music by the singer. As the genre developed and arias grew longer, a typical opera seria would contain not more than thirty musical movements.
A typical opera would start with an instrumental overture of three movements (fast-slow-fast) and then a series of recitatives containing dialogue interspersed with arias expressing the emotions of the character, this pattern only broken by the occasional duet for the leading amatory couple. The recitative was typically secco: that is, accompanied only by continuo (usually harpsichord, theorbo, and cello, sometimes supported by further bass and chordal instruments). At moments of especially violent passion secco was replaced by stromentato (or accompagnato) recitative, where the singer was accompanied by the entire body of strings. After an aria was sung, accompanied by strings and oboe (and sometimes with horns or flutes), the character usually exited the stage, encouraging the audience to applaud. This continued for three acts before concluding with an upbeat chorus, to celebrate the jubilant climax. The leading singers each expected their fair share of arias of varied mood, be they sad, angry, heroic or meditative.
The dramaturgy of opera seria developed largely as a response to French criticism of what were often viewed as impure and corrupting librettos. As response, the Rome-based Academy of Arcadia sought to return Italian opera to what they viewed as neoclassical principles, obeying the classical unities of drama, defined by Aristotle, and replacing "immoral" plots, such as Busenello's for L'incoronazione di Poppea, with highly moral narratives that aimed to instruct, as well as entertain. However, the often tragic endings of classical drama were rejected out of a sense of decorum: early writers of opera seria librettos such as Apostolo Zeno felt that virtue should be rewarded and shown triumphant, while the antagonists were to be put on their way to remorse. The spectacle and ballet, so common in French opera, were banished.