Famous Opera Composers

The world of opera that we know and enjoy today was greatly influenced by the composers of yesteryear. Such composers as Beethoven, Berlioz and Bizet created some of the more well-known operas. In fact, artists are still performing many of these operas today.

 

Opera is a type of theatre in which the story is portrayed either wholly or primarily through music and/or singing. Many operas also make use of elaborate scenery and costumes and often incorporate dancing.

 

As operas incorporate so many artistic elements, composing an opera is no small feat. Jacopo Peri, an Italian composer and singer, is often credited as being the first-ever opera composer. He composed the opera "Dafne" around 1597, though the opera has, unfortunately, been lost. "Euridice," an opera that Peri wrote in 1600, is the earliest surviving opera.

 

Although Peri is credited as being the first artist to compose operas, Claudio Monteverdi, an Italian composer, musician and singer, is considered by many as the first great opera composer. His works include:

Many of Monteverdi's operas are still performed today.

 

Though many people think of operas as an art form of the past, people are actually still composing operas today. In fact, some of today's popular musicals, including "Les Miserables" (1980) and "Rent" (1996) boast a highly operatic structure.

 

In this section, we'll discuss opera composers, from the more well-known composers to more obscure composers. We'll offer biographies on each composer and will also list composers’ works. In addition, we'll discuss the impact that each composer has had on the world of opera.

Beethoven is one of the most well-known classical music composers of all-time. What many don't know about Beethoven, however, is that he actually wrote one opera during his life: "Fidelio." The two-act opera relates how a woman named Leonore disguises herself as a prison guard named Fidelio in order to rescue her husband from a political prison.

 

Born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven showed musical talent at a very early age. By 1778, he was studying the piano, organ and viola. In 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna, the capital of Austria. By 1793, he had established himself as a piano prodigy.

 

Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 26, 1827.

Georges Bizet was born in Paris on Oct. 25, 1838. Two weeks before he was to turn 10, Bizet entered the Paris Conservatory of Music. When he was just 16, he wrote his first symphony: Symphony in C Major.

 

In 1875, Bizet completed his best-known work, the opera "Carmen." Based on a novella of the same name, the opera wasn't received well initially. However, a number of Bizet's peers, including Claude Debussy and Camille Saint-Saëns, eventually praised the opera. In fact, German composer Johannes Brahms hailed "Carmen" as the greatest opera composed in Europe since the Franco-Prussian War.

 

Bizet died from angina when he was 36.

 

 

Wikipedia.org (modified December 6, 2007). Opera. Retrieved December 7, 2007, from the Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera.

 

History World (n.d.). History of Opera. Retrieved December 7, 2007, from the History World Web site: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?
historyid=ab36.