It is set apart from the other performing arts by using singing almost exclusively to tell a story. A prompter speaks the entire libretto during a performance in case a singer forgets a line. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, An opera, more than a spoken play, is likely to emphasize passionate scenes of anger, cruelty, jealousy, joy, love, revenge, sadness, or triumph. Music also can add excitement to scenes portraying spectacle. Although it was performed for the first time in 1816, people can still identify with it.
Opera also is among the most complex of art forms.
Staging an opera requires the assistance of many people including stage directors, costume and set designers, electrical technicians and prompters. Rehearsing and staging a large production such as The Barber of Seville, a comic opera set in Spain during the 1600s, can take several weeks even months. It s a very expensive undertaking simply for the very fact that there are so many people involved, Ratliff said. There s the entire orchestra, the soloists and the chorus, and those are just the people who are seen. Opera, as we know it today, began in Italy during the late 1500s.