Claim: Opera only incorporates a blank backdrop.

Opera -LRB- -LSB- ˈɔːpera -RSB- ; English plural : operas ; Italian plural : opere -LSB- ˈɔːpere -RSB- -RRB- is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text -LRB- libretto -RRB- and musical score , usually in a theatrical setting . In traditional opera , singers do two types of singing : recitative , a speech-inflected style and arias , a more melodic style , in which notes are sung in a sustained fashion . Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre , such as acting , scenery , and costumes and sometimes includes dance . The performance is typically given in an opera house , accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble , which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor .   Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition . It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century -LRB- with Jacopo Peri 's mostly lost Dafne , produced in Florence in 1598 -RRB- and soon spread through the rest of Europe : Heinrich Schütz in Germany , Jean-Baptiste Lully in France , and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century . In the 18th century , Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe -LRB- except France -RRB- , attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel . Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera , until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his `` reform '' operas in the 1760s . In the 2000s , the most renowned figure of late 18th-century opera is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas , especially The Marriage of Figaro -LRB- Le nozze di Figaro -RRB- , Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , as well as The Magic Flute -LRB- Die Zauberflöte -RRB- , a landmark in the German tradition .   The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style , with Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini all creating works that are still performed . It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer . The mid-to-late 19th century was a `` golden age '' of opera , led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy . The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in the early 20th century . During the 19th century , parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe , particularly in Russia and Bohemia . The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles , such as atonality and serialism -LRB- Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg -RRB- , Neoclassicism -LRB- Igor Stravinsky -RRB- , and Minimalism -LRB- Philip Glass and John Adams -RRB- . With the rise of recording technology , singers such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known to much wider audiences that went beyond the circle of opera fans . Since the invention of radio and television , operas were also performed on -LRB- and written for -RRB- these mediums . Beginning in 2006 , a number of major opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world . In 2009 , an opera company offered an online download of a complete performance .