page_title: Opera seria
section_title: 1770–1800
hierarchical_section_title: Opera seria / 1770–1800
caption_attribution_description: English: German tenor Anton Raaff in the title role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Idomeneo
context_page_description: Opera seria 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 was produced not only in Italy but almost throughout Europe, and beyond. Among the main centres in Europe were the court operas based in Warsaw, Munich, London, Vienna, Dresden as well as other German residences, Saint Petersburg, Madrid, and Lisbon. Opera seria was less popular in France, where the national genre of French opera was preferred.
context_section_description: Gluck's reforms made most of the composers of opera seria of the previous decades obsolete. The careers of Hasse, Jommelli, Galuppi, and Traetta were effectively finished. Replacing them came a new wave of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Antonio Salieri (a disciple of Gluck), Antonio Sacchini, Giuseppe Sarti, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa. The popularity of the aria da capo began to fade, replaced by the rondò. Orchestras grew in size, arias lengthened, ensembles became more prominent, and obbligato recitative became both common and more elaborate. While throughout the 1780s Metastasio's libretti still dominated the repertory, a new group of Venetian librettists pushed opera seria in a new direction. The work of Gaetano Sertor and the group surrounding him finally broke the absolute dominance of the singers and gave opera seria a new impetus towards the spectacular and the dramatic elements of 19th-century Romantic opera. Tragic endings, on-stage death and regicide became the norm rather than the exception. By the final decade of the century opera seria as it had been traditionally defined was essentially dead, and the political upheavals that the French Revolution inspired swept it away once and for all.
caption: Anton Raaff, the German tenor who created the title role in Mozart's Idomeneo, seen here performing a heroic role, c. 1780
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