page_title: Music of Mexico
section_title: Operas
hierarchical_section_title: Music of Mexico / Art music / Operas
caption_attribution_description: English: image of the famous soprano Español: Imagen de la afamada soprano
context_page_description: The music of Mexico is very diverse and features a wide range of musical genres and performance styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably the culture of the indigenous people of Mexico and Europe. Music was an expression of Mexican nationalism, beginning in the nineteenth century.
  Many traditional Mexican songs are internationally known, including María Grever's first international hit "Júrame", and her song "Te Quiero Dijiste", written for the 1944 Esther Williams film, "Sinfonía India", "La Noche de los Mayas", "Huapango" by Moncayo, "Sobre las Olas", "La Sandunga", "Cielito Lindo", "Perfidia", "Granada", "Bésame Mucho", "Solamente una vez", "Esta Tarde Vi Llover", "Somos Novios"
context_section_description: The first opera by a Mexican-born composer was Manuel de Zumaya's La Parténope, performed in 1711 before a private audience in the Viceroy's Palace in Mexico City. However, the first Mexican composer to have his operas publicly staged was Manuel Arenzana, the maestro de capilla at Puebla Cathedral from 1792 to 1821. He is known to have written at least two works performed during the 1805/1806 season at the Teatro Coliseo in Mexico City — El extrangero and Los dos ribales en amore. Both were short comic pieces. The first Mexican opera seria was Paniagua's Catalina de Guisa (composed in 1845 and premiered in 1859). With its story about the Huguenots in France and an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, contemporary critics noted that the only thing Mexican about it was the composer.
  Although the traditions of European opera and especially Italian opera had initially dominated the Mexican music conservatory and strongly influenced native opera composers (in both style and subject matter), elements of Mexican nationalism had already appeared by the latter part of the 19th century with operas such as Aniceto Ortega del Villar's 1871 Guatimotzin, a romanticised account of the defense of Mexico by its last Aztec ruler, Cuauhtémoc. Later works such as Miguel Bernal Jiménez's 1941 Tata Vasco (based on the life of Vasco de Quiroga, the first bishop of Michoacán) incorporated native melodies into the score. Ángela Peralta was an operatic soprano of international fame, known in Europe as "The Mexican Nightingale", who sang in the premieres of operas by Paniagua, Morales, and Ortega del Villar. Mexican tenors include Rolando Villazon, Ramón Vargas, Francisco Araiza, Arturo Chacón Cruz, Fernando de la Mora, Javier Camarena, José Mojica, José Sosa Esquivel, and Alfonso Ortiz Tirado. Mexican soprano include Marta Domingo, Maria Katzarava, Irma González, Olivia Gorra, Irasema Terrazas, and singer Susana Zabaleta.
  Spanish opera singer, conductor and arts administrator Plácido Domingo (in the 1990s part of The Three Tenors), started his career in Mexico and continued to do charitable work and presentations in Mexico.
caption: Ángela Peralta operatic soprano
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