Opera

The term Opera (or in some countries referred to as "The Opera") is traditionally seen as part of the Western classical music tradition. It therefore laregely falls outside the ambit of this encyclopaedia.

However, some works and productions actually qualify as theatrical forms and are taken up here (see below).

For the use of the term to refer to a performance venue (e.g. "The Opera" or the "Opera House"), see the entry on Opera House.

Opera as performance form

Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's mostly lost work Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe. The form was initially viewed as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, but opera gradually began to include numerous other genres, often containing spoken dialogue - such as Operetta[1], Musical theatre[2], Singspiel[3], Opéra comique[4], etc.

Other features of the 19th century is the so called extravaganzas or burlesque versions of operas, performed by dramatic companies and the so-called Savoy operas of the late 19th and early 20yth centuries.

In the first half of the 20th century, there was also the rise of a kind of radicalized operatic production, intended as a form of protest and political comment (theoretically informed by the ideas and practice of people like Meyerhold and Brecht for example).

Arising from this, a feature of the late 20th and 21st centuries became the many experiments that were undertaken with the form, including modern styles of music, and in some cases the theatricalization of opera, drawing it closer to popular musicals (e.g. the so-called Jazz opera (e.g. Gershwin's Blue Monday and the iconic Porgy and Bess), the rise of the rather complicated and debated notion of a Rock opera (when staged, more often termed a Rock musical). There are also the large-scale operatic style musicals, such as Les Misrabeles and Phantom of the Opera. influential works of Andrew Lloyd-Webber) and even radicalization of opera for protest and political comment (Brecht, for example).

For more on Opera as form, see for example Wikipedia[5]

Opera and South Africa

Besides its history as a musical form in South Africa, opera has also been intertwined with live theatre since the early years. Many of the theatrical companies visiting South Africa for example tended to have repertoires that included both dramatic and operatic work - especially in the 19th century. Similarly, many performers worked in a range of forms, including opera, musicals, cabaret, and so on, and therefore these performances will be reflected here.

A key event was the first "African Jazz Opera", King Kong (1959). Later in the 20th century, as the theatre became more radicalized, the work of theatre director/creators such as William Kentridge; Brett Bailey and the Third World Bunfight[6] and so on became influential, with the "African" style of operatic performance emerging more powerfully. In this encyclopaedia such work is considered as theatrical events, and therefore represented in the encyclopaedia.

Sources

"Opera" in Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera#Other_trends.

https://thirdworldbunfight.co.za/

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