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158-408: Like most operas , an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters (e.g. soloists), and arias . However, opera is musical theatre , and typically involves significant theatrical spectacle , including sets , props , and costuming , as well as staged interactions between characters. In oratorio, there is generally minimal staging , with

316-668: A libretto by Helmut Schlegel , includes the full Latin text of the Magnificat , expanded by writings of Clare of Assisi , Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis . Bruder Martin was composed by Thomas Gabriel , setting a text by Eugen Eckert about scenes from the life of Martin Luther , for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. In 2017, Jörg Widmann 's oratorio ARCHE premiered. A transfer of sacrality to secular contexts takes place. Opera Opera

474-605: A Monastery , and War and Peace ; as well as Dmitri Shostakovich in The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District , Edison Denisov in L'écume des jours , and Alfred Schnittke in Life with an Idiot and Historia von D. Johann Fausten . Czech composers also developed a thriving national opera movement of their own in the 19th century, starting with Bedřich Smetana , who wrote eight operas including

632-573: A cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato ) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. Over the 18th century, arias were increasingly accompanied by the orchestra. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Wagner revolutionized opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what Wagner termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner 's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked

790-506: A complex web of leitmotifs , recurring themes often associated with the characters and concepts of the drama, of which prototypes can be heard in his earlier operas such as Der fliegende Holländer , Tannhäuser and Lohengrin ; and he was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as tonality , in his quest for greater expressivity. In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal , he abolished

948-475: A concern for expressive recitative which matched the contours of the French language. In the 18th century, Lully's most important successor was Jean-Philippe Rameau , who composed five tragédies en musique as well as numerous works in other genres such as opéra-ballet , all notable for their rich orchestration and harmonic daring. Despite the popularity of Italian opera seria throughout much of Europe during

1106-528: A divine revelation , with Jesus appearing to Paul. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. [...] But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace,

1264-491: A fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. The Epistle to the Galatians chapter 1 also describes his conversion as

1422-539: A harmonizing translation, including the New International Version (NIV), which reads: The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. (Acts 9:7) My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. (Acts 22:9) Likewise the NET Bible and others. By translating φωνή and ἀκούω differently in each case,

1580-589: A hearing. Berlioz's epic masterpiece Les Troyens , the culmination of the Gluckian tradition, was not given a full performance for almost a hundred years. In the second half of the 19th century, Jacques Offenbach created operetta with witty and cynical works such as Orphée aux enfers , as well as the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann ; Charles Gounod scored a massive success with Faust ; and Georges Bizet composed Carmen , which, once audiences learned to accept its blend of Romanticism and realism, became

1738-499: A highly varied body of operatic works, often with libretti by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Other composers who made individual contributions to German opera in the early 20th century include Alexander von Zemlinsky , Erich Korngold , Franz Schreker , Paul Hindemith , Kurt Weill and the Italian-born Ferruccio Busoni . The operatic innovations of Arnold Schoenberg and his successors are discussed in

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1896-458: A large variety of works for stage. Perhaps, the most famous Iranian opera is Rostam and Sohrab by Loris Tjeknavorian premiered not until the early 2000s. Chinese contemporary classical opera , a Chinese language form of Western style opera that is distinct from traditional Chinese opera , has had operas dating back to The White-Haired Girl in 1945. In Latin America, opera started as

2054-543: A man cannot prepare himself for grace unless God prevent and move him to good, it is of no account whether anyone arrive at perfect preparation instantaneously, or step by step. For it is written (Ecclus. 11:23): "It is easy in the eyes of God on a sudden to make the poor man rich." Now it sometimes happens that God moves a man to good, but not perfect good, and this preparation precedes grace. But He sometimes moves him suddenly and perfectly to good, and man receives grace suddenly, according to Jn. 6:45: "Every one that hath heard of

2212-515: A new phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi, onward, exercising tremendous influence on his successors Giacomo Puccini , Richard Strauss , and Benjamin Britten . After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo 's Pagliacci that came to dominate

2370-528: A new seriousness to the genre, which had never been wholly "comic" in any case. Another phenomenon of this period was the 'propaganda opera' celebrating revolutionary successes, e.g. Gossec's Le triomphe de la République (1793). By the 1820s, Gluckian influence in France had given way to a taste for Italian bel canto , especially after the arrival of Rossini in Paris . Rossini's Guillaume Tell helped found

2528-483: A nineteenth-century peak of Polish national opera . In the 20th century, other operas created by Polish composers included King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Ubu Rex by Krzysztof Penderecki . The first known opera from Turkey (the Ottoman Empire ) was Arshak II , which was an Armenian opera composed by an ethnic Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian in 1868 and partially performed in 1873. It

2686-461: A number of predella scenes of his life below an altarpiece dedicated to the saint. From the Renaissance it gradually became popular as a subject for larger paintings. Apart from the religious significance, the subject allowed the artist to include landscape elements, a crowd of figures and horses. The drama of the event especially appealed to Baroque painters. It was sometimes paired with

2844-775: A result of European colonisation. The first opera ever written in the Americas was 1701's La púrpura de la rosa , by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco , a Peruvian composer born in Spain; a decade later, 1711's Partenope , by the Mexican Manuel de Zumaya , was the first opera written from a composer born in Latin America (music now lost). The first Brazilian opera for a libretto in Portuguese was A Noite de São João , by Elias Álvares Lobo . However, Antônio Carlos Gomes

3002-522: A separate French tradition was founded by the Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully at the court of King Louis XIV . Despite his foreign birthplace, Lully established an Academy of Music and monopolised French opera from 1672. Starting with Cadmus et Hermione , Lully and his librettist Quinault created tragédie en musique , a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lully's operas also show

3160-535: A sign of demonic influence, unlikely in someone accepted as a religious leader. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences suggested that Paul’s conversion experience might be understood as involving psychogenic events. This occurring in the overall context of Paul’s other auditory and visual experiences that the authors propose may have been caused by mood disorder associated psychotic spectrum symptoms. Justus Knecht comments on

3318-580: A source of English words such as "acoustics"), which usually means "hear", has the secondary meaning of "understand", which is how most translations render it in 1 Cor. 14:2 , for example. However, this meaning is so rare that the main English-to-Greek dictionaries do not list ἀκούω among the possible translations of "understand". Resolving the discrepancy involves translating φωνή and ἀκούω in Acts 9:7 as "sound" and "hear" respectively, but translating

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3476-734: A speech-inflected style, and self-contained arias . The 19th century saw the rise of the continuous music drama . Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri 's mostly lost Dafne , produced in Florence in 1598) especially from works by Claudio Monteverdi , notably L'Orfeo , 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

3634-464: A strong new emphasis after the Council of Trent . The conversion of Paul, in spite of his attempts to completely eradicate Christianity, is seen as evidence of the power of Divine Grace , with "no fall so deep that grace cannot descend to it" and "no height so lofty that grace cannot lift the sinner to it." It also demonstrates "God's power to use everything, even the hostile persecutor, to achieve

3792-469: A superb sense of drama, harmony, melody, and counterpoint to write a series of comic operas with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte , notably Le nozze di Figaro , Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , which remain among the most-loved, popular and well-known operas. But Mozart's contribution to opera seria was more mixed; by his time it was dying away, and in spite of such fine works as Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito , he would not succeed in bringing

3950-451: A white horse. This is not mentioned in the biblical accounts (which do not say how he travelled), and certainly makes for a more dramatic composition. The horses are usually shown as disturbed by the sudden appearance of the vision, and have often fallen to the ground themselves. It may also reflect how people of the various periods expected a person of Paul's importance to travel a distance of 135 miles (or 218 km). Perhaps first appearing in

4108-566: Is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers . Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts , such as acting , scenery , costume , and sometimes dance or ballet . The performance is typically given in an opera house , accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble , which since

4266-601: Is also a four-part chorus to represent any crowds in the drama. The music is often contrapuntal and madrigal-like . Philip Neri 's Congregazione dell'Oratorio featured the singing of spiritual laude . These became more and more popular and were eventually performed in specially built oratories (prayer halls) by professional musicians. Again, these were chiefly based on dramatic and narrative elements. Sacred opera provided another impetus for dialogues, and they greatly expanded in length (although never really beyond 60 minutes long). Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo

4424-557: Is also credited with writing the first English language oratorio, Esther . Handel's imitators included the Italian Lidarti who was employed by the Amsterdam Jewish community to compose a Hebrew version of Esther . Joseph Haydn 's The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801) have remained the most widely known oratorios from the period of classicism. While the first of these Händel inspired works draws from

4582-433: Is an example of one of these works, but technically it is not an oratorio because it features acting and dancing. It does, however contain music in the monodic style. The first oratorio to be called by that name is Pietro della Valle 's Oratorio della Purificazione , but due to its brevity (only 12 minutes long) and the fact that its other name was "dialogue", we can see that there was much ambiguity in these names. During

4740-427: Is briefer than the others. The speech here is again tailored for its audience, emphasizing what a Roman ruler would understand: the need to obey a heavenly vision, and reassuring Agrippa that Christians were not a secret society. A contradiction in the details of the account of Paul's revelatory vision given in Acts has been the subject of some debate. Whereas Acts 9:7 states that Paul's travelling companions heard

4898-560: Is generally qualified as ' secular oratorio': a piece of terminology that would, in some historical contexts, have been regarded as oxymoronic , or at least paradoxical, and viewed with a degree of scare-quoted skepticism. Despite this enduring and implicit context, oratorio on secular subjects has been written from the genre's origins . The word oratorio comes from the Latin verb ōrō (present infinitive ōrāre ), meaning to orate or speak publicly , to pray, or to beg or plead, related to

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5056-622: Is generally regarded as the most outstanding Brazilian composer, having a relative success in Italy with its Brazilian-themed operas with Italian librettos, such as Il Guarany . Opera in Argentina developed in the 20th century after the inauguration of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires—with the opera Aurora , by Ettore Panizza , being heavily influenced by the Italian tradition, due to immigration. Other important composers from Argentina include Felipe Boero and Alberto Ginastera . Perhaps

5214-669: Is in the Cappella Paolina of the Vatican Palace . The Renaissance Italian master Caravaggio painted two works depicting the event: The Conversion of Saint Paul and Conversion on the Way to Damascus . Peter Paul Rubens also produced several works on the theme. A large number of the many depictions show Paul, and often several of his companions, travelling the Damascus Road on horseback, Paul most often on

5372-548: Is initially reluctant, having heard about Saul's persecution, but obeys the divine command: Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and

5530-629: Is most famous for his Italian comic operas , especially The Marriage of Figaro ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , as well as Die Entführung aus dem Serail ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ), and The Magic Flute ( Die Zauberflöte ), landmarks 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 signature works of that style. It also saw

5688-575: Is regarded as the first masterpiece of the genre (like most other Latin oratorios of the period, it is in one section only), and in France Carissimi's pupil Marc-Antoine Charpentier (34 works H.391 - H.425). Lasting about 30–60 minutes, oratori volgari were performed in two sections, separated by a sermon ; their music resembles that of contemporary operas and chamber cantatas . In the late baroque period oratorios increasingly became "sacred opera". In Rome and Naples Alessandro Scarlatti

5846-487: Is the first opera score to have survived until the present day. However, the honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed goes to Claudio Monteverdi 's L'Orfeo , composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas , employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of

6004-830: Is the shift away from long, suspended melodies, to short quick mottos, as first illustrated by Giuseppe Verdi in his Falstaff . Composers such as Strauss, Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky adopted and expanded upon this style. Operatic modernism truly began in the operas of two Viennese composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his student Alban Berg , both composers and advocates of atonality and its later development (as worked out by Schoenberg), dodecaphony . Schoenberg's early musico-dramatic works, Erwartung (1909, premiered in 1924) and Die glückliche Hand display heavy use of chromatic harmony and dissonance in general. Schoenberg also occasionally used Sprechstimme . The two operas of Schoenberg's pupil Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (incomplete at his death in 1935) share many of

6162-399: The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry , in which he stated that Paul's conversion experience, with the bright light, loss of normal bodily posture, a message of strong religious content, and his subsequent blindness, suggested "an attack of temporal lobe epilepsy , perhaps ending in a convulsion ... The blindness which followed may have been post-ictal ." This conclusion

6320-562: The Acts of the Apostles . According to both sources, Saul/Paul was not a follower of Jesus and did not know him before his crucifixion . The narrative of the Book of Acts suggests Paul's conversion occurred 4–7 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. The accounts of Paul's conversion experience describe it as miraculous, supernatural, or otherwise revelatory in nature. Before his conversion, Paul

6478-685: The Attic Greek noun ἀρά ( ará , “prayer”). (Hence the disambiguation entry for 'oratory' , including oratory (worship) .) The musical composition was "named from the kind of musical services held in the church of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Rome ( Congregazione dell'Oratorio ) in the latter half of the 16th cent." The word is only attested in English from 1727, with the equivalent 'oratory' in prior use, from 1640. Although medieval plays such as

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6636-530: The English Restoration , foreign (especially French) musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell 's Psyche , patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully . William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first musical adaption of a Shakespeare play (composed by Locke and Johnson). About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as

6794-486: The High Priest to seek out and arrest followers of Jesus, with the intention of returning them to Jerusalem as prisoners for questioning and possible execution. The journey is interrupted when Paul sees a blinding light, and communicates directly with a divine voice. Acts 9 tells the story as a third-person narrative : As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to

6952-662: The Ludus Danielis and Renaissance dialogue motets such as those of the Oltremontani had characteristics of an oratorio, the first oratorio is usually seen as Emilio de Cavalieri 's Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo (1600). Monteverdi composed Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) which can be considered as the first secular oratorio. The origins of the oratorio can be found in sacred dialogues in Italy. These were settings of Biblical, Latin texts and musically were quite similar to motets . There

7110-706: The Second World War . Postwar oratorios include Dmitri Shostakovich 's Song of the Forests (1949), Sergei Prokofiev 's On Guard for Peace (1950), Vadim Salmanov 's Twelve (1957), Alfred Schnittke 's Nagasaki (1958), Bohuslav Martinů 's The Epic of Gilgamesh (1958), Krzysztof Penderecki 's St. Luke Passion (1966), Hans Werner Henze 's Das Floß der Medusa (1968), René Clemencic 's Kabbala (1992), and Osvaldo Golijov 's La Pasión según San Marcos (2000). Mauricio Kagel composed Sankt-Bach-Passion , an oratorio about Bach's life, for

7268-599: The Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass . Spain also produced its own distinctive form of opera, known as zarzuela , which had two separate flowerings: one from the mid-17th century through the mid-18th century, and another beginning around 1850. During the late 18th century up until the mid-19th century, Italian opera was immensely popular in Spain, supplanting the native form . In Russian Eastern Europe, several national operas began to emerge. Ukrainian opera

7426-577: The dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes . Since his theatre was not licensed to produce drama, he asked several of the leading composers ( Lawes , Cooke , Locke , Coleman and Hudson ) to set sections of it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain. With

7584-462: The libretto (meaning "small book"). Some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte . Traditional opera, often referred to as " number opera ", consists of two modes of singing: recitative , the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which

7742-482: The librettos of their oratorios as they did for their operas. Strong emphasis was soon placed on arias while the use of the choir diminished. Female singers became regularly employed, and replaced the male narrator with the use of recitatives . By the mid-17th century, two types had developed: The most significant composers of oratorio latino were in Italy Giacomo Carissimi , whose Jephte

7900-500: The 14th century, Paul's horse appears in the most important depictions from the 15th century onwards. Chapter seventeen of Ralph Ellison 's 1952 novel Invisible Man includes a literary device related to the Saul to Paul conversion: "'You start Saul, and end up Paul,' my grandfather had often said. 'When you're a youngun, you Saul, but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to be Paul – though you still Sauls around on

8058-471: The 1640s. His most important follower Francesco Cavalli helped spread opera throughout Italy. In these early Baroque operas, broad comedy was blended with tragic elements in a mix that jarred some educated sensibilities, sparking the first of opera's many reform movements, sponsored by the Arcadian Academy , which came to be associated with the poet Metastasio , whose libretti helped crystallize

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8216-451: The 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), 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. The most renowned figure of late 18th-century opera is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who began with opera seria but

8374-557: The 18th century another genre was gaining popularity in France: opéra comique . This was the equivalent of the German singspiel , where arias alternated with spoken dialogue. Notable examples in this style were produced by Monsigny , Philidor and, above all, Grétry . During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, composers such as Étienne Méhul , Luigi Cherubini and Gaspare Spontini , who were followers of Gluck, brought

8532-464: The 19th century in Russia, there were written such operatic masterpieces as Rusalka and The Stone Guest by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky , Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin , Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky , and The Snow Maiden and Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . These developments mirrored

8690-562: The 20th century for his innovative works. His later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera Jenůfa , which was premiered in 1904 in Brno . The success of Jenůfa (often called the " Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen ,

8848-547: The 20th century, English opera began to assert more independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and in particular Benjamin Britten , who in a series of works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed an excellent flair for the dramatic and superb musicality. More recently Sir Harrison Birtwistle has emerged as one of Britain's most significant contemporary composers from his first opera Punch and Judy to his most recent critical success in The Minotaur . In

9006-707: The Apostle The conversion of Paul the Apostle (also the Pauline conversion, Damascene conversion, Damascus Christophany and the "road to Damascus" event) was, according to the New Testament , an event in the life of Saul/ Paul the Apostle that led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to become a follower of Jesus . Paul's conversion experience is discussed in both the Pauline epistles and in

9164-582: The Baroque period, Italian opera never gained much of a foothold in France, where its own national operatic tradition was more popular instead. After Rameau's death, the Bohemian-Austrian composer Gluck was persuaded to produce six operas for the Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show the influence of Rameau, but simplified and with greater focus on the drama. At the same time, by the middle of

9322-586: The Beach ), Mark Adamo , John Corigliano ( The Ghosts of Versailles ), Robert Moran , John Adams ( Nixon in China ), André Previn and Jake Heggie . Many contemporary 21st century opera composers have emerged such as Missy Mazzoli , Kevin Puts , Tom Cipullo , Huang Ruo , David T. Little , Terence Blanchard , Jennifer Higdon , Tobias Picker , Michael Ching , Anthony Davis , and Ricky Ian Gordon . Opera

9480-548: The Bible); the text of an oratorio often deals with sacred subjects, making it appropriate for performance in the church , which remains an important performance context for the genre. Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints and stories from the Bible . Protestant composers often looked to Biblical topics, but sometimes looked to the lives of notable religious figures, such as Carl Loewe's "Jan Hus" , an oratorio about

9638-676: The Corinthians also describes Paul's experience of revelation. In verse 1 the NIV translation mentions "revelations from the Lord", but other translations, including the NRSV, translate that phrase as "revelations of the Lord". The passage begins with Paul seeming to speak about another person, but very quickly he makes it clear he is speaking of himself. It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of

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9796-718: The Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is Rusalka which contains the well-known aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" ("Song to the Moon"); it is played on contemporary opera stages frequently outside the Czech Republic . This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements – The Jacobin , Armida , Vanda and Dimitrij need stages large enough to portray invading armies. Leoš Janáček gained international recognition in

9954-458: The Father, and hath learned, cometh to Me." And thus it happened to Paul, since, suddenly when he was in the midst of sin, his heart was perfectly moved by God to hear, to learn, to come; and hence he received grace suddenly. Pope Francis on 25 January 2024, dated a pastoral letter on the liturgical feast day of the conversion of St Paul, ahead of world mission sunday on 20 October 2024, ahead of

10112-706: The Gentiles, it could be interpreted that what happened on the road to Damascus was not just a conversion from first-century Judaism to a faith centred on Jesus Christ, but also a commissioning of Paul as an Apostle to the Gentiles—although in Paul's mind they both amounted to the same thing. The Acts of the Apostles says that Paul's conversion experience was an encounter with the resurrected Christ. Alternative explanations have been proposed, including sun stroke and seizure . In 1987, D. Landsborough published an article in

10270-771: The London stage from the mid-19th century into the 1870s. London's Daily Telegraph agreed, describing The Yeomen of the Guard as "a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage". Sullivan produced a few light operas in the 1890s that were of a more serious nature than those in the G&;S series, including Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone , but Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts—a record until Broadway's La bohème ) survives as his only grand opera . In

10428-501: The Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be

10586-445: The Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Christoph Willibald Gluck 's reforms. He advocated that opera seria had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet , and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published " Poème lyrique ", an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos . Several composers of

10744-599: The Other Mary . Other religions represented include Ilaiyaraaja 's Thiruvasakam (based on the texts of Hindu hymns to Shiva ). Secular oratorios composed in the 21st century include Nathan Currier 's Gaian Variations (based on the Gaia hypothesis ), Richard Einhorn 's The Origin (based on the writings of Charles Darwin ), Jonathan Mills ' Sandakan Threnody (based on the Sandakan Death Marches ), Neil Hannon 's To Our Fathers in Distress , and David Lang 's The Little Match Girl Passion (2008). The oratorio Laudato si' , composed in 2016 by Peter Reulein on

10902-459: The Passions of J. S. Bach , oratorio-passions such as Der Tod Jesu set by Telemann and Carl Heinrich Graun . After Telemann came the galante oratorio style of C. P. E. Bach . The Georgian era saw a German-born monarch and German-born composer define the English oratorio. George Frideric Handel , most famous today for his Messiah (1741), also wrote other oratorios based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology and Biblical topics. He

11060-459: The Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. The Second Epistle to

11218-499: The acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre of intermezzi , which developed largely in Naples in the 1710s and 1720s, were initially staged during the intermissions of opera seria. They became so popular, however, that they were soon being offered as separate productions. Opera seria was elevated in tone and highly stylised in form, usually consisting of secco recitative interspersed with long da capo arias. These afforded great opportunity for virtuosic singing and during

11376-485: The advent of grand opera typified by the works of Daniel Auber and Giacomo Meyerbeer as well as Carl Maria von Weber 's introduction of German Romantische Oper (German Romantic Opera). The mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard Wagner in Germany. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in

11534-457: The art form back to life again. The bel canto opera movement flourished in the early 19th century and is exemplified by the operas of Rossini , Bellini , Donizetti , Pacini , Mercadante and many others. Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate, requiring supreme agility and pitch control. Examples of famous operas in

11692-430: The articulated words". The debate revolves around two Greek words. The noun φωνή ( phōnē - a source of English words such as "telephone", "phonic", and "phoneme") translates as "voice, utterance, report, faculty of speech, the call of an animal", but also as "sound" when referring poetically to an inanimate object; however, the normal Greek word for an inarticulate sound is ψόφος ( psophos ). The verb ἀκούω ( akouō -

11850-411: The bel canto style include Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola , as well as Bellini's Norma , La sonnambula and I puritani and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor , L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale . Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi , beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco . This opera, and

12008-459: The characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as singspiel , opéra comique , operetta , and semi-opera , the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso . The terminology of

12166-472: The chorus often assuming a more central dramatic role, and the work is typically presented as a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are not infrequently presented in concert form . A particularly important difference between opera and oratorio is in the typical subject matter of the text. An opera libretto may deal with any conceivable dramatic subject (e.g. history , mythology , Richard Nixon , Anna Nicole Smith and

12324-410: The circle of opera fans. Since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on (and written for) these media. 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. Since 2009, complete performances can be downloaded and are live streamed . The words of an opera are known as

12482-509: The clear antithesis he saw "between righteousness based on the law," which he had sought in his former life; and "righteousness based on the death of Christ," which he describes, for example, in the Epistle to the Galatians . Based on Paul's testimony in Galatians 1 and the accounts in Acts ( Acts 9 , 22 , 26 ), where it is specifically mentioned that Paul was tasked to be a witness to

12640-431: The contradiction is disguised. Those who support harmonizing readings sometimes point out that in Acts 9:7, ἀκούω appears in a participle construction with a genitive (ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς), and in Acts 22:9 as a finite verb with an accusative object (φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν). Nigel Turner suggests the use of the accusative indicates hearing with understanding. More commonly, proponents of this view have asserted that

12798-408: The distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless flow of "endless melody". Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth with part of the patronage from Ludwig II of Bavaria , exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in

12956-551: The divine purpose." There is no evidence to suggest that Paul arrived on the road to Damascus already with a single, solid, coherent scheme that could form the framework of his mature theology. Instead, the conversion, and the associated understanding of the significance of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus , caused him to rethink from the ground up everything he had ever believed in, from his own identity to his understanding of Second Temple Judaism and who God really was. The transforming effect of Paul's conversion influenced

13114-506: The drama is understated, enigmatic and completely un-Wagnerian. Other notable 20th-century names include Ravel , Dukas , Roussel , Honegger and Milhaud . Francis Poulenc is one of the very few post-war composers of any nationality whose operas (which include Dialogues des Carmélites ) have gained a foothold in the international repertory. Olivier Messiaen 's lengthy sacred drama Saint François d'Assise (1983) has also attracted widespread attention. In England, opera's antecedent

13272-558: The early 19th century has been led by a conductor . Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western classical music , and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres , including some that include spoken dialogue such as Singspiel and Opéra comique . In traditional number opera , singers employ two styles of singing: recitative ,

13430-577: 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 ( Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg ), neoclassicism ( Igor Stravinsky ), and minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ). With the rise of recording technology , singers such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known to much wider audiences that went beyond

13588-472: The early reformer, Jan Hus . Oratorios became extremely popular in early 17th-century Italy partly because of the success of opera and the Catholic Church's prohibition of spectacles during Lent . Oratorios became the main choice of music during that annual period for opera audiences. Conventionally, oratorio implies the sincere religious treatment of sacred subjects, such that non-sacred oratorio

13746-427: The emergence of the separate but closely related art of musical theatre in the late 19th century. Sullivan wrote only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the efforts of a number of young English composers beginning about 1876), but he claimed that even his light operas constituted part of a school of "English" opera, intended to supplant the French operettas (usually performed in bad translations) that had dominated

13904-529: The first actual "opera singers", Madama Europa . Opera did not remain confined to court audiences for long. In 1637, the idea of a "season" (often during the carnival ) of publicly attended operas supported by ticket sales emerged in Venice . Monteverdi had moved to the city from Mantua and composed his last operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea , for the Venetian theatre in

14062-672: The first decade of the 21st century, the librettist of an early Birtwistle opera, Michael Nyman , has been focusing on composing operas, including Facing Goya , Man and Boy: Dada , and Love Counts . Today composers such as Thomas Adès continue to export English opera abroad. Also in the 20th century, American composers like George Gershwin ( Porgy and Bess ), Scott Joplin ( Treemonisha ), Leonard Bernstein ( Candide ), Gian Carlo Menotti , Douglas Moore , and Carlisle Floyd began to contribute English-language operas infused with touches of popular musical styles. They were followed by composers such as Philip Glass ( Einstein on

14220-474: The first in the history of the genre to be based on the life of Buddha . Several late 20th and early 21st-century oratorios have since been based on Buddha's life or have incorporated Buddhist texts. These include Somei Satoh 's 1987 Stabat Mater , Dinesh Subasinghe 's 2010 Karuna Nadee , and Jonathan Harvey 's 2011 Weltethos . The 21st century also saw a continuation of Christianity-based oratorios with John Adams 's El Niño and The Gospel According to

14378-461: The first true English-language opera. Blow's immediate successor was the better known Henry Purcell . Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead, he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within

14536-431: The form and style that would dominate opera throughout the twentieth century. Rather than long, suspended melodies, Falstaff contains many little motifs and mottos, that, rather than being expanded upon, are introduced and subsequently dropped, only to be brought up again later. These motifs never are expanded upon, and just as the audience expects a character to launch into a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing

14694-468: The genitive is used when a person is heard, the accusative for a thing, which goes in the same direction but yields a far weaker argument. New Testament scholars Daniel B. Wallace and F.F. Bruce find this argument based on case inconclusive and caution against using it. Wallace gathers all examples of ἀκούω with each construction in the New Testament and finds that there are more exceptions to

14852-541: The genre of opera seria , which became the leading form of Italian opera until the end of the 18th century. Once the Metastasian ideal had been firmly established, comedy in Baroque-era opera was reserved for what came to be called opera buffa . Before such elements were forced out of opera seria, many libretti had featured a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an "opera-within-an-opera". One reason for this

15010-452: The golden age of opera seria the singer really became the star. The role of the hero was usually written for the high-pitched male castrato voice, which was produced by castration of the singer before puberty , which prevented a boy's larynx from being transformed at puberty. Castrati such as Farinelli and Senesino , as well as female sopranos such as Faustina Bordoni , became in great demand throughout Europe as opera seria ruled

15168-410: The greatest French grand opera , Don Carlos , and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff , which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century. These final two works showed Verdi at his most masterfully orchestrated, and are both incredibly influential, and modern. In Falstaff , Verdi sets the pre-eminent standard for

15326-440: The ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by

15484-625: The growth of Russian nationalism across the artistic spectrum, as part of the more general Slavophilism movement. In the 20th century, the traditions of Russian opera were developed by many composers including Sergei Rachmaninoff in his works The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , Igor Stravinsky in Le Rossignol , Mavra , Oedipus rex , and The Rake's Progress , Sergei Prokofiev in The Gambler , The Love for Three Oranges , The Fiery Angel , Betrothal in

15642-494: The hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. The account continues with a description of Ananias of Damascus receiving a divine revelation instructing him to visit Saul at the house of Judas on the Street Called Straight and there lay hands on him to restore his sight (the house of Judas is traditionally believed to have been near the west end of the street). Ananias

15800-720: The handing of the Keys to Saint Peter , although in the Vatican Cappella Paolina Michelangelo paired it with Peter's Crucifixion in the 1540s, perhaps in a change to the original plan. The conversion of Paul has been depicted by many artists, including Albrecht Dürer , Francisco Camilo , Giovanni Bellini , Fra Angelico , Fra Bartolomeo , Pieter Bruegel the Elder , William Blake , Luca Giordano , Sante Peranda , and Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante . Michelangelo 's fresco The Conversion of Saul

15958-452: The internationally popular The Bartered Bride . Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory, but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892 and London in 1895 it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera company worldwide. Antonín Dvořák 's nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey

16116-426: The jubilee year of 2025 calling the faithful to be prayerful pilgrims of hope. Metanoia (theology) is also a closely studied word linked to the ascetical journey of conversion - well illustrated by St Paul's Damascus moment. An early linguistic scholar that wrestled with matters of asectics and translation from Greek was St Jerome . The subject was not common in medieval art , only usually being painted as one of

16274-526: The late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this influence. In 1644, Sigmund Staden produced the first Singspiel , Seelewig , a popular form of German-language opera in which singing alternates with spoken dialogue. In the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Theater am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg presented German operas by Keiser , Telemann and Handel . Yet most of

16432-609: The leadership Zacharia Paliashvili , who fused local folk songs and stories with 19th-century Romantic classical themes. The key figure of Hungarian national opera in the 19th century was Ferenc Erkel , whose works mostly dealt with historical themes. Among his most often performed operas are Hunyadi László and Bánk bán . The most famous modern Hungarian opera is Béla Bartók 's Duke Bluebeard's Castle . Stanisław Moniuszko 's opera Straszny Dwór (in English The Haunted Manor ) (1861–64) represents

16590-499: The light (see also Differences between the accounts , below). The speech is clearly tailored for its Jewish audience, with stress being placed in Acts 22:12 on Ananias's good reputation among Jews in Damascus, rather than on his Christianity. Acts' third discussion of Paul's conversion occurs when Paul addresses King Agrippa , defending himself against the accusations of antinomianism that have been made against him. This account

16748-548: The light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. (Acts 22:9) Most traditional translations including the English King James Version (KJV), the Latin Vulgate , and Luther's German translation are similar, translating the key words identically in each of the parallel texts, and thus not disguising the contradiction. However, since the 1970s, some versions have attempted

16906-438: The major German composers of the time, including Handel himself, as well as Graun , Hasse and later Gluck , chose to write most of their operas in foreign languages, especially Italian. In contrast to Italian opera, which was generally composed for the aristocratic class, German opera was generally composed for the masses and tended to feature simple folk-like melodies, and it was not until the arrival of Mozart that German opera

17064-499: The most daring and revolutionary. In it, Verdi blurs the distinction between the aria and recitative as it never before was, leading the opera to be "an unending string of duets". La traviata was also novel. It tells the story of courtesan, and it includes elements of verismo or "realistic" opera, because rather than featuring great kings and figures from literature, it focuses on the tragedies of ordinary life and society. After these, he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps

17222-542: The most obvious stylistic manifestation of modernism in opera is the development of atonality . The move away from traditional tonality in opera had begun with Richard Wagner , and in particular the Tristan chord . Composers such as Richard Strauss , Claude Debussy , Giacomo Puccini , Paul Hindemith , Benjamin Britten and Hans Pfitzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance. Another aspect of modernist opera

17380-414: The most popular of all opéra comiques. Jules Massenet , Camille Saint-Saëns and Léo Delibes all composed works which are still part of the standard repertory, examples being Massenet's Manon , Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila and Delibes' Lakmé . Their operas formed another genre, the opéra lyrique , combined opéra comique and grand opera. It is less grandiose than grand opera, but without

17538-417: The most significant figure was undoubtedly Wagner . Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber and Meyerbeer , he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with

17696-458: The musical stage in England. The only exceptions were ballad operas , such as John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera (1728), musical burlesques , European operettas , and late Victorian era light operas , notably the Savoy operas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan , all of which types of musical entertainments frequently spoofed operatic conventions; these genres contributed significantly to

17854-482: The new genre of grand opera , a form whose most famous exponent was another foreigner, Giacomo Meyerbeer . Meyerbeer's works, such as Les Huguenots , emphasised virtuoso singing and extraordinary stage effects. Lighter opéra comique also enjoyed tremendous success in the hands of Boïeldieu , Auber , Hérold and Adam . In this climate, the operas of the French-born composer Hector Berlioz struggled to gain

18012-586: The ones that would follow in Verdi's career, revolutionized Italian opera, changing it from merely a display of vocal fireworks, with Rossini's and Donizetti's works, to dramatic story-telling. Verdi's operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian nationalism in the post- Napoleonic era, and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement for a unified Italy. In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular operas: Rigoletto , Il trovatore and La traviata . The first of these, Rigoletto , proved

18170-479: The operas of Mozart , who wrote in Vienna near the century's close. Leading Italian-born composers of opera seria include Alessandro Scarlatti , Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora . Opera seria had its weaknesses and critics. The taste for embellishment on behalf of the superbly trained singers, and the use of spectacle as a replacement for dramatic purity and unity drew attacks. Francesco Algarotti 's Essay on

18328-494: The other dominating force in English opera at this time was George Frideric Handel , whose opera serias filled the London operatic stages for decades and influenced most home-grown composers, like John Frederick Lampe , who wrote using Italian models. This situation continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, including in the work of Michael William Balfe , and the operas of the great Italian composers, as well as those of Mozart, Beethoven, and Meyerbeer, continued to dominate

18486-572: The period, including Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta , attempted to put these ideals into practice. The first to succeed however, was Gluck. Gluck strove to achieve a "beautiful simplicity". This is evident in his first reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice , where his non-virtuosic vocal melodies are supported by simple harmonies and a richer orchestra presence throughout. Gluck's reforms have had resonance throughout operatic history. Weber, Mozart, and Wagner, in particular, were influenced by his ideals. Mozart, in many ways Gluck's successor, combined

18644-500: The persecutor of the Christian faith became its indefatigable defender and advocate. Thus St. Paul was able to say of himself: "By the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace in me hath not been void, but I have laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God with me" (1 Cor. 15:10)." Thomas Aquinas sees Paul's conversion as an example of a sudden grace of God, writing in his Summa Theologiae : Since

18802-403: The power of divine grace in Paul's conversion: Our Blessed Lord prevented Saul with His grace, enlightened his understanding, moved his heart, and prepared his will to do all that was commanded him. In the very midst of his sinful career grace called to Saul to stop, and changed his heart so completely that the bitter enemy of Jesus Christ was transformed into an apostle, all aglow with love; and

18960-511: The quintessential designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson 's Lovers Made Men (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1656,

19118-466: The religious theme of creation, the second is more secular, containing songs about industry, hunting and wine. Britain continued to look to Germany for its composers of oratorio. The Birmingham Festival commissioned various oratorios including Felix Mendelssohn 's Elijah in 1846, later performed in German as Elias . German composer Georg Vierling is noted for modernizing the secular oratorio form. John Stainer 's The Crucifixion (1887) became

19276-569: The same characteristics as described above, though Berg combined his highly personal interpretation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique with melodic passages of a more traditionally tonal nature (quite Mahlerian in character) which perhaps partially explains why his operas have remained in standard repertory, despite their controversial music and plots. Schoenberg's theories have influenced (either directly or indirectly) significant numbers of opera composers ever since, even if they themselves did not compose using his techniques. Conversion of Paul

19434-411: The same words in Acts 22:9 as "voice" and "understand". The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which is commonly the preferred translation of biblical scholars and used in the most influential publications in the field, renders the two texts as follows: The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. (Acts 9:7) Now those who were with me saw

19592-486: The second half of the 17th century, there were trends toward the performance of the religious oratorio also outside church halls in courts and public theaters . The theme of an oratorio is meant to be weighty. It could include such topics as Creation , the life of Jesus , or the career of a classical hero or Biblical prophet . Other changes eventually took place as well, possibly because most composers of oratorios were also popular composers of operas. They began to publish

19750-568: The section on modernism . During the late 19th century, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II , an admirer of the French -language operettas composed by Jacques Offenbach , composed several German-language operettas, the most famous of which was Die Fledermaus . Nevertheless, rather than copying the style of Offenbach, the operettas of Strauss II had distinctly Viennese flavor to them. In rivalry with imported Italian opera productions,

19908-419: The sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the " Camerata de' Bardi ". Significantly, Dafne

20066-421: The side.'" Paul's conversion is the subject of the medieval play The Digby Conversion of Saint Paul . The conversion of Paul is the main term of argument of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy 's oratorio Paulus (St. Paul), MWV A 14 / Op. 36] (1833–36). It is also subject of the choral motet Saule, Saule, quid me persequeris by Giaches de Wert (1535–1596). It is also the focus of an eight part mixed choir

20224-614: The spoken dialogue of opèra comique . At the same time, the influence of Richard Wagner was felt as a challenge to the French tradition. Many French critics angrily rejected Wagner's music dramas while many French composers closely imitated them with variable success. Perhaps the most interesting response came from Claude Debussy . As in Wagner's works, the orchestra plays a leading role in Debussy's unique opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) and there are no real arias, only recitative. But

20382-401: The stage in every country except France. Farinelli was one of the most famous singers of the 18th century. Italian opera set the Baroque standard. Italian libretti were the norm, even when a German composer like Handel found himself composing the likes of Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare for London audiences. Italian libretti remained dominant in the classical period as well, for example in

20540-1042: The stereotypical battlehorse of massed amateur choral societies. Edward Elgar tried to revive the genre around the turn of century with the composition of The Light of Life (Lux Christi) , The Dream of Gerontius , The Apostles and The Kingdom . Oratorio returned haltingly to public attention with Igor Stravinsky 's Oedipus Rex in Paris (1927), William Walton 's Belshazzar's Feast in Leeds (1931), Paul Hindemith 's Das Unaufhörliche in Berlin (1931), Arthur Honegger 's Le Roi David and Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher in Basel (1938), and Franz Schmidt 's The Book with Seven Seals ( Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln ) in Vienna (1938). Michael Tippett 's oratorio A Child of Our Time (first performance, 1944) engages with events surrounding

20698-525: The structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden )

20856-593: The style he wanted. Opera would never be the same after Wagner and for many composers his legacy proved a heavy burden. On the other hand, Richard Strauss accepted Wagnerian ideas but took them in wholly new directions, along with incorporating the new form introduced by Verdi. He first won fame with the scandalous Salome and the dark tragedy Elektra , in which tonality was pushed to the limits. Then Strauss changed tack in his greatest success, Der Rosenkavalier , where Mozart and Viennese waltzes became as important an influence as Wagner. Strauss continued to produce

21014-417: The supposed rule than examples of it. He concludes: "regardless of how one works through the accounts of Paul’s conversion, an appeal to different cases probably ought not to form any part of the solution." Whereas Protestants saw the conversion as a demonstration of sola fide , Counter-Reformation Catholics saw it as a demonstration of, or at least a metaphor for, the power of preaching , which received

21172-447: The tercentenary of his birth in 1985. Oratorios by popular musicians include Léo Ferré 's La Chanson du mal-aimé (1954 and 1972), based on Guillaume Apollinaire 's poem of the same name, Paul McCartney 's Liverpool Oratorio (1991), and Mikis Theodorakis 's Canto General and Axion Esti , based on poems of Pablo Neruda and Odusseas Elytis . When Dudley Buck composed his oratorio The Light of Asia in 1886, it became

21330-560: The traditions of my fathers. Paul also discusses his pre-conversion life in his Epistle to the Philippians , 3:4–6, and his participation in the stoning of Stephen is described in Acts 7:57–8:3. In the Pauline epistles, the description of Paul's conversion experience is brief. The First Epistle to the Corinthians 9:1 and 15:3–8 describes Paul as having seen the risen Christ : For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to

21488-534: The trend. The changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below . The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin word opera , a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus . According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the Italian word was first used in

21646-453: The various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below . During both the Baroque and Classical periods , recitative could appear in two basic forms, each of which was accompanied by a different instrumental ensemble: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by basso continuo , which was usually a harpsichord and

21804-421: The voice, Acts 22:9 states that they did not. Traditional readings and modern biblical scholarship both see a discrepancy between these passages, but some modern conservative evangelical commentators argue that the discrepancy can be explained. Richard Longenecker argues that first century readers might have understood the two passages to mean that everybody heard the sound of the voice, but "only Paul understood

21962-399: The world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini 's La bohème , Tosca , and Madama Butterfly . Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono , have experimented with modernism . The first German opera was Dafne , composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until

22120-508: Was Tsefal i Prokris by the Italian composer Francesco Araja (1755). The development of Russian-language opera was supported by the Russian composers Vasily Pashkevich , Yevstigney Fomin and Alexey Verstovsky . However, the real birth of Russian opera came with Mikhail Glinka and his two great operas A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). After him, during

22278-418: Was a strong narrative, dramatic emphasis and there were conversational exchanges between characters in the work. Giovanni Francesco Anerio 's Teatro harmonico spirituale (1619) is a set of 14 dialogues, the longest of which is 20 minutes long and covers the conversion of St. Paul and is for four soloists: Historicus (narrator), tenor ; St. Paul , tenor; Voice from Heaven, bass ; and Ananias , tenor. There

22436-428: Was able to match its Italian counterpart in musical sophistication. The theatre company of Abel Seyler pioneered serious German-language opera in the 1770s, marking a break with the previous simpler musical entertainment. Mozart 's Singspiele , Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and Die Zauberflöte (1791) were an important breakthrough in achieving international recognition for German opera. The tradition

22594-449: Was able to move beyond the Italian influences and create his own unique and distinctly English voice. His modernized ballad opera, Love in a Village (1762), began a vogue for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century. Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced "a light, airy, original, and pleasing melody, wholly different from that of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had either pillaged or imitated". Besides Arne,

22752-409: Was an attempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to the public opera houses . These separate plots were almost immediately resurrected in a separately developing tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte , a long-flourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. Just as intermedi had once been performed in between

22910-539: Was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama , part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance . The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne , however, is lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice , dating from 1600,

23068-524: Was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Acts' second telling of Paul's conversion occurs in a speech Paul gives when he is arrested in Jerusalem. Paul addresses the crowd and tells them of his conversion, with a description essentially the same as that in Acts 9, but with slight differences. For example, Acts 9:7 notes that Paul's companions did not see who he was speaking to, while Acts 22:9 indicates that they did share in seeing

23226-714: Was brought to Russia in the 1730s by the Italian operatic troupes and soon it became an important part of entertainment for the Russian Imperial Court and aristocracy . Many foreign composers such as Baldassare Galuppi , Giovanni Paisiello , Giuseppe Sarti , and Domenico Cimarosa (as well as various others) were invited to Russia to compose new operas, mostly in the Italian language . Simultaneously some domestic musicians of Ukrainian origin like Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky were sent abroad to learn to write operas. The first opera written in Russian

23384-457: Was challenged in the same journal by James R. Brorson and Kathleen Brewer, who stated that this hypothesis failed to explain why Paul's companions heard a voice (Acts 9:7), saw a light, or fell to the ground. Additionally, Paul's blindness remitted in sudden fashion, rather than the gradual resolution typical of post-ictal states, and no mention is made of epileptic convulsions ; indeed such convulsions may, in Paul's time, have been interpreted as

23542-526: Was developed by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873) whose most famous work Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Cossack Beyond the Danube) is regularly performed around the world. Other Ukrainian opera composers include Mykola Lysenko ( Taras Bulba and Natalka Poltavka ), Heorhiy Maiboroda , and Yuliy Meitus . At the turn of the century, a distinct national opera movement also began to emerge in Georgia under

23700-483: Was developed in the 19th century by Beethoven with his Fidelio (1805), inspired by the climate of the French Revolution . Carl Maria von Weber established German Romantic opera in opposition to the dominance of Italian bel canto . His Der Freischütz (1821) shows his genius for creating a supernatural atmosphere. Other opera composers of the time include Marschner , Schubert and Lortzing , but

23858-756: Was fully staged in 1945 in Armenia. The first years of the Soviet Union saw the emergence of new national operas, such as the Koroğlu (1937) by the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov . The first Kyrgyz opera, Ai-Churek , premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on 26 May 1939, during Kyrgyz Art Decade. It was composed by Vladimir Vlasov , Abdylas Maldybaev and Vladimir Fere . The libretto

24016-413: Was known as Saul and was "a Pharisee of Pharisees ", who " intensely persecuted " the followers of Jesus. Paul describes his life before conversion in his Epistle to the Galatians : For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for

24174-415: Was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. The Acts of the Apostles discusses Paul's conversion experience at three different points in the text, in far more detail than in the accounts in Paul's letters. The Book of Acts says that Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Syrian Damascus with a mandate issued by

24332-535: Was the 17th-century jig . This was an afterpiece that came at the end of a play. It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect, jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with even more lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery than had been seen before. Inigo Jones became

24490-418: Was the first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, with his greatest success being Thomas and Sally in 1760. His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. Although Arne imitated many elements of Italian opera, he was perhaps the only English composer at that time who

24648-441: Was the most noted composer. In Vienna the court poet Metastasio produced annually a series of oratorios for the court which were set by Caldara , Hasse and others. Metastasio's best known oratorio libretto La passione di Gesù Cristo was set by at least 35 composers from 1730 to 1790. In Germany the middle baroque oratorios moved from the early-baroque Historia style Christmas and Resurrection settings of Heinrich Schütz , to

24806-415: Was to establish serious opera in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 36. Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England dwindled for several decades. A revived interest in opera occurred in the 1730s which is largely attributed to Thomas Arne , both for his own compositions and for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of large-scale works in English. Arne

24964-549: Was written by Joomart Bokonbaev, Jusup Turusbekov, and Kybanychbek Malikov. The opera is based on the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas . In Iran, opera gained more attention after the introduction of Western classical music in the late 19th century. However, it took until mid 20th century for Iranian composers to start experiencing with the field, especially as the construction of the Roudaki Hall in 1967, made possible staging of

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