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"Opera is the delight of Princes." —MARCO DA GAGLIANO

Key Points

  • The most important new genre of the Baroque era was opera, a large-scale music drama that combines poetry, acting, scenery, and costumes with singing and instrumental music.
  • The principal components of opera include the orchestral overture, solo arias (lyrical songs) and recitatives (speechlike declamations of the text), and ensemble numbers, including choruses. The librettist writes the text of the opera.
  • The early Baroque master Claudio Monteverdi wrote operas based on mythology and Roman history, and he helped establish the love duet as a central component of opera.
  • The English composer Henry Purcell wrote Dido and Aeneas, based on The Aeneid, a Roman epic by Virgil.

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