Is Rigoletto an Opera seria?
Opera seria Opera seria (] ; plural: "opere serie"; usually called "dramma per musica" or "melodramma serio") is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 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 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.
Origins of opera The art form known as "opera" originated in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it drew upon older traditions of medieval and Renaissance courtly entertainment. The word "opera", meaning "work" in Italian, was first used in the modern musical and theatrical sense in 1639 and soon spread to the other European languages. The earliest operas were modest productions compared to other Renaissance forms of sung drama, but they soon became more lavish and took on the spectacular stagings of the earlier genre known as intermedio.