Influential Opera Composers 1500′s, 1600′s, 1700′s

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Popular and Important Opera Composers 1500-1799

Jacopo Peri: A Florentine who composed both the first opera ever, Dafne, and the first surviving opera, Euridice.
Claudio Monteverdi: is generally regarded as the first major opera composer.
Francesco Cavalli: Amongst the most important of Monteverdi’s successors, Cavalli was a major force in spreading opera throughout Italy and also helped introduce it to France.
Jean-Baptiste Lully: In close collaboration with the librettist Philippe Quinault, Lully founded the tradition of tragédie en musique, combining singing, dance and visual spectacle.
Henry Purcell: Purcell was the first English operatic composer of significance.
Alessandro Scarlatti: A key figure in the development of opera seria, Scarlatti claimed to have composed over 100 operas.
Jean-Philippe Rameau: The most important French opera composer of the 18th century. Rameau’s musical daring provoked great controversy in his day, but he was an important influence on Gluck.
John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch: Creators of the first English ballad opera, the biting political satire, The Beggar’s Opera.
George Frideric Handel: Handel’s baroque-era opera serias set the standard in his day. Handel composed a series of over 30 operas that continue to fascinate audiences today.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Though Pergolesi also composed opera serias, his most influential being the short opera buffa, La serva padrona.
Christoph Willibald Gluck: was a key figure in the transformation of Baroque into Classical opera, paving the way for Mozart.
Domenico Cimarosa: Italian composer most famous for the opera buffa, Il matrimonio segreto, which forms a bridge between the comedies of Mozart and Rossini.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Drawing heavily on the reforms of Gluck, Mozart’s series of comic collaborations with Lorenzo da Ponte are among the most popular operas in the repertoire today.
Luigi Cherubini: A follower of Gluck, Cherubini’s most famous opera is Médée.
Ludwig van Beethoven: wrote one of the major German language operas, Fidelio.
Gaspare Spontini: Spontini is best known for his work in France during the Napoleonic era.
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber: French composer celebrated for high-spirited opéra comiques such as Fra Diavolo and Le domino noir.
Carl Maria von Weber: founded German Romantic opera in order to challenge the dominance of Italian bel canto.
Giacomo Meyerbeer: The archetypal composer of French grand opera, Meyerbeer’s huge extravaganzas such as Les Huguenots and Le prophète were immensely popular.
Gioachino Rossini: links bel canto with Grand Opera. His immortal Barber of Seville was the only one of his operas that was continuously performed into the 20th century.
Gaetano Donizetti: Along with Rossini and Bellini, Donizetti is generally acknowledged as one of the masters of the bel canto style.
Jacques Fromental Halévy: Along with Meyerbeer, the best known composer of French grand opera, Halévy’s key work is La Juive, a story of religious intolerance set in 15th century Germany.

Resource by T.Price

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