ARIA
(AHR-ee-uh)
A
lengthy solo sung with instrumental accompaniment
Common
clues: Diva's delivery; Soprano's showstopper; Opera solo;
"Tosca" highlight; Met highlight; La Scala solo;
Puccini piece; Handel bars?; What the fat lady sings?
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
3 times a month
Frequency
in English language:
22641 / 86800
Video:
Diana
Damrau as Queen of the Night II
My voice had a
long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and
dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can
still do what it used to do. It can't. ~ Beverly
Sills
An
aria
(Italian for air;
plural: arie
or arias
in common usage) in music was originally any expressive melody,
usually, but not always, performed by a singer. It is now used
almost exclusively to describe a self contained piece for one
voice usually with orchestral accompaniment. Perhaps the most
common context for arias is opera; there are also many arias that
form movements of oratorios and cantatas. Composers also wrote
"concert arias", not part of any larger work, such as
"Ah Perfido" by Beethoven and a number of concert arias
by Mozart.
The
Sydney Opera House
In
the 17th century, the aria was written in ternary form (ABA);
these arias were known as da
capo arias.
The aria later "invaded" the opera repertoire with its
many sub-species (Aria
cantabile,
Aria
agitata,
Aria
di bravura,
and so on). By the mid-19th century, many operas became a
sequence of arias, reducing the space left for recitative,
while other operas (for instance those by Wagner) were entirely
through-composed, with no section being readily identifiable as a
self-contained aria.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Aria".
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