Romantic opera made its serious start in the 1820s, after the end of the Viennese Classical period. It sprang from the major opera houses of Italy, especially those in Naples and Milan, and from Paris. In Vienna, both Beethoven and Schubert felt threatened by the popular rage for the operas of Gioacchino Rossini, a young Italian whose meteoric career left a mark on the whole of Europe.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868) Rossini is most famous today for crisp, elegant opera buffas in a style that is not all that far from Mozart — the immortal Barber of Seville among them. The overtures of these operas, which are popular as concert pieces, are even written in sonata form, the true trademark of Classicism in music.

But in his own day Rossini was admired equally for his serious operas, which established the style and form of Italian Romantic opera. This is sometimes called bel canto opera because of its glorification of beautiful singing (bel canto means just that —“beautiful song”). Rossini’s operas provided models of Romantic emotional melodic expression, such as Desdemona’s “Willow Song” from his Shakespeare opera, Otello. The same operas are also well stocked with coloratura arias, showcases for the legendary virtuoso singers of that era.

To everyone’s astonishment, Rossini gave up opera in 1829 after the success of William Tell, his greatest work.

Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) Donizetti, who dominated Italian bel canto opera after Rossini’s sudden retirement, moved decisively in the direction of simple, sentimental arias and blood-and-thunder action music. Enormously prolific, he wrote more than sixty operas in his short lifetime.

The most famous are Lucia di Lammermoor, based on the historical novel by Scott mentioned on page 257, and Don Pasquale, a very late example of opera buffa. In the 1970s, the American soprano Beverly Sills starred in a Donizetti trilogy featuring famous queens of English history: Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII), Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart — Mary, Queen of Scots), and Roberto Devereux (about Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex).

Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) Vincenzo Bellini strikes listeners today as the most refined of the three early bel canto composers. He wrote many fewer operas than the others, and his most beautiful arias have a unique Romantic sheen. The title role in Norma, his finest work, is the final testing ground for sopranos, for it demands highly expressive singing, coloratura fireworks, and great acting, all in unusual quantities.

Verdi often expressed his admiration for the supremely melodious Bellini. All the same, he learned more from the more robust and dramatic Donizetti.

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) Weber was the founder of German Romantic opera. His most important work, Der Freischütz (The Magic Bullet), has the quality of a German folktale or ballad put to music. Max, a somewhat driven young huntsman, sells his soul to the Devil for seven magic bullets, but is redeemed by the love of his innocent fiancée, Agatha.

Two spiritual arias sung by Agatha in this opera show Romantic melody at its best. There are German choruses in folk-song style. A famous scene of devilish conjuration (see page 256) features sensational orchestral writing with spooky harmonic effects.

Supernatural subject matter with a strongly moral overtone — quite unlike the historical subjects chosen by Donizetti, for example — and emphasis on the orchestra became characteristic of German Romantic opera. These features are still evident in the mature works of Richard Wagner, who started out in the 1830s as an opera composer in Weber’s mold. Otherwise, Wagner’s “music dramas” leave early Romantic opera far behind.