While the reform operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) may initially have had little impact in the homeland of the art form, the less rigid opera buffa with its natural voices (no castrati), greater use of ensembles, and extended dramatic finales proved a source of renewal for the classic opera seria, still at the center of theatrical life up and down the peninsula. The decades between the French Revolution and the Restoration of 1815 have been called a period of transition in Italian musical life.

from the french revolution to italian and german unification

As in other areas of life, the tremendous transformation that engulfed the west after 1789 brought substantial and lasting changes to the world of opera as well. Opera seria owed its success principally to the extraordinary popularity of its star singers, both female sopranos and castrati (castrated males with soprano or alto voices). Outside of France, which developed its own form of musical theater after 1669 (founding of the Royal Academy of Music, or Opùra), Italian opera seria or serious opera, built around an alternation of bass-accompanied (or secco) recitative and three-part da capo arias, remained dominant across Europe down to the French Revolution, although the less prestigious opera buffa or comic opera was also spreading across the Continent during the second half of the eighteenth century. Opera as an art form emerged between roughly 15, created by composers, writers, and courtiers in Florence and Mantua who sought to revive the union of drama and music they thought characteristic of the ancient Greek theater. OPERA from the french revolution to italian and german unification

Alceste opera garnier