Works

What we mean by works

In ItalianOpera, the term “work” (opera) does not indicate a closed genre, but any musical construction intended as a completed form. A work can be instrumental or vocal, theatrical or abstract, intended for the stage, the concert hall, or home listening. The fundamental distinction is not between “lyrical” and “non-lyrical,” but between musical functions, formal structures, and historical contexts.

The voice is an instrument

In the Italian tradition, the voice has never enjoyed a separate status. The same melodies pass without fracture from the voice to the violin, from singing to the trumpet, from the aria to the instrumental intermezzo. The rigid modern distinction between vocal and instrumental music is a nineteenth-century theoretical artifice, not a historical fact of musical practice.

WORKS

Repertoires

Lists of Italian musical works grouped by title, incipit, performers, and characters.

Titles

Alphabetical list of vocal and instrumental work titles.

Incipits

Alphabetical list of vocal work incipits.

Performers

Alphabetical list of performers.

Characters

Alphabetical list of characters.

List of all librettos

Italian instrumental music, alongside music for voice, was not born in opposition to singing. It was often born as its extension, as a “song without words,” or as a formal laboratory for the stage.

WORKS

Listening Guides

Featured profiles and the complete catalog of listening guides. Paths to understand music within its political, social, and cultural context, capturing meanings – even the less evident ones – through relationships with other disciplines.

Ciro in Babilonia

Featured

Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia between biblical drama and allegorical levels.

Corelli's Concerti grossi op. 6

Featured

The Concerti grossi op. 6: structure, style, and European model.

Bellini's Norma

Featured

Norma: the conflict between public role and inner drama.

Mayr's Sisara

Featured

Mayr's Sisara: biblical oratorio and political reinterpretation.

Explore all listening guides

Among the many threads running through Italian music, one of the most recognizable is the transformation of the song: from the Baroque aria to the melodrama, right up to the twentieth-century song.

Una fotografia che immortala il centro storico di Lecce inondata dalla luce calda e dorata del tramonto, che ne esalta la bellezza. — Veduta di Lecce al tramonto (2024), Arte generativa, stile Fotografia a colori di Varrone & Romano, Collezione privata.
© Collezione Varrone & Romano (Tutti i diritti riservati).

Works are not born in a vacuum. Discover how ItalianOpera organizes musical history through an alternative periodization, based on the Italian context.

Go to historical periodization →