What is opera?

Opera op de Parade brings opera back to basics: music and story, experienced together in the open air.

 

As early as the Middle Ages, clergy discovered that singing and acting made their story more powerful than speaking alone. Through music and performance, they touched their audience better, and the message resonated more effectively.

 

At the end of the sixteenth century, this idea took on a new form in Florence. A group of art lovers – the Camerata fiorentina – brought classical stories to life in the marketplace there, not spoken but sung.

 

Not much later, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Claudio Monteverdi wrote L'Orfeo, one of the first operas based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

 

Since then, opera has grown into a rich art form with sets, costumes, and grand gestures. But the core has always remained the same: music and song that together tell a story and transport you to another world.