Opera seria and Mozart

ABSRACT One of the positive results of the Enlightment which is excepted as the most important movement of 18th century was to gather the middle class of public and nobels by means of music which existed only to serve aristocrats until that period. By the end of 17th century, in Italy and other cities of Europe, the musical drama known as "opera" was immensely well-established. The increasing numbers of opera houses demanded for a constant supply of new operatic works. By the end of 17th century, the reformer scholars of Arcadian Academy who aimed to give a new form to older Baroque operas both musically and structurally, made many changes. These changes by around 1720 had produced a serious-trajedy like opera which is known as "opera seria". Alessandro Scarlatti was the chief composer of this type which arose in Naples. The greatest influence on the development and formulation of opera seria came from two librettists Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio. W.A.Mozart who had written four operas in this genre was influenced by the changes of opera seria which was established by the end of 18th century. His first two works of opera seria "Mitridate, re di Ponto" and "Lucio Silla" are remarkable examples of his extraordinary precocity. His other work with the same type "Idomeneo" shows Mozart in the summit of his powers. His opera "La clemenza di Tito" was only a shadow of opera seria.