Dramma per musica is a term which was used by dramatists in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and elsewhere between the late-17th and mid-19th centuries. It was sometimes abbreviated to dramma.

A dramma per musica was thus originally (in Italy in the 17th century) a play specifically written for the purpose of being set to music, in other words a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 for an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, usually a serious opera. By extension, the term came to be used also for the opera or operas which were composed to the libretto, and a variation, dramma in musica, which emphasised the musical element, was sometimes preferred by composers.

In the 18th century, these terms, along with dramma musicale, came to be the most commonly used descriptions for serious Italian operas. Today, these are known as opera seria

Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

, a term that was little-used when they were created.

The terms continued to be used in the early 19th century after Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

's reforms had effectively ended the dominance of opera seria: for example, some of Rossini's later serious operas were designated "dramma in musica".

Dramma per musica never meant "drama through music", let alone music drama.

Examples of drammi per musica are Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...

's Erismena

Erismena

Erismena is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. It was designated as a dramma per musica. The Italian libretto was by Aurelio Aureli, the only work by this writer for Cavalli....

(1656), Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

's Tito Manlio

Tito Manlio

Tito Manlio is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi, to a libretto by Matteo Noris. It was written in celebration of the marriage of Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt , the governor of Mantua, which he had announced at Christmas. Vivaldi quickly composed the opera within five days...

(1719), Mysliveček's

Josef Myslivecek

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...

 Il Bellerofonte

Il Bellerofonte

Il Bellerofonte is an 18th-century Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It conforms to the serious type that was typically set in the distant past. The libretto, based on the Greek legend of Bellerophon, was written by Giuseppe Bonecchi...

(1767), Gluck's Paride ed Elena

Paride ed Elena

Paride ed Elena is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the third and final of his Italian reformist works, following Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste. Like its predecessors, its libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. The opera tells the story of the events between the Judgment of Paris and...

(1770), Salieri

Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....

's Armida

Armida (Salieri)

Armida is an operatic 'dramma per musica' by Antonio Salieri in three acts, set to a libretto by Marco Coltellini. The plot is based on the epic poem by Torquato Tasso, and Lully, Traetta, and Handel had already composed operas based on the situations that Tasso originally developed...

(1779), Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Idomeneo

Idomeneo

Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

(1781) and Rossini's Otello

Otello (Rossini)

Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....

(1816), as well as numerous libretti written by Pietro Metastasio.