Opera in Venezuela
Encyclopedia
The first Venezuelan opera was El maestro Rufo Zapatero an opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
composed in 1848 by José María Osorio. Virginia by José Ángel Montero
José Ángel Montero
José Ángel Montero was a Venezuelan opera composer, a contemporary of the Brazilian Carlos Gomes...
(sometimes incorrectly called the first Venezuelan opera) debuted in 1877, under the auspices of Antonio Guzmán Blanco
Antonio Guzmán Blanco
Antonio Leocadio Guzmán Blanco was President of Venezuela for three separate terms, from 1870–1877, from 1879–1884, and from 1886–1887....
. Another major early Venezuelan opera composer was Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....
, who was greatly influenced by his teacher Massenet. He greatly expanded the genre of French operetta, of which Ciboulette
Ciboulette
Ciboulette is a French opérette in three acts, music by Reynaldo Hahn, libretto by Robert de Flers and Francis de Croisset, first performed at the Théâtre des Variétés, in Paris, on April 7, 1923...
was his most famous work; he also composed operas.
Before the foregoing had occurred, José María Osorio had composed early zarzuelas. The first Venezuelan zarzuela to debut, however, was José Ángel Montero
José Ángel Montero
José Ángel Montero was a Venezuelan opera composer, a contemporary of the Brazilian Carlos Gomes...
's Los alemanes en Italia, in the 1860s. Montero also debuted the zarzuelas El Cumpleaños de Leonor, El Charlatán Mudo, La Modista, and many others. Another major zarzuela composer was Pedro Elías Gutiérrez
Pedro Elías Gutiérrez
Pedro Elías Gutiérrez was a Venezuelan musician who is mainly remembered by the joropo song Alma Llanera, whose music he composed.-Life and valoration:...
, who used Venezuelan rhythms in his works. His most important work was perhaps Alma Llanera, with lyrics by Rafael Bolívar Coronado
Rafael Bolivar Coronado
Rafael Bolívar Coronado was born in Villa de Cura, , Venezuela, on 6 June 1884. He is the author of the lyrics of the popular joropo song "Alma Llanera"...
.
In the 20th century, Caracas had a rich cultural tradition. Teatro Maderero, Teatro Caracas, and the more modern Teatro Nacional de Caracas and Teatro Municipal de Caracas competed for the public's attention. The Teatro Maderero and Teatro Caracas, after the construction of the latter two, played a secondary role and were nearly always used for popular musical acts, such as reviews and fandango. The Teatro Nacional was the theater for the country's finest zarzuela, while the Municipal typically staged Italian, German and Spanish works, which were more serious.
In contemporary Venezuela, there are great lyrical composers, including María Luisa Escobar, whose works include Kanaime, Orquídeas Azules, and Princesa Girasol. Other important composers include Hector Pellegatti (author of the verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
opera El Negro Miguel with lyrics by Pedro Blanco Vilariño), Alexis Rago (author of El Páramo, Miranda, and Froilán el Infausto), and Federico Ruíz (author of the famous opera buffa Los Martirios de Colón, with a libretto by Aquiles Nazoa
Aquiles Nazoa
Aquiles Nazoa was a Venezuelan writer, journalist, poet and humorist. His work expressed the values of popular Venezuelan culture.He worked in the newspaper El Universal as a packer, later becoming a proof-reader...
). Today Venezuelan operas are typically held in the Teatro Teresa Carreño.