Opera buffa, definition, origins and becoming until W.A. Mozart
Opera buffa, definition, origins and becoming until W.A. Mozart

Summary/Abstract: The comic opera or opera buffa, which could be scarcely found until the beginning of the XVIIIth century inside opera seria, through minor comic characters or between acts, as intermezzi, once with the first representation of the opera La serva padrona, by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (+1736), which is generally considered to be the first opera buffa, where music and poetry are happily mixed, fully accomplishes the dramatic function and becomes autonomous. At the beginning inspired by archetypal characters from comedia dell’arte, then more independent, with a powerful and sharp sense of sarcasm, drama and pathos, opera buffa becomes known and appreciated. Freed from the structure of the opera seria, opera buffa ignores the rules of the former , the musical and dramatic innovation dominate as well as the orientation towards the life of normal people.Until W.A. Mozart’s works , opera buffa achieves the performance to overcome its own patterns, transforming them or adding new ones, the result being a hybrid between opera seria and opera buffa.

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