Opera Sheet Music

Ruggiero Leoncavallo, both composer and librettist, based Pagliacci on real-life events he recalled from childhood. From these he fashioned a vivid musical play with intense passions build in the live...

In Lehar's bittersweet operetta Giuditta, the beautiful heroine Giuditta abandons her husband to be with Octavio, an army captain. When he leaves her to pursue his military career, she becomes a night...

Spanish (Basque) composer Pablo Sorozábal (1897-1988) was something of a child prodigy on piano and violin, earning his living in cinemas, cafés and fairgrounds. Leading librettists Romero and Shaw, w...

In its original form, the Fete Polonaise from the Opera Le Roi Malgre, is scored for chorus and orchestra. Ever the artistic pragmatist, Chabrier turned the dance sequence into a glittering orchestral...

Puccini's Opera Manon Lescaut is based on the 1731 novel L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbe Prevost. He used some musical elements in Manon Lescaut from earlier works h...

Puccini's Opera Manon Lescaut is based on the 1731 novel L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. He used some musical elements in Manon Lescaut from earlier works h...

Ravel originally wrote Ma mere l'oye (Mother Goose) as a piano duet for the Godebski children, Mimi and Jean, ages 6 and 7. Ravel dedicated this work for four hands to the children (just as he had ded...

In 1919, Spanish composer Reveriano Soutullo began his famous musical partnership with Juan Vert, which continued until the latter's early death in 1931. The Zarzuela La leyenda del beso (1924) is one...

Rinaldo was the first opera Georg Friederich Händel produced for London and the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. Even now it's still one of his most performed opera's. I...

Rinaldo was the first opera Georg Friederich Händel produced for London and the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. Even now it's still one of his most performed opera's. I...

Der Zigeunerbaron is Strauss's second most popular operetta after Die Fledermaus. Its 1885 premiere had political resonance; the plot popularized the Dual (Austro-Hungarian) Monarchy which was to come...

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) finished his masterpiece Otello in October 1885. The libretto by Arrigo Boito was based on Shakespeare's tragedy. The Bonfire Chorus is sung in the very first act: the peopl...

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera contains two famous soprano roles, strong male solo roles, fine choruses and sharp dramatic situations. And yet it is not quite as popular as some other Ver...

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera contains two famous soprano roles, strong male solo roles, fine choruses and sharp dramatic situations. And yet it is not quite as popular as some other Ver...

The famous Meditation from Jules Massenet opera Tha's is the entr'acte for violin and orchestra played between the scenes of the second act and nowadays often performed as a separate concert piece.

The famous Meditation from Jules Massenet opera Thaïs is the entr"acte for violin and orchestra played between the scenes of the second act and nowadays often performed as a separate concert piece.

If we say that zarzuela is Spanish light opera with spoken dialogue we shall be near the mark. José Serrano (1873-1941) is one of the most famous composers of Zarzuela. In 1910 he composed his one act...

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera contains two famous soprano roles, strong male solo roles, fine choruses and sharp dramatic situations. And yet it is not quite as popular as some other Ver...

With his 'L'elisir d'amore' (The Elixer of Love), composed in 1832 Donizetti wrote something far greater than a mere comic opera: this was perhaps the first example of a moving, middleclass genre of t...

Frederico Chueca (1846-1908) and Joaquin Valverde (1846-1910) had been collaborating since 1875. They had already enjoyed huge success with 'La canción de la Lola' in 1880 and "La Gran Vía" was to ecl...

Don Alvaro's aria 'La vita e inferno all'infelice comes in the third act. It is dawn at the encampment at Velletri in Italy, where Don Alvaro has enrolled under the name of Don Federico Herreros. He s...

Don Alvaro's aria La vita è inferno all"infelice comes in the third act. It is dawn at the encampment at Velletri in Italy, where Don Alvaro has enrolled under the name of Don Federico Herreros. He si...

Giuseppe Verdi composed his opera Rigoletto in 1851 and together with La Traviata (1853) and Il Trovatore (1853) it belongs to the top of his middle period of composing. The duet "Si, vendretta, treme...

Emmerich Kálmán's most beloved operetta "Die Csárdásfürstin" had its first performance at the Vienna "Johann Strauss-Theater" in November 1915. Only in the German speaking countries it was performed 5...

The Austrian composer Carl Zeller (1842-1898) did contribute a great part to the glory of the Golden Era of the Viennese operetta in which Johann Strauss jr., Franz von Suppé and Karl Millöcker were t...