Musical Term of the Week
01/27/12
by Melissa Wimbish
This musical term just looks like an alternative word for dramma giocoso..but it sounds kind of smarter.
opera semiseria – A type of Italian opera falling into neither of the classical genres of tragedy or comedy. Derived from the 18th-century French comedie larmoyante, it used serious subject matter, treated with strong melodramitc and sentimental colouring, with subsidiary comic elements often provided by servants, usually in a middle-class, and often contemporary, setting. (Definition provided by The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians)
