Quick-fire opera history timeline

Please note that this is an accessible version of the timeline. Return to the FutureLearn plaform if
you would like to open the interactive timeline.

1598
Dafne with music by Jacopo Peri and text by Ottavio Rinuccini is often identified as the first
opera. It was performed during Carnaval celebrations in Florence. Today the music is
mostly lost, though the text survives.

1625
The first performance of an opera by a woman. Francesca Caccinis La liberazione di
Ruggiero was a comedy-ballet performed for a visiting nobleman to the Medici court in
Florence.

1637
The first public opera performance. The opening of the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice
marked the beginning of opera being staged for a paying audience instead of being
exclusively a private entertainment for aristocrats.

1656
The first opera in English was performed. The Siege of Rhodes was based on a text by an
impresario, William Davenant, which was set to music by five different composers. It was
premiered at a small private theatre at Davenants home.

1689
Premiere of Henry Purcells Dido and Aeneas at Josias Priests girls school in Chelsea in
London. No score in Purcells own hand survives. Whats more, even the date of the
premiere is unclear and may actually have been in 1687 or 1688.

1735
The first season of opera was mounted at Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, directed by
George Frideric Handel. The Theatre Royal (the forerunner of todays Royal Opera House)
had opened two years earlier in 1732, primarily as a theatre for spoken drama.

1825
The first opera performance in Italian in north America. A family troupe of singers led by the
famous Spanish tenor Manuel Garcia arrived in New York and performed a season of opera
that began with Rossinis Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Kings College London, 2017

1843
Premiere of Richard Wagners Der fliegende Hollnder at the Semper Oper in Dresden,
conducted by the composer.

1853
Premiere of Giuseppe Verdis La traviata at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. This is now
one of the most often performed operas in the world but Verdi himself described the
premiere as a fiasco and said only time would be the judge whether the failure was the
singers fault or his own.

1876
The opening of Richard Wagners opera house at Bayreuth (the Festspielhaus). At this
theatre for the first time anywhere the lights in the auditorium were always dimmed for
performances and the orchestra was hidden below the stage.

1881
The first time electric lighting was used in an opera house. The new Savoy Theatre in
London installed state-of-the-art electric lights but at first there was only enough power to
light part of the opera house, and the management still chose to light the auditorium rather
than the stage.

1892
Royal Italian Opera was officially renamed Royal Opera House. This small change had a
major impact: for the first time the company could perform operas in their original languages
(French, or German, for instance) rather than in Italian translation.

1901
The first recordings of opera were made. Work on the so-called Mapleson Cylinders began
in 1901 when Lionel Mapleson, the librarian of the Metropolitan Opera in New York,
installed recording equipment in the opera house. The phonographs he made are some of the
earliest surviving sound recordings.

1918
Premiere of Giacomo Puccinis Gianni Schicchi at the Metropolitan Opera House in New
York. The opera was part of a triple-bill of new one-act operas by Puccini marketed as Il
trittico (the triptych). It was the first opera premiere in the world following the signing of the
Armistice that ended the First World War.

1922
The death of the last castrato. The castrato voice had fallen out of fashion in the early 19th
century, but castrati continued to be employed in the Vaticans choirs. Soprano castrato
Alessandro Moreschi became the star singer in the Vaticans Sistine Chapel from the 1890s
and even made recordings late in his career. He died aged 63 in Rome in 1922.

1931
The first complete, live, nationwide radio broadcast of opera. A matinee performance of
Engelbert Humperdincks opera Hnsel und Gretel was broadcast from New Yorks
Metropolitan Opera as family entertainment on Christmas Day. It was the first broadcast in
a series still running today.
1955
The first African-American singer performed with the Metropolitan Opera. The contralto
Marian Anderson sang the part of Ulrica in Verdis Un ballo in maschera in a performance
that was a crucial first step towards overcoming racial segregation in opera in mid-20th-
century America. Anderson went on to be a major figure in the civil rights movement of the
1960s.

1987
The first Royal Opera House Big Screen performance. Vast crowds were able to watch
Placido Domingo perform in Puccinis La bohme free of charge, on a huge outdoor screen in
Londons Covent Garden Piazza.

2006
The first live broadcast of an operatic performance to cinemas. The Metropolitan Operas
The Met: Live in HD series began with Mozarts The Magic Flute, transmitted live to
cinemas in north America and internationally. Since then the Mets own series has expanded
hugely and similar series have been established both by other opera houses and by theatres
and dance companies.

2011
Premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnages Anna Nicole at Royal Opera House in London.