OPERAWISE: OPERA BUFFA

In this series of podcasts, Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean gives listeners a taste of nine different types of traditional opera. Opera buffa, the beloved old Italian tradition of opera comedy, is what you get by adding music to the even older Italian tradition of improvised (artisanal) comedy, commedia dell’arte. The fools and buffoons of commedia—the sassy wenches, befuddled old professors, suicidal young lovers, dirty old misers, hungry Harlequins, arrogant soldiers, zany servants, and all the rest—found new ways of entertaining us once they began singing gloriously. And with the opera orchestra functioning as a laugh track and adding jokes of its own, opera buffa continues to disarm us and charm us while putting a big grin on our faces. The Barber of Seville and The Elixir of Love are great examples of the genre.