Opera seria

Opera seria (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɔːpera ˈsɛːrja]; plural: opere serie; usually called dramma per musica or melodramma serio) is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once opera seria was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as a historical genre. The popular rival to opera seria was opera buffa, the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte.

Italian opera seria (invariably to Italian libretti) was produced not only in Italy but also in Spain, Habsburg Austria, England, Saxony, German states, and other countries. Opera seria was less popular in France, where the national genre of French opera was preferred. Popular composers of opera seria included Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolf Hasse, Leonardo Vinci, Nicola Porpora, George Frideric Handel, and in the second half of the 18th century Tommaso Traetta, Josef Mysliveček, Gluck, and Mozart.

Seria

Seria is a town in the Belait District of Brunei Darussalam. Its full name is Pekan Seria (Pekan is the Malay word for "Town").

History

Seria was originally known as Padang Berawa which is Wild Pigeon's Field in Malay.

According to some facts, the name 'Seria' came from the name given by the British authorities at that time, which known as the South East Reserved Industrial Area. The Industrial area is located near the place where oil was first discovered in the area in 1929.

The first commercial oil well was spudded in 1929 in Padang Berawa on the west bank of the Seria river (Sungai Seria).

Seria area was gazetted as municipal area in 1936. The town came under the authority of the Kuala Belait Sanitary Board which also had responsibility for the municipal area of Kuala Belait.

Florian Leopold Gassmann

Florian Leopold Gassmann (3 May 1729 – 21 January 1774) was a German-speaking Bohemian opera composer of the transitional period between the baroque and classical eras. He was one of the principal composers of dramma giocoso immediately before Mozart.

Biography

Gassmann was born in Brüx, Bohemia, and was most likely trained by Johann Woborschil, the local chorus master. His father was a goldsmith who may well have opposed his son's choice of a musical career.

From 1757 until 1762, he wrote an opera every year for the carnival season in Venice, and was also appointed choirmaster in the girls’ conservatory in Venice in 1757. Many of the librettos he set were by the renowned Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni.

In 1763 he was called to Vienna as court ballet composer, and was held in great affection by Emperor Joseph II. In 1764 he was appointed chamber composer to the Emperor, and in 1772 court conductor.

In 1766 Gassmann met up-and-coming young Antonio Salieri in Venice, invited him return with him to Vienna with him and taught him composition using Johann Joseph Fux’s textbook Gradus ad Parnassum. Salieri remained in Vienna, and succeeded Gassmann as chamber composer to the Emperor on the latter's death in 1774. Another Italian composer, Giuseppe Bonno, succeeded Gassmann as court conductor.