1720–1740
Opera seria acquired definitive form early during the 1720s. While Apostolo Zeno and Alessandro Scarlatti had paved the way, the genre only truly came to fruition due to Metastasio and later composers. Metastasio's career began with the serenata Gli Orti Esperidi ("The Gardens of the Hesperides"). Nicola Porpora, (much later to be Haydn's master), set the work to music, and the success was so great that the famed Roman prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, "La Romanina", sought out Metastasio, and took him on as her protégé. Under her wing, Metastasio produced libretto after libretto, and they were rapidly set by the greatest composers in Italy and Austria, establishing the transnational tone of opera seria: Didone abbandonata, Catone in Utica, Ezio, Alessandro nell' Indie, Semiramide riconosciuta, Siroe and Artaserse. After 1730 he was settled in Vienna and turned out more librettos for the imperial theater, until the mid 1740s: Adriano, Demetrio, Issipile, Demofoonte, Olimpiade, La clemenza di Tito, Achille in Sciro, Temistocle, Il re pastore and what he regarded as his finest libretto, Attilio Regolo. For the librettos, Metastasio and his imitators customarily drew on dramas featuring classical characters from antiquity bestowed with princely values and morality, struggling with conflicts between love, honour and duty, in elegant and ornate language that could be performed equally well as both opera and non-musical drama. On the other hand, Handel, working far outside the mainstream genre, set only a few Metastasio libretti for his London audience, preferring a greater diversity of texts.
At this time the leading Metastasian composers were Hasse, Antonio Caldara, Vinci, Porpora, and Pergolesi. Vinci's settings of Didone abbandonata and Artaserse were much praised for their stromento recitative, and he played a crucial part in establishing the new style of melody. Hasse, by contrast, indulged in stronger accompaniment and was regarded at the time as the more adventurous of the two. Pergolesi was noted for his lyricism. The main challenge for all was achieving variety, a break from the pattern of secco recitative and aria da capo. The mutable moods of Metastasio's librettos helped, as did innovations made by the composer, such as stromento recitative or cutting a ritornello. During this period the choice of keys to reflect certain emotions became standardized: D minor became the choice key for a composer's typical "rage" aria, while D major for pomp and bravura, G minor for pastoral effect and E flat for pathetic effect, became the usual options.
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