Florentine Opera and canto fiorito

Join Dr Joseph Talia OAM, opera singer, artistic director, teacher and scholar, in a musical journey across four centuries, enhancing our appreciation of the qualities that make Italian opera one of the most loved artistic forms of all time, as well as one of the most successful cultural exports of il Bel Paese. Whilst monody proved an excellent device for story-telling, it failed to satisfy the Italian love of melody, let alone their love for the human voice. The inevitable reaction was brought to fruition by Pietro Antonio Cesti in Venice, and especially by two young Sicilians: Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples and Antonio Pistocchi in Bologna. They returned to flowing, lilting melodies, reintroducing canto fiorito – a precursor to the bel canto singing, which reached its zenith with Rossini.