opera serian.

1808 Port Folio 19 Mar. 180/2 The comick theatre, or opera Buffa [printed Bufta], which Piccini formerly raised to a great degree of credit, has much declined. The same degree of respect is not paid to this class of actors as to those of the Opera Seria.

1840 U.S. Mag. & Democratic Rev. Mar. 278 The opera buffa, or comic opera, is indeed more universally performed, and more copiously produced than the opera seria or heroic.

1880 G. Grove Dict. Music II. 513/2 The gradual development of the Opera Buffa from the Interludes which were formerly presented between the Acts of an Opera Seria, or Spoken Drama.

1892 G. B. Shaw How to become Musical Critic (1960) 211 The public had been educated by Gluck to expect at least a show of seriousness in an opera seria.

1911 Encycl. Brit. XX. 124/2 Opera seria is classical Italian opera with secco-recitative; almost always..on a Greek or Roman subject, and,..with a happy ending... The only great classic in opera seria is Mozart's Idomeneo.

1951 M. Cooper Russ. Opera i. 14 The Empress Catherine,..favoured the opéra comique—the opera of social comment and ideas—rather than the more exclusively musical opera seria.

1975 New Yorker 31 Mar. 82/1 Sometime in mid-1780, Mozart was commissioned to write the principal work, an opera seria, for the Munich carnival season.

1986 Music & Lett. Oct. 363 The..settings of the tale were..opere serie.

2002 San Francisco Chron. (Nexis) 11 Sept. e1 In the piece's high-concept premise, a wealthy, boorish patron in 17th century Vienna has commissioned an opera seria, ‘Ariadne on Naxos’, from a promising young composer.