Dynamic presents the second volume of a series of three releases dedicated to Overtures and Symphonies spanning three centuries of Italian opera. The first volume...

Dynamic presents the second volume of a series of three releases dedicated to Overtures and Symphonies spanning three centuries of Italian opera. The first volume was dedicated to the eighteenth century, while this second features the early nineteenth century. The great popularity of Italian Opera in European courts and theatres transformed this music genre, which had first appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century as a court entertainment, into a product of wide international circulation, universally loved. In the wake of its success, other European nations developed a local operatic tradition but Italian opera kept a predominant role in Europe throughout the entire 19th century. That being the case, it was natural for foreign composers to want to study in Italy where they sometimes remained indefinitely, becoming, for all intents and purposes, composers of Italian opera. Two such composers were Mayr and Arrieta, who join in this program, their most important Italian colleagues of that period: Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini.