Aria

What it means

An aria is a piece composed for a solo voice with instrumental accompaniment that stands within a larger work, chiefly opera, oratorio, and cantata. Unlike the recitative, which drives the plot forward with speech-like singing, an aria halts the action to unfold an inner state, a feeling, or a reflection of the singing character.

Musically an aria is self-contained: it has its own melodic material, a fixed form, and usually a clearly marked ending, often designed to draw applause.

Musical use

The classic form of Baroque opera is the da capo aria: an opening section returns after a contrasting middle section, with the singer ornamenting the repeat. Composers such as Handel and Bach used this scheme to explore a single affect, such as grief, anger, or joy, at length.

In nineteenth-century opera the strict scheme loosened in favor of freer, more dramatically pointed forms, without the aria losing its role as a musical high point. Virtuosic arias that foreground technical brilliance and coloratura are often called bravura arias.

An aria should be distinguished from a recitative, which narrates the plot closely following the text and without a fixed musical form, and from an arioso, an intermediate form with more melodic character than recitative but without the aria's closed form. It differs from an ariette mainly in its greater scope and demands.

Arias have also kept a place outside the stage: concert arias, composed for the concert hall rather than an opera plot, and individual arias detached from their original work, remain a standard part of vocal recital programs today.

Performance practice

When singing or accompanying an aria, hold on to the single central affect the piece carries and let it work across its whole span, rather than diluting it with constant changes of expression. In a da capo aria, shape the repeat of the opening section deliberately differently from the first time, for instance through ornamentation, without losing the underlying melody.