Concert aria
A self-contained, concert-style aria written outside an opera or larger work.
What it means
A concert aria is a stand-alone aria with orchestral accompaniment that is not part of an opera or other larger stage work, but was composed specifically for the concert hall or as an insertion piece.
Musical use
Composers often wrote concert arias for individual singers as occasional pieces — for an audition, as a gift, or to expand the repertoire available to a particular voice; Mozart left a large number of such works for various voice types. A related practice was the insertion aria, added afterwards into someone else's opera to give a singer a more effective number; the concert aria proper, by contrast, is conceived from the outset for concert performance rather than staged action.
Performance practice
Prepare a concert aria like a small dramatic scene even without staging: the text and musical affect carry the effect on their own, and gesture can stay more restrained than on the opera stage.