Opera semiseria
"Half-serious" opera: a serious plot with occasional comic scenes.
What it means
Opera semiseria (Italian for "half-serious opera") denotes an operatic form that mixes serious and cheerful elements. The plot is predominantly serious, often touching and with a happy ending, but contains comic characters and individual cheerful scenes. The mixture was meant to provide variety and not to overburden the audience.
Musical use
The genre arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the strict separation of opera seria and opera buffa loosened. Well-known examples are Rossini's La gazza ladra (1817) and Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix (1842). It lies between the serious and comic traditions and influenced Romantic opera.
Opera semiseria should be distinguished from opera seria, which is serious throughout and mostly mythological or historical, and from opera buffa, which is comic throughout. Mozart's Don Giovanni, a dramma giocoso, also mixes seriousness and comedy but follows a different tradition.
Performance practice
When you sing in an opera semiseria you need both: serious expression in the dramatic scenes and lightness in the cheerful ones. Pay attention to a clear change of character from scene to scene.