Since When Opera Has Not Been Written In Italian Anymore

I don't know who the first one was, but Rameau certainly wrote, before Mozart, works not in Italian (also because I believe he didn't even use Italian at all...). Thallo will come to our aid soon (I hope...).

Ah, wow. I was thinking about Handel

Given that up to a certain point (the entire 18th century) the only opera that truly had great diffusion in the world was Italian opera; Mozart wrote only 2 singspiels, The Magic Flute and Abduction from the Seraglio, not in Italian.

It is only in the 19th century that the decline of Italian opera begins on an international level (not on an artistic one, obviously) and the birth of national operas in Europe.

In Germany, the first opera entirely in German was Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber.

LucianoP wrote:

Mozart wrote only 2 singspiels, The Magic Flute and Abduction from the Seraglio, not in Italian.

Hmm... and Bastien und Bastienne and Der Schauspieldirektor and Zaide...

The first opera in German, for which we have no score, is a version of "Dafne" with a libretto by Martin Opitz and music by the great Heinrich Schuetz, performed in 1627, something like 150 years before the Bastien und Bastienne you all spoke about ;-) but it should be a true exception... the tradition of German operas begins, instead, with the opening of the Gänsemarkt in Hamburg in 1678, with Johann Theile's opera "Adam und Eva."

1659, the first opera by Pedro Calderon de la Barca (playwright), "La pùrpura de la rosa," of which not even a single note remains. We have the score set to music by Juan Hidalgo de Polanco for "Celos aun del aire matan," from 1660, also written by Calderon de la Barca. In any case, these are very sporadic examples.

From 1672, Lully's first Tragédie lyrique, "Les Fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus."

1689, what should be Purcell's only "opera," "Dido and Aeneas" (the others are "masques," something a bit different).

But let us remember that the term "opera" encompasses many things, especially in its origins... probably some oratorios were staged, and there existed many mixed vocal forms, such as dramatic madrigals, scenic cantatas, or theatrical performances with extensive musical parts sung within them...