The art form known as opera originated in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it drew upon older traditions of medieval and Renaissance courtly entertainment. The word opera, meaning "work" in Italian, was first used in the modern musical and theatrical sense in 1639 and soon spread to the other European languages.

The earliest operas were modest productions compared to other Renaissance forms of sung drama, but they soon became more lavish and took on the spectacular stagings of the earlier genre known as intermedio (spectacle with music which was performed between the acts of a play to celebrate special occasions in Italian courts).

'Dafne' by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today.

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