Opera After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" and Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" that came to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly". Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono, have experimented with modernism. The first German opera was "Dafne", composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until the late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this
Sigurður Bragason Icelandic National Theatre, Marcello in La Boheme in the Reykjavík City Theatre, Black Bob in Lets Make an Opera by Benjamin Britten in the Icelandic Opera and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas by Purcell. He has performed arias by Wagner and Mozart with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and been a soloist in Messiah, Bach cantatas, Vespro della Beata Vergine by Monteverdi and Carmina Burana by Carl Orff under the conductor Willy Gohl. Sigurður has also appeared in "Tosca", "La Boheme", "The Magic Flute", "Let’s Make an Opera", "Dido and Aeneas", "Carmina Burana" under Willy Gohl, Messias, Bach Cantatas and Vespro