SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM.( b. Stratford-upon-Avon, England, ? April 1564; d. Stratford-Upon-Avon 23 April 1616 )
Twenty-nine of William Shakespeare's plays have been made into operas, many of them several times. Their composers include Rossini, Bellini, Berlioz, Verdi, Gounod, Wagner and Purcell. Shakespeare himself was a contemporary of the Camerata, an Italian group of artists, instrumental in the early development of the operatic form. He is remembered as perhaps the greatest genius in Western theatre.
The distinction between drama and music theatre was not as marked in Shakespeare's day as in our own. Much of his own work was written for performance at court, where song and dance would have been interposed between the dramatic scenes. Instrumental players, trained solo singers, and boy's choirs would have all been at his disposal when writing for these royal occasions.
Songs actually farther the plot in some of Shakespeare's plays. In these cases their words survive in the body of the text. But the original settings are lost, and much that occurred between the scenes must also be missing.
