The term opera was first introduced into English language in 1648 as a borrowed Italian word, with its first mention in relation to the musical genre dating back to 1639. Interestingly, the first opera, Jacopo Peri’s Dafne, was composed in 1597, yet it took over forty years for a specific term to be coined for this type of musical composition. Originally, the word “opera” meant “work” or “labor” in Italian, which becomes clearer when considering how we refer to musical works and composers’ masterpieces (magnum opera in Latin). As revealed, “opera” derives from the Latin noun opus, also meaning “work”. Ultimately, this can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root op, signifying “to work” and also seen in words like oeuvre, office, optimism, opulent, and cooperate.
