Deus ex Machina - Literally, "god out of a machine," a literary or staging device which refers to some last-minute salvation of a tricky situation by a god or goddess who has been watching the entire plot unfold from afar. In the baroque period, elaborate scenery was devised whereby a particular god (more often than not Amor, the god of love) would descend from above the stage in a little cloud or carriage.

Director/Producer - Depending upon the locale of the producing company, the person who creates the staging for a play or an opera; in America this person is called the director, or the stage director, as opposed to the conductor who leads the orchestra. Throughout Europe, this person is known as the producer while the orchestra conductor is frequently called the director!

Diva - A female opera star of great rank or pretension; the original Italian word means "goddess."

Dramma Giocoso - An opera that combines serious elements, enacted by aristocratic personages, with comic relief, played out and commented upon by earthier peasant stock. The most famous example of dramma giocoso is Mozart's Don Giovanni, although the composer himself never actually called it such--only Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist, did.

Duet - A musical composition for two performers.

Embellishment - The addition of extra notes to an already established melody line; in the days of Handel, and again in the flourishing of 19th century Italian bel canto, the process of embellishing a vocal line whenever it is repeated was the standard practice. Some composers, like Bach and Mozart, wrote out their own embellishments--others trusted the instrumentalists and singers to add their own.

Entr'acte - A musical composition played between acts or between scenes within an act of an opera.

Entrée - A musical composition, used mainly in the French baroque period by its greatest practitioners, Rameau and Lully, which has a martial, aggressive quality; the entrée generally was played to introduce an important character or group of characters. In some French baroque works, such as Rameau's Les Indes galantes , each act was called an entrée.

Falsetto - The technique of singing whereby the tone produced has a light, "head voice" quality; this use of a "false" voice, which is what the term really means, enables a bass or a baritone to imitate a female voice, for example.

Fioritura - Understandably confused with coloratura but meaning almost the same thing; taken from "fior" which means "flower" in Italian, fioratura refers to the actual flowery, embellished vocal line within an aria. All coloratura sopranos have to sing fioratura at some point or another, but there is no such thing as a fioratura soprano.

Grand Opera - Opera that is sung from start to finish, as opposed to opera that may have spoken dialogue; grand opera frequently treats serious, dramatic subjects and, in French opera of the 19th century, was generally epic in scale with a full-scale ballet inserted in the middle of the work.

Hauptstimme - This refers to the principal musical material of a work. In the operas of Schoenberg or Berg, early 20th century German composers, the main melodies are marked with an "H" to indicate that the composers considered those the principal tunes.

Heldentenor - A type of tenor voice which hearkens back to the golden age of Wagnerian singing; the typical heldentenor has an unusually brilliant top register (high notes) combined with a muscular lower voice, almost like a baritone, and is capable of long passages that require great vocal stamina. Tristan and Siegfried are great heldentenor roles. One of the great heldentenors of the century was Lauritz Melchior.

Imbroglio - Operatic scene in which diversity of rhythm and melody create chaos and confusion; the original meaning of the Italian word was "intrigue."

Intermezzo - A short musical entertainment, which in its earliest manifestation might be played between the acts of a longer, more serious operatic work; the intermezzo was almost always of light hearted character, and never involved more than three or four singers. One well-known operatic intermezzo is La serva padrona (The Maid Becomes the Mistress) of Giovanni Pergolesi (1733), which was sung between the first and second acts of a much larger, and quite forgotten, work Il prigioner superb (The Model Prisoner).