Parlando - Literally, "speaking"; this Italian term directs the singer to imitate speech in singing. The "patter songs" of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas frequently employ a great deal of parlando singing.

Pitch - The location of a sound on a scale ranging from high to low.

Polyphony - Literally "many voices"; the mixing together of several melodic lines in a pleasant fashion. Counterpoint is certainly an element, which creates polyphony.

Portamento - The smooth movement in singing or playing a stringed instrument from one note to the next; a portamento can only be achieved in legato singing or playing, and is frequently compared to "glissando," which literally means sliding from one note to the next.

Prelude - The instrumental introduction to an individual act within a musical drama, whether opera or operetta; some composers use the words overture, prelude and entr'acte interchangeably.

Prima Donna - The female star of an opera cast; in Verdi's time it was considered a matter of course to differentiate the roles in terms of their dramatic and vocal importance, such as "Prima Donna," "Seconda Donna," "Terza Donna" and the like. It did not until recently come to describe the personality of the singer, rather than the importance of her role in the opera.

Prompter - A member of the musical staff of many large opera houses; the prompter sits in a small box practically invisible to the audience, under the apron of the stage, and gives singers and choristers the vocal cues seconds before they are required to sing them. In many international houses, where singers perform without benefit of long musical rehearsal periods, a prompter can be invaluable as a memory aide for a jet lagged singer.

Proscenium - A misunderstood term; most performers, even designers, refer to the proscenium when they actually mean the proscenium arch. The proscenium, to be technically exact, is that part of the stage between the curtain and the orchestra pit--and the architectural arch, which encloses the curtain, is called the proscenium arch. Even so, proscenium is used in a larger, more general sense, in the meaning of a stage constructed with a curtain, as opposed to a thrust stage where the stage has no formal enclosure.

Prova - Rehearsal, from the Italian word for "test"; often in Italy, one hears of a "prova generale,"which means the final dress rehearsal. In Germany, a rehearsal is called "probe" (PROE beh); in German houses, one frequently hears of a sitzprobe (a rehearsal with orchestra where the singers sing seated on chairs at the front of the stage instead of moving about) or wandelprobe (where the singers actually go through the motions of their acting while the orchestra plays the music) or generalprobe (which is, in essence, the last dress rehearsal).

Raked Stage - A stage that slants upward away from the view of the audience; in the earliest opera houses, the stage was so slanted so that the audience member sitting in the back of the theatre could have an easy view of someone standing at the back of the stage. Many opera houses in Europe today have stages that are permanently sloped like this.

Range - The division of the human voice, according to six basic types: soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone and bass.

Recitativo - A musical form within an opera which, by imitating rapid speech, advances the plot; this is not the same as parlando, which is a style of singing, but rather a formal device which links together the arias and choruses. Those forms generally express states of mind while the recitative describes a course of action.

Recitativo Accompagnato - Is accompanied by the full orchestra. The introduction to Donna Anna's "Or sai chi l'onore" in Don Giovanni is an example of the "accompagnato" style, where the orchestral sonorities are capable of varying the mood of the narration more than the simple harpsichord accompaniment could.

Recitativo Secco - Is accompanied by the continuo instruments. Numerous passages abound in the operas of Mozart and Rossini of the "secco" style.

Ritornello - The instrumental prelude to an individual song within a cantata, concerto or aria; in baroque Italian operas, the ritornello (which comes from Italian meaning "a little return trip") could be heard not only at the beginning and the end of the aria, but as a dividing mark between stanzas.

Romantic - The period of music between 1830 and the turn of the 20th century; composers of romantic music frequently found inspiration in other than musical ideas, such as nature, painting, birdcalls, and rainstorms. Beethoven was probably the first romantic opera composer, although the most famous are Wagner and Verdi.