The Early Modern Era

The early modern era · roughly 1900 to 1945 · opened opera to the harmonic and dramatic experiments of Strauss, Puccini's late period, Debussy, Berg, Janáček, and the first generation of composers who treated the orchestra as a co-equal voice to the singers. The line between symphonic poem and music drama was newly negotiated, and the chromaticism, polytonality, and twelve-tone procedures explored in concert music began to find their way onto the operatic stage.