CABALETTA

(Italian cobola: couplet), originally an operatic aria with a simple, animated rhythm, and later a fast concluding section of an operatic aria, usually at the end of an act. An example of the earlier type is Le belle immagini (The Beautiful Images) in Gluck's Paride ed Elena (1770). In 19th-century Italian opera, cabaletta may mean either a short aria in quick tempo with repeated sections (examples occur in the operas of Rossini) or a brilliant conclusion to an aria, e.g., Violetta's Sempre libera (Always free) in Verdi's La traviata. In Stravinsky's Rake's Progress (1951), Anne's cabaletta has the older form of a short aria in quick, uniform tempo.