Coloratura is an elaborate melody with runs, trills, wide leaps, or similar virtuoso-like material, or a passage of such music. Operatic roles in which such music plays a prominent part, and singers of these roles, are also called coloratura. Its instrumental equivalent is ornamentation.
Farinelli, a soprano castrato famous for singing baroque coloratura roles (Bartolomeo Nazari, 1734)
An example of a coloratura passage from a soprano role. It includes a more difficult variant (top stave) with a leap to a high D (D6). Final cadenza from the Valse in Ophélie's Mad Scene (Act IV) from the opera Hamlet (1868) by Ambroise Thomas (piano-vocal score, p. 292).
Glossary of music terminology
A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings. Most of the other terms are taken from French and German, indicated by Fr. and Ger., respectively.
On these organ stops, some of the knobs have numbers indicating the length in feet of the longest (the lowest note) organ pipe of the stop
