He fails, and she is forever trapped in the Underworld. While there is no surviving manuscript, we do have Peri’s Eurydice, which premiered at a nobleman’s wedding in 1600.Įurydice, based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, tells the story of his descent to the underworld to bring his dead bride back to the living world. Enter Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), who composed what many consider to be the first opera, Dafne (1597). Unfortunately, not one of the Camerata members could pull off anything worth producing. To that end, the Camerata was inspired to recreate Greek tragedy by setting drama to music, which they called “ dramma per musica. They declared a war on polyphony, which refers generally to music consisting of two or more distinct melodic lines performed simultaneously. The Camerata unanimously believed that for every phrase of poetry, the lyrics, there could only be one unique melody that perfectly expressed it. They were called the Florentine Camerata. How did Italian opera start?Īround the late 1500s (toward the end of the Renaissance), in Florence, Italy, an all-male who’s-who of intellectual and artistic society gathered to discuss how to improve popular music of the day. In short, Italian opera combines recitative (a type of speak- singing that imitates the rhythm and delivery of ordinary speech to move the plot forward) with arias, duets, trios, etc. But let’s be clear, we’re talking about the Italian opera style here, which can be written in any language. The rich (and juicy!) history behind how Italian opera came to dominate the genre goes hand in hand with why. The simplest reason for Italian opera’s 400-year reign is that it’s an exquisite way to express pure emotion and to tell a layered, multisensory story.
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