Peri's Dafne, the first opera

1598 · Work

In a Florentine palazzo, a circle of humanists trying to resurrect Greek tragedy has Jacopo Peri set an entire drama to music — sung speech from first line to last. The score is almost entirely lost, but the experiment is not: within a decade Monteverdi's Orfeo shows what the new form can do, and opera is loose in the world.

On these timelines: Classical Music, Renaissance, Arts and Thoughts, Master, Italy (post-476 CE)

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