The earliest evidence for the construction of an opera was in a case of not very important, and only slightly connected with the music. In 1579 Bianca Capello was Francisco de Medici, the son of Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany married. The wedding took place in Venice and was a great opportunity, and part of the festivities included dramatic representations accompanied with music.
In suite of the Grand Duke of Florence more that began was a significantInterest in music, and this Florentine gentlemen were very dissatisfied with the music and entertainment experienced in Venice.
The music was written specially for the occasion by two of the most important composers of the time, Andrea Gabrielli and Luca Marenzio, one of the largest Madrigalisten, so it is likely that the Florentines little to complain about the technical terms had its excellence.
What she was open to criticism, however, the lack of respect to theWords and situations in which it was introduced, and upon their return to Florence, they joined a society for the improvement of music, especially in the context of the drama.
Solve the problem, proposing to Florence, too, was not easy, and almost exactly the same as that which confronted Wagner more than two hundred and fifty years later, a drama in which music and words on a completely equal should be in place, hold, and alsoExpression for the feeling of the moment.
By the first attempts of society in dramatic music, for the reason that there is little or no information yet exists, we come to a work of real importance and interest, Euridice by Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini, Rinuccini body, the poem Peri and the music.
True to the spirit of the Renaissance, studied in all things old principles apply to new requirements, saw the Florentine reformerAntique guidance for their innovations. This was the beginning of a new kind of musical entertainment, and perhaps the birth of opera.
The opera in three acts. The scene of the first in the country, where Eurydice and Daphne discovered among a group of nymphs. When she left the stage, takes Orpheus with two shepherds. Daphne currently exist, and it refers to the death of Eurydice by the bite of a serpent, and the first act ends with the application ofOrpheus for his lost Eurydice.
In the second act Venus leads Orpheus into Hades, to which he Pluto please restore Eurydice to life. At first, Pluto is stubborn, but after much pleading, he delivers, and the last act shows the safe return of Orpheus with Eurydice.
The orchestra consisted of only four people, Signer Jacopo Corsi, who played the harpsichord in the wings, Don Garzia Montalro, the chitarone or great guitar playing, knife Giovannibatistadal Violono the viol and Messer Giovanni Lapi, a large lute.
Thus, the orchestra in this early music drama came to the seventeenth century, equivalent to a piano, two guitars and a cello. While the opera is there not a word, all the dialogue spoken in recitative, and the skies are a little too close to recitative, and this is a remarkable example of the pathetic plea at the end of the first act. The choir is also treated in a manner veryunlike the older writer, very clear effort made to keep them so spontaneously and seemed to make, and of course, the course of the story as possible.
A further development of the music drama in a different setting of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, as represented by Glaudio Monteverde (1568-1643), under the title of Orfeo and after a brief sketch of this work, we must turn to other phases of Renaissance musical art .
Monteverde Orfeo was first produced in Mantua in1607, and as Peri Euridice, formed the production part of the celebration of a wedding, in this case that the young Prince Francisco of Mantua.
This was not the first article Monteverde as a dramatic composer, because he had earlier in the same year, a work entitled Ariadne, in which he strong evidence of its originality. His Orfeo, but gives us a clearer idea of the deposit which had made the new dramatic music in the relatively short period of sevenYears.