Birth of Opera

Important study of early history of Opera - distinguished author well known through teaching and articles "The Birth of Opera" deals with the predecessors and early speciments of opera from Poliziano's "Orfeo" (c. 1480) to Monteverdi's "Arianna" (1608). It pays considerable attention to the role played by such poets as Poliziano, Tasso, Guarini, Rinuccini, and Chiabrera and the conventions that gradually developed for shaping the dramatic plot with regard to operatic structure, in particular the problem of the finale, which required a happy ending, and the inevitable foil preceding it, the expressive solo singing of a lament, which was often accompanied by an echo. The accent is on the early operas of Peri and Monteverdi and their predecessors, the intermedi, but frequent references to later operas by Cavalli, Gluck, Mozart, Verdi, and Stravinsky relate the origins of the genre to its essence through the centuries. In particuar, the enduring fascination with the Orpheus myth, from ancient Greece to Haydn and Stravinsky, is explored in greater detail than in most histories of early opera. List of tables; list of music examples; list of abbreviations.