Outlines:

1. Forerunners of Opera
   
   
   1. Drama and music had been intertwined from ancient Greek through Renaissance times.
      
      
   2. Intermedi, or intermezzi.
      1. Pastoral, allegorical, or mythological interludes staged between acts of a play
      2. For important state occasions, intermedi were spectacular, with choruses, soloists, and large instrumental ensembles.
         
         
   3. The pastoral poem
      1. Pastoral poems, about idyllic love, were the predominant genre of Italian poetry in the Renaissance.
      2. Characters were simple rustic youths and the settings involved nature and imaginary places.
         
         
   4. Greek tragedy as a model
      1. Renaissance scholars studied Greek tragedies but disagreed about the role of music.
      2. In one view, only choruses were sung.
      3. A second view, promulgated by Florentine scholar, Girolamo Mei (1519–1594), held that all the parts of a Greek tragedy were to be sung.
         
         
2. The Florentine Camerata
   
   
   1. Background
      1. From the early 1570s onward Count Giovanni Bardi hosted an informal academy of scholars at his palace in Florence.
      2. The academy discussed literature, science, and the arts.
      3. Musicians performed new compositions at gatherings.
      4. The scholars began to read letters from Girolamo Mei on Greek music after 1577.
         1. Mei believed the power of Greek music lay in the use of a single melody (solo or unison choir).
         2. The melody moved the listener through the natural expressiveness of vocal registers, rises and falls in pitch, and changes of rhythm and tempo.
            
            
   2. Vincenzo Galilei (ca. late 1590s–1591, father of Galileo the astronomer)
      1. Used Mei's theories about ancient Greek music to attack Renaissance counterpoint as exemplified in the madrigal.
      2. He promoted a single melody written to enhance the natural speech inflections of a good orator or actor, as in Greek monody.
      3. Simultaneous melodies contradicted each other, detracting from the meaning of the words.
         
         
3. The Earliest Operas
   
   
   1. Ottavio Rinuccini (1562–621), a poet, and Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), a composer, collaborated on all-sung works.
      1. Dafne, produced in Florence in 1597. Only fragments survive.
      2. Euridice was set by Peri and also by Giulio Caccini; both settings were published.
         
         
   2. Peri invented stile recitativo (recitative style) for singing dialogue.
      
      
   3. Monody was not new; solo performers had accompanied themselves in the sixteenth century, and single lines of polyphonic madrigals were often supported by instrumental accompaniments (solo madrigals).
      
      
   4. Giulio Caccini developed a tuneful yet mainly syllabic style of solo song.
      1. Clear and flexible text declamation
      2. He composed embellishments of the melodic line in places where it would enhance the message of the text.
      3. Le nuove musiche (The New Music, 1602)
         1. Collection of his airs and solo madrigals
         2. Included the solo madrigal, Vedrò ‘l mio sol (NAWM 51)
         3. Several types of ornaments were carefully written out.
            
            
   5. Peri's Euridice (NAWM 52) uses all types of monody (see vignette in CHWM).
      1. Peri's style of speech-song was similar to the style scholars thought was used for ancient Greek epic poetry.
      2. The basso continuo holds steady notes while the voice moves in a speechlike fashion, with harmonic relations determined by speech declamation.
      3. Words that would be emphasized in speech were given pitches that were consonant with the bass.
         
         
   6. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607)
      1. The librettist, Alessandro Striggio, expanded the Rinuccini play into a five-act drama.
      2. Monteverdi's style
         1. Recitatives are songful at key moments, with careful tonal organization.
         2. Contrasting sections in a variety of styles: solo airs, duets, and dances
         3. Scenes defined with the use of choruses and instrumental ritornellos (recurring sections)
      3. NAWM 54 a, b, c correspond roughly to NAWM 52 a, b, c, but in expanded proportions.
         1. Prologue, NAWM 54a
            1. Patterned on the air for singing poetry
            2. Each strophe written out, with the same harmony and different melodies
         2. Strophic canzonet, Vi ricorda, o baschi ombrosi (Do you recall, O shady woods), NAWM 54b
            1. Hemiola techniques reminiscent of the frottola
            2. Root-position chords favored
         3. In un fiorito prato (In a flowered meadow), NAWM 54c
            1. Dramatic dialogue in the most "modern" style of the day
            2. Recitative style as developed by Peri, but with more harmonic variety
            3. In Orfeo's lament, Tu se' morta, (CHWM, ex. 9.3), the melody changes with orfeo's mood.
               
               
   7. Florentine court continued to favor other dramatic genres for important events, for example Laliberazione di Rüggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (The freeing of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina), 1625.
      1. Combined ballet and musical scenes
      2. Composed by ´Francesca Caccini (1587–ca. 1640)
         1. Daughter of Giulio Caccini
         2. Sang as a soloist and with her sister and stepmother in a concerto delle donne.
         3. Worked for the Duke of Florence and became his highest-paid musician
            
            
4. Opera in Rome
   
   
   1. Wealthy prelates vied with each other in offering lavish entertainment.
      
      
   2. Roman opera stories came from the lives of the saints, mythology, or epic poems.
      
      
   3. Luigi Rossi (1597–1653)
      1. Composed Orfeo in 1647, on a libretto by Francesco Buti
      2. The libretto for this version adds incidents, characters, special effects, and comic episodes.
      3. The integrity of the drama began to be less important.
      4. Recitatives more speechlike and arias more melodious.
         
         
5. Opera in Venice (see etude, p.189, in CHWM)
   
   
   1. The first opera produced in Venice was Benedetto Ferrari (ca. 1603–1681) and Francesco Manelli's (after 1594–1667) Andromeda, brought from Rome in 1637 to a public theater, the Teatro San Cassiano.
      
      
   2. Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (NAWM 55), 1642, was composed for Venice.
      1. Monteverdi continued to blend speechlike recitative with more lyrical monody.
      2. Scene flows between recitative and aria, with sections in measured arioso.
      3. The content of the libretto rather than its poetic forms dictates the style of the setting.
         
         
   3. Pier Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676), a student of Monteverdi, composed forty-one operas in which recitatives alternate with soloistic arias.
      
      
   4. Antonio Cesti (1623–1669)
      1. His Orontea (NAWM 56), ca. 1649, was performed frequently in Venice and other Italian cities.
         1. Large-scale form, with adjustments to the strophic form
         2. Bel canto style: smooth, mainly diatonic melodies with easy rhythms
         3. Two violins playing throughout, not just in ritornellos
            
            
   5. Mid-seventeenth century Italian opera had the main features it would maintain for the next two hundred years:
      1. Concentration on solo singing
      2. Distinction between recitative and aria
      3. Distinctive aria types
      4. Reversal of the Florentine ideal of the text as master of the music; instead, the libretto became only a support for the musical structure.