All Topics  
Dafne

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Dafne
 
 
  Topics Dafne Topic Home

Dafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
. It was composed by Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri was an Italy composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance music and Baroque music styles, and is often called the inventor of opera....
, with a libretto
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 by Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italy poet, courtier, and opera libretto at the end of the Renaissance music and beginning of the Baroque music eras. In collaborating with Jacopo Peri to produce the first opera, Dafne, in 1597, he became the first opera librettist....
.

afne is scored for a much smaller ensemble than Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi , was an Italian composer, viol, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the music of the Renaissance music to that of the Baroque music....
's slightly later operas, namely, a harpsichord
Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when each Key is pressed....
, a lute
Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, a viol
Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bow , fretted, stringed instruments musical instruments developed in the 1400s and used primarily in the Renaissance music and Baroque music periods....
, an archlute
Archlute

The archlute is a European plucked string instrument developed around 1600 as a compromise between the very large theorbo, the size and re-entrant tuning of which made for difficulties in the performance of solo music, and the Renaissance tenor lute, which lacked the bass range of the theorbo....
, and a triple flute. Drawing on a new development at the time, Peri established recitatives
Recitative

Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. The mostly syllabic recitativo secco is at one end of a spectrum through recitativo accompagnato , the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the mus...
, melodic speech set to music, as a central part of opera.

The story of Apollo
Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
 falling in love with the eponymous nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
, Daphne
Daphne

According to Greek mythology, Apollo chased the nymph Daphne , daughter either of Peneus and Creusa in Thessaly, or of Ladon River in Arcadia. The pursuit of a local nymph by an Twelve Olympians, part of the archaic adjustment of religious cult in Greece, was given an arch anecdotal turn in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the god's infatuati...
, Jacopo Peri wrote Dafne for an elite circle of humanists
Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the last years of the 14th century....
 in Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
, the Florentine Camerata
Florentine Camerata

The Florentine Camerata was a group of Humanisms, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama....
, between 1594 and 1597, with the support, and possibly the collaboration, of the composer and patron Jacopo Corsi
Jacopo Corsi

Jacopo Corsi was an Italy composer of the late Renaissance music and early Baroque music and patron of the arts....
.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Dafne'
Start a new discussion about 'Dafne'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Dafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera
Opera

Opera is an Performing arts in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work which combines a text and a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition....
. It was composed by Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri was an Italy composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance music and Baroque music styles, and is often called the inventor of opera....
, with a libretto
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 by Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italy poet, courtier, and opera libretto at the end of the Renaissance music and beginning of the Baroque music eras. In collaborating with Jacopo Peri to produce the first opera, Dafne, in 1597, he became the first opera librettist....
.

History

Dafne is scored for a much smaller ensemble than Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi , was an Italian composer, viol, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the music of the Renaissance music to that of the Baroque music....
's slightly later operas, namely, a harpsichord
Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when each Key is pressed....
, a lute
Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
, a viol
Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bow , fretted, stringed instruments musical instruments developed in the 1400s and used primarily in the Renaissance music and Baroque music periods....
, an archlute
Archlute

The archlute is a European plucked string instrument developed around 1600 as a compromise between the very large theorbo, the size and re-entrant tuning of which made for difficulties in the performance of solo music, and the Renaissance tenor lute, which lacked the bass range of the theorbo....
, and a triple flute. Drawing on a new development at the time, Peri established recitatives
Recitative

Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. The mostly syllabic recitativo secco is at one end of a spectrum through recitativo accompagnato , the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the mus...
, melodic speech set to music, as a central part of opera.

The story of Apollo
Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
 falling in love with the eponymous nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
, Daphne
Daphne

According to Greek mythology, Apollo chased the nymph Daphne , daughter either of Peneus and Creusa in Thessaly, or of Ladon River in Arcadia. The pursuit of a local nymph by an Twelve Olympians, part of the archaic adjustment of religious cult in Greece, was given an arch anecdotal turn in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the god's infatuati...
, Jacopo Peri wrote Dafne for an elite circle of humanists
Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the last years of the 14th century....
 in Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
, the Florentine Camerata
Florentine Camerata

The Florentine Camerata was a group of Humanisms, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama....
, between 1594 and 1597, with the support, and possibly the collaboration, of the composer and patron Jacopo Corsi
Jacopo Corsi

Jacopo Corsi was an Italy composer of the late Renaissance music and early Baroque music and patron of the arts....
. It was probably first performed in either 1597 or 1598 at the Palazzo Corsi. An attempt to revive Greek drama, according to modern scholarship, it was a long way off from what the ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 would have recognized, but instead it spawned a whole new form that would last for the next 400 years.

Most of Peri's music has been lost, despite its popularity and fame in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 at the time of its publishing, but the 455 line verse libretto was published and survives. Florence's ruling Medici family was sufficiently taken with Dafne to allow Peri's next work, Euridice
Euridice (opera)

Euridice is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. First performed in Florence on October 6 1600, it has a libretto written by Ottavio Rinuccini, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses ....
, to be performed as part of Marie de' Medici
Marie de' Medici

Marie de' Medici , was queen consort of France. She was the second wife of King Henry IV of France, of the House of Bourbon branch of the kings of France....
 and Henry IV
Henry IV of France

Henry de Bourbon, , ruled as Henry III, List of Navarrese monarchs, from 1572 to 1610, and as Henry IV, List of French monarchs, from 1589 to 1610....
's wedding celebrations in 1600.

External links

  • A play about the first production of Dafne