Abstract
‘io non faccio le mie cose à caso’ [I do not do things by chance] Monteverdi, Il quinto libro de madrigali a cinque voci (1605) As Florentine music drama began its climb on the slippery rock of conviction, the stakes for the prologue became expectedly high. The allegorical presenter of the spectacle had to deploy sufficiently engaging manner and language1 to establish her reality and facilitate the passage into a world whose inhabitants communicate through song. Responding to this challenge, Claudio Monteverdi and Alessandro Striggio assigned the role to La Musica in L’Orfeo. As participants in the Italian cultural rivalries of the period, moreover, they also had to surpass their historical rival Euridice, which Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini had produced in October 1600 for the royal nuptials of Maria de Medici and Henri IV of France.2 The latter work’s happy ending had spoiled the myth and questioned the choice of La Tragedia as the opening figure. In addition, her modest melody (repeated sevenfold) and belated announcement of the story in the last of 28 lines left much space for improvement (illus.1).
Published Version
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