Glorious Apollo: Poetic and Political Themes in the First Opera

Abstract

Historians of early opera have occasionally noted the appropriateness of Orpheus’ appearance as artistic spokesman for the new art form. Poet-singer par excellence of antiquity, whose music shook the very depths of the universe as he retrieved Eurydice from the Underworld, Orpheus surely appealed to the early opera composers and their humanist program—to recreate the moving power of an entirely sung drama by forging a new union of poetry, music, and gesture.In the history of opera, however, primacy of place must be given to the god Apollo, for the legend of Apollo and Daphne was the subject of the first favola per musica, La Dafne, written by Ottavio Rinuccini, with music composed by Jacopo Corsi and Jacopo Peri, and first performed in 1598 at Corsi's home in Florence.