The Reception of the Orpheus Myth in 17th Century German Music Dramas

Abstract

The story of the divine singer who could tame wild animals and enchant inanimate nature, and who for love of his wife descended to the underworld, has exercised a never-ending fascination throughout all epochs. It is therefore scarcely surprising that the myth of Orpheus became a source of inspiration and his figure a leading character for the new genre of opera, which was beginning to establish itself in the 17th century. The fate of the singer provided seven music dramas with their material, the metamorphoses of which cast light on baroque authors, their public and their age.