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Baroque opera - part two
The society of Florentine Camerata were specializing on setting words and poems to music, in a 'proper way'. Actually, the very first opera, Euridice by Peri, is not a work of one person but a collective effort of this Camerata composers and poets. The first opera was a drama where the recitative was telling and driving the action forward, and the music was set to this action. However, the music in the first opera was not that affectionately set so one could really feel and emphatize with the actors/singers, even though the feelings they want to convey are intense. What was needed to make progress in opera?
The answer is - Claudio Monteverdi. Not being a member of the Florentine Camerata, he had different ideas of what was possible to accomplish with opera. His first opera, 'Orfeo', at 1607 was a premonition of what was going to come. In total he wrote 19 works for stage, although not all of them survived. However, the legacy he left with his operas was a new art of music to be further developed by the successive composers. His 'Orfeo' showed what could be possible to achieve on stage, including the virtuosic solo singing, involvement of many more instruments than the Camerata society was using, and first and foremost the more intensely feel and empathy behind the music. Moneteverdi's music was much more moody, painting many affections of a human mind. Now the opera was really coming alive! Not to diminish the importance of Peri and the Florentine Camerata - they had their part in development of opera for sure - but Monteverdi is the man who really triggered the progress of stage drama music.
In particular, Monteverdi was really good at pairing the natural rhythm of spoken words with music. His opera arias don't have the melismatic moments in them, as was common in the Renaissance, but rather convey the natural feel of the words finely connected to the harmonies of music. Nowadays, it is regarded as something of a standard practice, but back in the 1600 it was not that common at all. It took some great minds of music to get there. The striking thing about all this is that only one mind - Monteverdi - just a few years after the first opera was set to stage, managed to develop the opera form so much. Monteverdi's 'Orfeo' should be in every musician's CD collection. It's not only beautiful but also a milestone in the history of western music.
Other baroque operas that followed in Monteverdi's fine art and became famous include Henry Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas'. Even here the finely composed music conveys intensive feelings to the words it accompanies. It actually conveys most of the feelings, as words are somehow hidden in the intensity of music.
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