Euridice (Caccini)
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Eurydice |
| Original title: | L'Euridice |
Title page of the first printing (1600) |
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| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Giulio Caccini |
| Libretto : | Ottavio Rinuccini |
| Literary source: | Orpheus legend from Greek mythology |
| Premiere: | December 5, 1602 |
| Place of premiere: | Florence |
| Playing time: | approx. 1 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Greek mythology |
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L'Euridice is an opera in a prologue and three pictures by Giulio Caccini ( music ) with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini .
action
In a short prologue, the allegorical “ tragedy ” heralds the next game.
Orfeo and Euridice lead a peaceful life in Arcadia . They want to get married, but Dafne as a messenger brings Orfeo the news that Euridice died of a snakebite. Venere leads the desperate Orfeo into the underworld, where he can arouse pity on Plutones and Proserpinas with his pleading song . Orfeo and Euridice can return to Arcadia, where they are greeted by cheering shepherds and nymphs.
style
The idea of the plot stems from considerations of Florentine poets and scholars at the end of the 16th century to revive the performance of ancient tragedies and the sound of ancient music. Rinuccini's libretto sticks closely to the mythological model of the Orpheus material, but changes the ending to a lieto fine , a happy ending, in which Euridice is brought back from the underworld of death and appropriate to the occasion of the creation (a royal wedding) lives happily on with Orfeo.
Just as Jacopo Peri simultaneously resulting Euridice to the same libretto Caccini's work is time at the beginning of class opera , first one for both recitative developed vocal style of the dramatic text. The musicologist Silke Leopold sees Caccini's Euridice Peris rival work inferior to melodic ingenuity, but nevertheless designed to be more theatrical.
history
Giulio Caccini had a long rivalry with his composer colleague Jacopo Peri , who was about ten years his junior and who was also a member of the Camerata Fiorentina . When Peri was commissioned in 1600 to compose a musical stage work for the wedding of King Henry IV of France to Maria de 'Medici , he chose the mythological Orpheus subject. Caccini also began to set Ottavio Rinuccini's libretto to music. The performance of Peris Favola in Musica at the wedding celebrations on October 6th, 1600 turned into a mess, because some of the committed singers belonged to the entourage of the scheming Caccini, including his daughter Francesca . The latter refused to sing the passages composed for them by Peri; instead they sang the corresponding parts from Caccini's setting. The first performance of the oldest surviving opera in music history thus turned out to be a pasticcio, which is no longer exactly comprehensible, from two different settings of the same textbook. After the performance, Caccini hurried to complete his work and have it published before Peris Euridice . It thus became the oldest printed opera in history, although it did not premiere until two years later. Years later, in the foreword to the second edition of his Nuove Musiche 1614, Caccini claimed to have invented the stile recitativo . However, this claim was not recognized and ignored by his contemporaries.
The rarely heard work was performed again in 2013 at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music under the musical direction of Rinaldo Alessandrini and recorded on CD.
Recordings / discography
- L'Euridice . Rodrigo de Zayas (Dir.); Chœurs et Orchester de Rennes. Véronique Dietschy / J. Ingo Foronda / Catalina Moncloa Deptre / Judith Monk / Francisco Javier Valls Santos. 1979, Arion ARN 238023 (2 LP)
- L'Euridice . Nicolas eighth (cond.), Ensemble Scherzi Musicali, 2009, Ricercar RIC 269 (CD)
- L'Euridice . Rinaldo Alessandrini (cond.), Concerto Italiano, 2014, Naïve OP 30552 (CD)
literature
- Silke Leopold : Giulio Caccini: L'Euridice. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 1. Piper, Munich and Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-492-02411-4 , p. 488.
Web links
- Euridice : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Barbara R. Hanning. Euridice (ii). In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ed. Stanley Sadie. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Subscription Access .
- Euridice at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frederico Ghisi: Article Caccini, Giulio. In: Friedrich Blume (Ed.): Music in the past and present . Volume 2, Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel 1952, Col. 609–612.
- ↑ Program book Festwochen für Alte Musik Innsbruck 2013 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), p. 34 ff. (PDF; 8.1 MB)
- ^ "L'Euridice" celebrated its premiere at the Innsbruck Festival Weeks. Tiroler Tageszeitung online, 23 August 2013, accessed on 30 October 2014
- ↑ Markus Thiel: "L'Euridice" at the Innsbruck Festival Weeks. merkur-online.de, August 25, 2013, accessed October 30, 2014