L'Orfeo

In the classical tradition, Orpheus is the epitome of the artist, so gifted in music that he can move the gods themselves. That being said, Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo was bound to be one of the most successful works in the history of melodrama; in fact, L'Orfeo is the first masterpiece in the art of melodrama! Using all the musical innovations of his time and particularly daring polyphony, Monteverdi's work tells the story of Orpheus and his journey to the Underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice. But all it takes is a single glance and all seems lost... Musicologist Robert Donington writes about this first opera in the history of music: "The score contains no elements that were not used before, but it reaches complete maturity in this newly born artistic form [...] with the total inspiration of Genius!" The proposition by Alessandro Striggio, Monteverdi's librettist, to conclude the piece with the glorification of Orpheus, taking place among the constellations, then appears as the only possible outcome for a drama as sublime as L'Orfeo.