Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

THE FIRST EVER OPERA (BUT ONE)

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mm. I know what you're thinking. Who he? Ed? Quite, quite.

You see, the world has decided, somewhat dubiously, that the first opera ever written was Monteverdi's UOrfeo, which is only fair in so far as… well, in so far as it wasn't. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo was, in fact, the second opera ever written. Peri's Dafne was the first. So, where did it all go wrong for Peri? Because it's a bit like, well… imagine Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, the first man ever to do so, and yet the world decides to remember Buzz Aldrin as the hero. So, where did it all go wrong for Peri?

Well, it seems that giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel is really the culprit, here. True, Monteverdi, it seems, was probably by far the more skilful of the two composers, with an oeuvre richer in harmonic invention and melody. Peri was more or less his contemporary, born in Rome and one of the great musicians of his day, as well as friend of the Medicis. He was also one of the in-crowd, as it were, and, as such, probably there at the sharp end when dmmma per musica came back in. Indeed, he almost certainly had a hand in reviving it, alongside some of his fellow writers. Where fortune seems to have favoured Monteverdi, though, is in the simple but crucial matter of survival. The score of Monteverdi's UOrfeo survived; the score of Peri's Dafne didn't. To add further insult to injury, Peri's second opera, Eurydice, was written some seven years before the first performance of Monteverdi's UOrfeo, and is, technically speaking - with full surviving score, etc - the first opera in existence. And yet, despite all that, the ground-breaking nature of Monteverdi's opera still leads many to describe it today as the first 'real' opera ever written. I don't know, what is a man to do? It reminds me of the story of Edison and his telephone and the dodgy dealings which led to the failure of rival designs. Still. What's done is done: Monteverdi is remembered some 450 years after his birth, while Peri is no more than a piece of trivia in the classical music section of a pub quiz. Isn't life a bastard?