Saturday Rave: L'Orpheo, by Claudio Monteverdi and Alessandro Striggio

There's nothing particularly original about L'Orpheo. It wasn't the first opera (that's reckoned to be Jacopo Peri's Dafne, now sadly lost. Peri's Euridice, which does survive, is earlier than L'Orpheo, too). But L'Orpheo is the work where the various elements of what is now called opera first came together into something that worked really well. 

Now, I realise that, according to a lot of noisy people nowadays, liking opera is a sign of the evil and manipulative disposition of someone who enjoys grinding the faces of the poor. But that is, frankly, nuts: for one thing I'm a children's writer. I mean, how poor can you get?

And for another, L'Orpheo is a masterpiece You can find L'Orpheo on YouTube for free if you're interested, but I especially wanted to mention Alessandro Striggio. He wrote the words.

Words like these:

Io la Musica son, ch’a i dolci accenti,
 Sò far tranquillo ogni turbato core, 
Ed hor di nobil ira, & hor d’amore 
Posso infiammar le più gelate menti. Io sù 

Cetera d’or cantando soglio 
Mortal orecchio lusingar talhora, 
E in questa guisa a l’armonia sonora 
De la lira del Ciel più l’alme invoglio;


I am Music, who in sweet accents, 
Can make peaceful every troubled heart, 
And so with noble anger, and so with love, 
Can I inflame the coldest minds. 

Singing with my golden Lyre, 
I like To charm, now and then, mortal ears, 
And in such a fashion that I make their souls aspire more 
For the resounding harmony of the lyre of Heaven. 

******

I invite the noisy people to Spot the Evil there.

Word To Use Today: harmony. The Latin word harmonia means a concord of sounds. It comes from the Greek word harmos, a joint.