The First True Opera?

Orfeo
by Claudio Monteverdi
Municipal Theatre of Lausanne (Switzerland)
Ensemble La Fenice; Veronique Carrot, director.
Performers listed below.

Is it possible for one person to invent an entire form of art? You wouldn’t think so. How about painting? Who invented that? Was it those cave people in France? Or was it someone even earlier, who chose a less durable medium? What about poetry? Hard to say where that originated. Surely there was poetry even before written language evolved. Maybe someone invented narrative fiction. Did someone write the first novel, or the first story? There’s no telling. Fiction has been around since the first “tall tale,” and who’s to say how long ago that practice got started?

But think about opera. It just may be that opera is an art form completely unto itself. Surely, it’s not just another form of music, or storytelling. Opera is also stagecraft, poetry and even philosophy -- all rolled into one, unique aesthetic, in which no single element works on its own. But, did someone invent it? That’s arguable. Opera arose quickly, amongst a community of Italian artists toward the end of the 16th century. But the very earliest of their works have long since been lost. In fact, it was a single, exceptional artist who wrote the first opera that both survived the centuries and stuck in the repertory -- the first opera in which all the elements came together into a package truly worth remembering. The man was Claudio Monteverdi, and his opera is called ORFEO. It tells the classic story of Orpheus, the man who sang his was into and out of Hell, to win back his dead wife. So maybe, in this case, someone really did invent an entire art form single-handedly.

Well, OK, that may be overstating things. But there’s one thing the “experts” all agree on. Even if Monteverdi didn’t write the first opera, he surely wrote the first one that anyone really wants to hear anymore -- and many feel this “first opera” is still one of the best of all time. You can hear for yourself this week on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, with host Steve Curwood. This authentic production of Monteverdi’s ORFEO comes from the Lausanne Opera, on the banks of Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, with the Ensemble Fenice and director Veronique Carrot.

Also, for the story of a real-life, modern-day Orpheus, tune in NPR’s pre- and post-performance show, AT THE OPERA, with Lou Santacroce.

Performers:
Gilles Ragon bass, (Orfeo); Ghyslaine Waelchli, soprano (Euridice); Laura Polverelli, soprano (La Musica, Proserpina); Brigitte Fournier, soprano (Ninfa, La Speranza); Monica Bacelli, soprano (Messenger); Antonio Abete, bass (Caronte, Plutone)


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