Euridice (Peri)

Euridice
Opera by
The Prologue, from the score published in Florence in 1600
LibrettistOttavio Rinuccini
LanguageItalian
Based onOvid's Metamorphoses
Premiere
6 October 1600 (1600-10-06)
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Euridice (also Erudice or Eurydice) is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. It is the earliest surviving opera, Peri's earlier Dafne being lost. (Caccini wrote his own "Euridice" even as he supplied music to Peri's opera, published this version before Peri's was performed, in 1600, and got it staged two years later.) The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses[1] which recount the story of the legendary musician Orpheus and his wife Euridice.

The opera was first performed in Florence on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti with Peri himself singing the role of Orfeo.[2]

  1. ^ "Le tre Euridici: Characterization and Allegory in the Euridici of Peri and Caccini". Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2011-06-23.
  2. ^ Pietropaolo, Domenico and Parker, Mary Ann (2011). The Baroque Libretto: Italian Operas and Oratorios in the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto, p. 60. University of Toronto Press