OPERA AND ITS POLITICS
fig. 1-3 Francesco Gonzaga (1466–1519), depicted on a Mantuan coin.
One important aspect of the “esthesics” of early dramatic music was its descent in part from the sixteenth-century Florentine court spectacles known as intermedii. All the earliest favole in musica were fashioned to adorn the same kind of north Italian court festivities, flattering the assemblages of “renowned heroes, blood royal of kings” who were privileged to hear them, potentates “of whom Fame tells glorious deeds, though falling short of truth,” as La Musica herself puts it in the prologue to Monteverdi’s Orfeo—first performed during the carnival season of 1607 to fête Francesco Gonzaga, the hereditary prince of Mantua, where the composer was employed. The words were written by the prince’s secretary, Alessandro Striggio (the son of a famous Mantuan madrigalist of the same name), and the whole occasion had a panegyric (prince-praising) subtext.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 1 Opera from Monteverdi to Monteverdi." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-01004.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 1 Opera from Monteverdi to Monteverdi. In Oxford University Press, Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-01004.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 1 Opera from Monteverdi to Monteverdi." In Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-01004.xml
