May 15: Introduction

Welcome to this Independent Study course on the history of Baroque opera. The three students taking this course will work independently on assigned projects, which we will share and compile when we meet as a group. I have compiled a set of Internet links relevant to our topic in the column to the right. You will be expected to post your research findings regularly on this Weblog, as a way to share information with the other students.

FIRST READING ASSIGNMENTS:
Lorenzo Bianconi. Music in the Seventeenth Century. Translated by David Bryant. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. [ML290.2 .B513 1987]

• Read Section IV, "Opera" (Chapters 19 and 20)

"Opera." In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan, 2002.

• Read sections on 17th century

FIRST LISTENING ASSIGNMENTS:
Jacopo Peri. Euridice: An Opera in One Act, Five Scenes (Florence, 1600). Libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. Edited by Howard Mayer Brown. [facsimile: M2 .M85 ser.1, no.28; transcription: M2 .R28 v.36-37; CD: ARTS 47276]

Emilio Cavalieri. Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo (Rome, Oratory of the Chiesa Nuova, 1600) [score: M1503.C38 R3 1956]

Claudio Monteverdi. Orfeo. Libretto by Alessandro Striggio (Mantua, 1607) [score: M2 .C61 v.9; CD: EMI 47142; video: LONDON 071 203]