Figure 3.1. Pietro Paolo Bissari. Medea vendicativa (Munich, 1662), final scene. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Claudio Monteverdi
L’Orfeo, favola in musica. Venice (1609, first edition).
Facsimile of the first edition and other modern transcriptions.
The Orpheus myth: Read the version told by Ovid in Metamorphoses: Book 10. 1-85 and Book 11. 1-66 (translated by A.S. Kline) and Virgil, Georgics 4. 453-527 (commentary by Morford, Lenardson, and Sham.
For complete performances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (and Examples 3.1 and Anthology 4), see below.
Ariadne’s Lament from L’Arianna (1608). Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano, Antiqua Koln, Reinhard Goebel, director:
Examples 3.3 (0:00) and 3.4 (2:14) (Click here for video)
Lamento della ninfa from Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (published in 1638), Les Desandre, Soprano; conducted by Raphaël Pichon, with Ensemble Pygmalion. Subtitles by Music and Text Channel.
Anthology 5
Alfonso Ferrabosco, “So beautie on the waters stood” for voice and lute, from Ayres (London, 1609), sung in the The Masque of Beauty (1608). Performed by Hannah Grove & Elizabeth Pallett:
Music of Figure 3.2
Class projects
- Find a scene from L’Orfeo and compare two or three of the many performances available on Youtube or through your library, considering such elements as staging, costuming, vocal style, camera work, gesture, etc.
- Compare Orfeo’s Act II lament with either Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa or Lamento d’Arianna. What are some of the ways in which gender impacts the lament?
- Compare Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Stefano Landi’s very different treatment of the character in La morte d’Orfeo. (See trailer for video recording by Dutch National Opera (Christophe Rousset and Pierre Audi, available from Amazon and elsewhere; audio from Naxos).
Complete Performances of of L’Orfeo
Examples 3.1 and Anthology 4 (34:42):
Examples 3.1 and Anthology 4 (39:46)
Examples 3.1 and Anthology 4 (36:30)
Additional Digital Resources:
- Guide to Mantua, including the Ducal Palace. (Centro guide Mantova, I Gonzaga). Background, pictures, and diagrams.
- Stefano Landi. Il Sant’Alessio. Rome (1634)
- Etienne Durand. La Délivrance de Renaud (1617). Website in French, includes engravings of sets and dances.
- Ben Jonson. http://www.luminarium.org/editions/maskblack.htm (1605). Complete text with pictures and commentary.
Staging Medea vendicativa at the Bavarian court (Munich, 1662)
Link to the complete digital source from the Fürstlich Waldecksche Hofbibliothek Klebebände (Band 15)
See Global resources for Chapter 3
Further Reading
Bloechl, Olivia A. Native American Song at the Frontiers of Early Modern Music. New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/181141173
Carter, Tim. Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50100523`
_____. Carter, Tim and Goldthwaite, Richard A. Orpheus in the Marketplace: Jacopo Peri and the Economy of Late Renaissance Florence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/880244047
Cusick, Suzanne G. Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and Circulation of Power. Women in Culture and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/215173194
_____. “‘There Was Not One Lady Who Failed to Shed a Tear’: Arianna’s Lament and the Construction of Modern Womanhood.” Early Music, 22, no. 1 (February 1994): 32+35–38+41–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3128481
Fabbi, Paolo. Monteverdi, trans. Tim Carter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/608619989
Garden, Greer, ed.. La délivrance de Renaud: Ballet Danced by Louis XIII in 1617. Turnout: Brepols, 2010. http://www.worldcat.org/title/delivrance-de-renaud-ballet-danced-by-louis-xiii-in-1617-ballet-danse-par-louis-xiii-en-1617/oclc/780223834
Hanning, Barbara. “The Ending of L’Orfeo: Father, Son, and Rinuccini.” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 9, no. 1 (2003). http://www.sscm-jscm.org/v9/no1/hanning.html
Harness, Kelley, Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60375721
MacNeil, Anne. Music and Women of the Commedia dell’Arte in the Late Sixteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50653894
Pirrotta, Nino. “Early Opera and Aria.” In Music and Theater from Poliziano to Monteverdi, ed. Nino Pirrotta and Elena Povoledo, trans. Karen Eales. Cambridge Studies in Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7461929
Powell, John S. Music and Theater in France, 1600–1680. Oxford Monographs on Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39116571
Ravelhofer, Barbara. The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62738540
Rosand, Ellen. “The Descending Tetrachord: An Emblem of Lament.” Musical Quarterly, 65, no. 3 (July 1979): 346–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/741489
Rosow, Lois. “Power and Display: Music in Court Theatre.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music, ed. Tim Carter and John Butt. Cambridge History of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57893415
Stein, Louise. Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Oxford Monographs on Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27220291
Van Orden, Kate. Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56481445
Walls, Peter. Music in the English Courtly Masque, 1604–1640. Oxford Monographs on Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32348105
Music in the Baroque: Companion Website by Wendy Heller 