Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo: Favola in musica (Orpheus: A Story in Music)1 The opera was commissioned by Prince Francesco Gonzaga, heir to the ducal throne of Mantua, a member of the aristocratic family which employed Monteverdi. Monteverdi wrote the opera for the 1606-7 Carnival season.2
Orfeo had its first private performance on February 24, 1607, before the Accademia degli Invaghiti, an arts academy (one of the intellectual music, literature, and philosophy clubs which proliferated in turn-of-the-seventeenth-century Italy). The opera was performed at the Mantuan court on March 1, 1607.3
Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, generally considered the first modern opera, premiered in 1600, so opera was still very much a cutting-edge, developing art form when Monteverdi composed Orfeo. The myth of Orpheus and Euridice, with its emphasis on the power of singing (and copious opportunities for diegetic music) was a popular choice for several early operas.
