|
The music and its historical setting Prepared by Valerie Ceriano L’Orfeo Birth and Rebirth: Program notes for the Ren Chorus performance, June 2025. Life: A brief bio of Monteverdi. Alessandro Striggio: A brief bio of Monteverdi’s librettist. L’Orfeo’s Journey: The Orfeo myth from Guarini’s Pastor Fido (1565) to Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607). Prima Seconda Practica: Analysis of Prima and Seconda Practicas, and the dispute between Monteverdi and Artusi. Madrigals I and II: Background on the madrigal form and analysis of Monteverdi’s madrigals. Gluck to Mitchell: Treatments of Orfeo from Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice, 1762) to Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown, 2016). Program Notes Sources: My bibliography, including The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi. Cambridge Univ. Press (1980). The latter provided the quotations which head each section; and, Orpheus in the Academy: Monteverdi’s First Opera and the Accademia degli Invaghiti (2022), an invaluable social/muscial history by Joel Schwindt. The numerous Wikipedia entries are also cited, as well as The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. |