About the work
Favola in musica by Jacopo Peri to a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini, first performed on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence for the wedding of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV of France. Peri himself sang the role of Orfeo at the premiere; the work is considered the oldest opera to survive complete.
Plot
The singer Orfeo mourns Euridice, who has died of a snakebite on their wedding day. Guided into the underworld by the goddess Venere, he moves its ruler Plutone with his singing and is allowed to lead Euridice back to the world above unharmed, without the myth's usual condition that he must not look back. A festive chorus closes the couple's return.
Cultural significance
Because the work was written for a courtly wedding celebration, Rinuccini changed the tragic ending of the ancient myth to a happy one: unlike in Monteverdi's later 'L'Orfeo', Orfeo does not lose Euridice a second time. With its continuous, speech-like declamation (stile recitativo), Peri established a technique that became a founding principle of early opera and directly influenced Monteverdi.