About the work
Favola in musica in a prologue and six scenes by Marco da Gagliano to a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini, first performed in February 1608 at the Ducal Palace in Mantua. Originally planned for the wedding celebrations of the Gonzaga heir Francesco IV and Margaret of Savoy, the performance was moved forward because the bride's arrival was delayed. Gagliano set the same text that Jacopo Peri had already used for one of the very first operas ever composed (1598); the printed score appeared in Florence in October 1608.
Plot
The sun god Apollo kills the serpent Python and mocks Cupid as an archer. In revenge, Cupid makes Apollo fall in love with the nymph Daphne while filling her with a horror of love. Apollo pursues the fleeing Daphne, but before he can catch her the gods transform her into a laurel tree, which Apollo thereafter reveres as his sacred emblem.
Cultural significance
La Dafne is among the oldest operas to survive complete, making it a key work for understanding the genre's earliest years. Gagliano prefaced the printed score with a detailed set of performance instructions, including a requirement that the instrumentalists be seated where they can see the singers' faces — early evidence of the effort to achieve clear, speech-like declamation of the text.