Greek Gods, Myths and Heroes in Opera

A speech about Luigi Cherubini’s Médée

The art of opera has its roots in ancient Greece. It was invented as a musical/vocal idiom in Florence in 1597, when Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, a generous Maecenas of the arts, set up the committee La Camerata Fiorentina with the goal of tracing the original version of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides’ works, performances of which were regularly held in the palaces of noblemen of the time. Although the originals were never found, the members of La Camerata Fiorentina, after studying Aristotle’s Poetics, discovered that the structure of ancient dramatic plays, apart from recitation, also included music and singing, and so they created a new version of the works, quite close to the original ancient one. They named it after the Greek term, “melodrama”, which is opera’s official name. The first opera, Jacopo Peri’s La Dafne, premiered in Palazzo Bardi in 1597.

The speech will highlight Greece’s influence on opera over the centuries and will be accompanied – with an emphasis on Cherubini’s Médée – by video projections of works by Peri, Monteverdi, Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, Cherubini, Verdi, Richard Strauss and Ionian composer Paolo Carrer.

Date & time: 27 April 2023, 17.00

Place: VIP Lounge

Free Admission – Advance booking is required from 24 April 2023 via ticketservices.gr