Life
Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer, singer, and instrumentalist born in 1561 in Rome or Florence and died in 1633 in Florence, credited with writing the first opera. Educated and employed within Florence’s Medici court and churches, he joined the circle of patron Jacopo Corsi, and together with poet Ottavio Rinuccini they created Dafne around 1598, an attempt to revive Greek tragedy now considered the earliest opera, though most of its music is lost. Peri and Rinuccini’s subsequent collaboration, Euridice, premiered in 1600 for the wedding of Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV of France, and survives complete as the oldest opera whose music has come down to us intact.
Impact
Peri’s Euridice established the recitative style, the sung-speech technique bridging aria and chorus that became indispensable to opera’s development. Though soon eclipsed artistically by Claudio Monteverdi, Peri’s pioneering fusion of monody, drama, and continuo accompaniment provided the technical and dramaturgical template that all subsequent opera composers built upon, cementing his historical role as one of the genre’s true originators.
Repertoire
Dafne, c. 1598
Widely regarded as the first opera ever composed, setting Rinuccini’s retelling of the Apollo and Daphne myth, though nearly all of its music is now lost.
Opera “Dafne” de Jacoppo Peri (fragment) — Performed by Early-music ensemble · Surviving fragment/reconstruction recording
Euridice, 1600
The oldest surviving complete opera, retelling the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice through Peri’s new recitative style.
L’Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, original version, complete — Performed by Early-music ensemble (original-version reconstruction) · Complete performance of the 1600 original
Jacopo Peri ‘Al canto, al ballo’ from L’Euridice — Performed by Pau Malatesta and ensemble · Excerpt aria from the opera