«Thus changed, I return …»: The Programmatic Prologue of the First Surviving Opera «Euridice» (1600) by Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Peri. Euripidean, Senecan Poetics and Music as Representation

Abstract

In Renaissance theatre, especially in pastoral plays and in the first opera libretti we find prologues which apart from their expositional and explanatory function directly or indirectly convey the author’s views of the art of drama and its genre presenting at the same time an author conscious of innovating. It is usually an allegorical or mythological figure who recites or sings the prologue, e.g. Mercury in Poliziano’s La fabula d’Orfeo (1480), Cupid in Tasso’s Aminta (1573), the river Alfeios in Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1585). We also find this in the first favole in musica: Tragedy in Rinuccini’s Euridice (1600), Music in Striggio’s Orfeo (1607), Apollo in Rinuccini’s und Monteverdi’s L’Arianna and so on. These allegorical and mythological figures should be regarded as authorities who not only give a formal and eminent character to the opening of these dramas but, especially in the case of the first favole in musica, function as declaration of validity and raison d’ être, a kind of manifesto and legitimization for the new genre, symbolizing or indicating the aesthetic ideals linked to the constitution of opera as a genre as well.1 Hence it was not unexpected that the prologue fell into disuse when opera had established itself. The prologue to Euridice (1600), the first surviving drama by Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Peri as principal composer2 set completely to music from beginning to end, is performed by Tragedia (Tragedy). Its seven stanzas each consisting of four eleven-syllable lines with the rhyme scheme abba, provide important information about the new genre and its aesthetic. Tragedia’s authority furnishes the new genre with a rhetorical intensity, the hendecasyllabic verses emphasize the manifesto character of this prologue, lending to it a certain gravity and a festal tone as well, which is reinforced by Rinuccini’s choice of words.3 Although the play is not divided into acts, it consists of five scenes,4 separated by choruses in strophic verse, hinting at the structure of the ancient tragedy.5 The first and the