Volume I Part 7 (1/2)

Though it sounds strange to speak of the ”invention” of opera, that is the hich may be applied to the work of Jacopo Peri and his friends They, however, thought of it rather as a revival of the edy, which was, in a sense, a crude fornerian recitation, with lish novel owes its origin to the coiven to Mr

Samuel Richardson to prepare a Ready Letter Writer, which he decided to put in the forrand opera, which has alin in a conference aentle the possibility of reviving part of Greek tragedy

As an experiment, they prepared a small work called ”Dafne” for private presentation at the palace of the Corsi Rinuccini was the first of a long and usually incoe of librettists The music ritten by Peri and Caccini It was appropriate that they should have chosen the love affairs of the firstwhat a vast a, pretended and real, the school of opera has handed down upon the world Reissman has reckoned it out that twenty thousand lovers are joined or are parted every night in the world's theatres

Peri played the part of Apollo, and he was fitted to play the sun-God by his aureole of notoriously ardent hair According to Fetis, Peri was very avaricious Of noble birth hirew rich on the favour of the Medicis, and added to his wealth by hter of the house of Fortini, who incidentally brought with her a very handsome dot She bore him a son, on an early fame by his mathematics, his temper, and his dissipations, which led his tutor, the famous Galileo, to call him his demon And this is all I know of the love affairs of the father of modern opera

His collaborator, Caccini, ashis contemporaries than Peri, states in the preface to a book of his, that he was married twice, both tier, and his daughters werealso a composer

The name of Monteverde is is his songs now, or hears his operas, even the strictest composers make constant use of certain musical procedures, which were in his tiht for tooth and nail Irisi says that he entered the Church after the death of his wife, and as he entered the priesthood in 1633, it would seee He had two sons, the elder of whom becaer son becaood division of labour, for those patients whom the doctor lost could send for the priest

Monteverde's successor at St Mark's was Heinrich Schutz, a great revolutionist in German music, whose chief work, and the first German opera, was ”Dafne,” written to a libretto by Rinuccini, possibly the same one used by Peri When he was thirty-four, he dalena, who is described as ”Christian Wildeck of Saxony's land steward's bookkeeper's daughter,” which description Hawkins compares to that of ”Pontius Pilate's wife's cha borne hihty-seven years as a er, and joined the pathetic line of one deaf

LULLY THE IMP

French opera, which was refornor Lulli, who later, as Monsieur Lully, becaentleifted ealth, and was taken to France to serve in the kitchen of Mlle de Montpensier, the chief princess of the French court

The impishness which characterised his whole career inspired hihly improper couplet on an accident that happened in public to Mademoiselle,--and worst of all, he set it to music She did not see the fun of the joke, and dished so much at his wit, that he had him presented, and interested himself in his musical career

The kitchen lad was a born courtier and revelled in the ”atmosphere of passion, love, and pleasure, that radiant aurora” He was always a very dissipatedMadeleine Lahter of the music-master of the court ”The honour of the new family, and the dot of twenty thousand francs which he received, e, and the second phase of his life cohters, who are said to have shared his stinginess, though they built hinificent monument

It was a brilliant circle Lullyhated by Boileau and La Fontaine, and of being first the friend and collaborator, and later the enened by the king, queen, and the queen-e, Fetis says: ”Never was a union better arranged, for if Lully was quick to procure riches, his wife kne to fructify thened in her house Lully reserved for his _menus plaisirs_ only the price of the sale of his works, which aht thousand francs”

His dissipations, like those of Handel, were chiefly confined to excesses in eating and drinking, but for all his doubtful fidelity to his wife, he cannot have been an ideal husband, for he was of a miserly disposition, and his temper was enforced by a ruthless brutality On one occasion the singer Rochis, being in a condition that corily, ”_Qui t'a fait cela_?”

and gave her a kick _qui lui fit faire une fausse couche_ This poor woe of fifty-four, while conducting his orchestra, he grew indignant, and in wildly brandishi+ng his baton struck his own foot so fierce a blow that gangrene set in and he died of the wound While he was on his death-bed, he was called upon by one of his old friends, whoet hiaiety for which he was faet well he shall be the first to get ain”

In his will he nareat care that she and the children should preserve the royal monopoly in the Acadeht days before his death, with his son, whom he had previously disinherited His wife outlived hie of seventy-seven

When the superb mausoleum was built for Lully by his , some unknown poet, who hated him for his _moeurs infames_, scrawled on his tomb these terrific lines:

”Pourquoi, par un faste nouveau, Nous rappeler la scandaleuse histoire D'un libertin, indigne de ne du tombeau”

It was in so by Mlle de Maupin, whose incredibly wild, scandalous, and auous love affairs, and duels in male costume, made the material for Gautier's fareat master in French opera was Rainess, but not in his brilliant social qualities As a boy he neglected his lessons in language for his music-books His parents' efforts were in vain, and his teachers gave hie of sixteen or seventeen he fell in love with a young ho was a neighbour of his His letters to her, brought fro statement:

”You spell like a scullion”

This rebuke woke hiraphy was concerned, but his father did not approve of theas a teacher, and sent him to Italy to break off the relation Some years later he returned to the town, but as he remained only a short time, he evidently did not reillumine his first flame