Il rapimento di Cefalo
Music by Giulio Caccini · libretto by Gabriello Chiabrera · at Uffizi Gallery
Il rapimento di Cefalo (The Abduction of Cephalus) was one of the first Italian operas. Most of the music was written by Giulio Caccini but Stefano Venturi del Nibbio, Luca Bati and Piero Strozzi also contributed. The libretto, by Gabriello Chiabrera, is in a prologue, five scenes and an epilogue and is based on the Classical myth of Cephalus and Aurora. The opera was the culmination of the celebrations for the (proxy) wedding of King Henri IV of France and Marie de' Medici in Florence in 1600 and was performed in the Sala delle Commedie in the Uffizi Palace on 9 October in front of an audience of 3,000 gentlemen and 800 ladies. The performance lasted five hours and cost 60,000 scudi, a huge sum. Among the singers were Melchior Palantrotti, Jacopo Peri, Francesco Rasi and five members of Caccini's own family, including his daughter Francesca and his son Pompeo. Three days earlier, Caccini and Peri's opera Euridice had been staged in the Pitti palace. Unlike that work, Il rapimento soon fell into obscurity. Caccini published the final chorus and an aria in his collection Le nuove musiche (1602) but the rest of the score is lost. Il rapimento di Cefalo contained many elements from the Florentine intermedi as well as making use of the new style of recitative. The Florentine audience admired the scenery of the production (by Bernardo Buontalenti), but found the music tedious.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Il rapimento di Cefalo", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Giulio Romolo Caccini (also Giulio Romano) (8 October 1551 – buried 10 December 1618) was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the most influential creators of the new Baroque style. He was also the father of the composer Francesca Caccini and the singer Settimia Caccini.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Giulio Caccini", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Giulio Caccini
- Euridice (1600)