Now, Monteverdi's first opera was entitled Orfeo.
And he wrote it, again, in Mantua in 1607.
Orfeo, or Orpheus, was an appropriate subject because
the story is drawn from classical Greek mythology.
What's the story about?
Well, it tells the tale of Orfeo, a half-god,
half-man who has married a human, Eurydice, but
she's been killed by a snake, and carried off to Hades, the Greek vision of hell.
It's Orfeo's job to descent into Hades and rescue her.
So, this, in a sense, is a rescue drama.
Here on the right, we see the scene.
Down below, we've got the River Styx, Charon, the ferryman on the left and
or fail with his lyre to which he sings on the right, and
moribund Eurydice.
Well, let's watch a video now of the first fully
formed opera starting with the overture.
The production here is by the Spanish early music conductor Horace
who has done his best to recreate the opera as close to Monteverdi's original
intentions as possible.
Here's the overture.
[MUSIC]