Whoa, what's this? Well, it's a rather interesting thing. I don't know why, but I've never thought much about the prehistory of opera. Did I just assume that it just somehow appeared ex nihilo 1600-ish? Well...not exactly, but I didn't assume it didn't, either. For whatever reason, I never really thought much about it at all. But here's the real story, as I understand it: starting as far back as the late fifteenth century, plays would have little musical interludes between acts (and by the way, "intermedio" is the same thing as "intermezzo;" that was confusing me for a while). As the sixteenth century proceeded these became more and more elaborate and to have their own little narratives. At the same time, they became increasingly popular, until they started to overshadow the plays they were associated with (to the playwrights' annoyance). Given all this, it was only a matter of time until people started cutting out the non-musical plays altogether and just creating purely musical narratives. Also interesting to note that at a certain point operas started having their own intermezzi, whether it was elaborate ballets or whole other operas (eg, La Serva Padrona).
As for the present...thing: in 1589, Ferdinando de' Medici and Christina de Lorraine were to be wed. This marriage was meant to be an extremely Big Deal politically, as it was to cement the Medicis' status as a power player in Europe. So naturally, they needed to have the most insanely lavish wedding possible--involving two years of planning, according to the notes. The centerpiece of this celebration was to be a play by the poet Girolamo Bargagli called Pellegrina. And, naturally, Pellegrina was also to have musical accompaniment--the fanciest musical accompaniment that the greatest minds of late-Renaissance Italy could muster. Of these intermezzi, there are six, by many of the most influential composers of the era: Cristofano Malvezzi, Luca Marenzio, Giulio Caccini, Giovanni de' Bardi, Jacopo Peri, and Emilio de' Cavalieri. Not exactly household names today, unless you live in a household with an ancient music expert, but hugely influential on the development of Western music. You may recognize Peri as the composer of both the first known opera, Dafne, as well as the earliest surviving one, Euridice (how come no one ever seems to stage Euridice? I'd love to see it. I've listened to bits and pieces on youtube, and the music is extremely listenable).
So anyway. I don't think anyone thinks much about Pellegrina these days. It's extant; you can even read an English translation if you want, but the music accompanying it is surely of much more interest to many more people. What we have here is a staged version performed in Florence last year. It's a slightly weird thing: the audience moves around and sees different of the intermezzi at different locations. The conceit, such as it is, is that this is indeed the wedding of Ferdinando and Christina, only in a modern context. There's a voice through a loudspeaker between the pieces explaining what's happening, stuff along the lines of "here comes the bride in her Rolls Royce, see how graceful she is." It works okay. The actual singers are dressed in loud Sergeant-Pepper-esque costumes, and there's a lot of weird business with people with bows and arrows and golf clubs (???) and stuff. It's definitely colorful, at any rate.
As for the music itself: well, there are plot descriptions in the booklet: 1. Harmony descends to Earth to pay tribute to the couple; 2. A singing contest between mortals and muses; 3. Apollo vs. Python; 4. Announcement of a new Golden Age; 5. sea gods and demigods pay tribute to the couple; and 6. Jupiter comes down to help everyone party. Obviously, there is a common theme here, though they aren't directly related plotwise. But actually, I was sort of surprised by how little story there really is: you would be hard-pressed, I think to actually discern most of these plots just by watching them. It really is primarily showering praise on the couple.
The music is definitely pre-baroque: you can kind of see how this would evolve into the baroque, but we're not there yet. Very much of the Renaissance. A lot of elaborate madrigals. The singing's fine--nobody with any international presence, but that's fine--though even though it's less than an hour and a half total, that kind of thing does get a little monotonous to me sooner rather than later. Ultimately, it's super-interesting to me to better understand the development of opera, but this is mostly a more or less pleasant curiosity than anything else.
So...did this marriage make the Medicis into power players? And after all this glitz, was it in fact a happy marriage? A bit anticlimactic if not, but alas, I have absolutely no idea; the internet does not seem to say. But you don't see too many Medicis tromping around today, so draw your own conclusions.
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