Monteverdi’s Orfeo is the story of the great, mortal musician of the ancient world: Orpheus, whose music could charm both animals and the deathly spirits of the underworld. What better topic for an opera? Monteverdi’s astonishing career as a composer spans the height of high-Renaissance music and the birth and establishment of opera as the next great art form. Who gets to sing? And how many at a time? In this presentation we’ll explore the transition from the intricate multi-part writing of the Renaissance to the expressive potential of the individual operatic voice at the beginning of the Baroque. We’ll look at the elements of the music and the plot as well as music on both sides of the transition, as we wonder at where opera began, and what it has become.

Admission is FREE.

Operalive! is a presentation of the Santa Fe Opera.