I wish that I could have a cool nickname like “Il Zazzerino.” Sadly, Jacopo Peri got there first. Oh yeah, he also happened to invent opera.
Peri’s “Dafne” (c. 1597) has the distinction of being the first work written in the genre. The earliest surviving opera, “Euridice” (1600), was also composed by Peri.
So who was this Peri fellow, and what drove him to envision the marriage of music and theater on such an ambitious scale? As with most of the finer things in the development of Western Civilization, we can blame it all on the Greeks.
Though in the employ of the Medici court, Peri engaged in philosophical discourse with Florence’s other great musical patron, Jacopo Corsi. Peri and Corsi, as have human beings of every generation since the expulsion from Eden, lamented the decay of art and civilization and pined for the good old days – which in their case were the days of Ancient Greece. Together, they attempted to resurrect Greek theater, as they understood it. Of course, their solution is like nothing the Greeks would have recognized, but what they conceived would influence other composers for centuries.
Few of Peri’s own works are still performed today, except perhaps as historical curiosities. Even in his own time, his experiments in the form began to feel a little creaky next to those of the younger operatic firebrand Claudio Monteverdi. Today, Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” (1607) is in the standard repertoire and is the earliest opera to be regularly performed.
French composer Paul Dukas had nothing of early Italian opera in mind when he came to write his 1912 ballet – or “dance poem,” as he described it – “La Péri.” A Peri is a kind of Persian fairy, the guardian of the Flower of Immortality. According to legend, Iksender, or Alexander the Great, attempts to retrieve the prize. The ballet is yet another pilgrimage by a Western composer to the temple of Orientalism. Dukas’ music is by turns mysterious, sinuous, and ecstatic.
This would be the last published work by the composer of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” Dukas, a notoriously self-critical artist, destroyed most of his own output. Eventually, he gave up composition altogether. Perhaps sharing Iksender’s sense of unworthiness, Dukas receded into the shadows, channeling his energy into the teaching of others, including Carlos Chávez, Maurice Duruflé, Olivier Messiaen, Manuel Ponce, and Joaquin Rodrigo.
I hope you’ll join me for a pair of Peri, among my featured music today, between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PAIRING PERI: Il Zazzerino (left) and the guardian of the Flower of Immortality
