In early Venetian opera we find the roots of today’s experimental music theater. Working from origins in Commedia dell’arte, the creators of Venetian opera in the seventeenth century (the original music theater) were composers, librettists, and singers, who invented ways of communicating drama through music. Drawing on the earliest publicity and sources for these works, I note how conventions developed from the original experience of presenting a musical show to a public audience in a theater originally built for spoken plays.
Speaker
Ellen Rosand, Yale University
