 Whether or not he was actually the first is subject to some academic debate, as is whether the work is better categorized as an opera or an oratorio.It was first performed in Rome in February 1600 in the Oratorio dei Filippini adjacent to the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella.It was imagined during the Renaissance, almost certainly incorrectly, that Greek drama was sung, not declaimed, and that therefore opera was a revival of ancient practice.