Origins of opera
"Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today, although with only five instrumental parts it was much more like a chamber opera than either the preceding intermedi or the operas of Claudio Monteverdi a few years later. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". Significantly, "Dafne" was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. The libretto was by Ottavio Rinuccini, who had written some of the 1587 Medici intermedi, in which Peri had also been involved; Rinuccini appears to have recycled some of the material, at least from the scene illustrated at right. Most of the music for "Dafne" is lost (the libretto was printed and survives), but one of Peri's many later operas, "Euridice", dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.
Kalevala
The first recorded example of a musician influenced by the "Kalevala" is Filip von Schantz. In 1860, he composed the Kullervo Overture. The piece premièred on the opening of a new theatre building in Helsinki on November of the same year. Von Schantz's work was followed by Robert Kajanus' "Kullervo's death" and the symphonic poem "Aino" in 1881 and 1885 respectively. "Aino" is credited with inspiring Jean Sibelius to investigate the richness of the "Kalevala". The first opera based (although freely) upon the "Kalevala", "Die Kalewainen in Pochjola", was composed by Karl Müller-Berghaus in 1890, but the work has never been performed.