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.
John Christopher Smith
Smith's first opera was the Italian-style "Teraminta" on a libretto by Henry Carey and first performed on 20 November 1732 at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, closely followed by "Ulysses" on a libretto by Samuel Humphreys, on 17 April 1733 at the same venue. "Ulysses" turned out to be a resounding failure, after which he resolved not to perform any further operas. In 1740, encouraged by Handel, he decided to organize his own series of subscription concerts. In the course of nine years, he had six operas performed in Italian: "Rosalinda" on a text by John Lockman (first performed on 4 January 1740 at the Hickford's Rooms in London), "Issipile" in 1743, "Il Ciro riconosciuto" in 1744, and three other operas now lost: "Dario" in 1746, "Demofoonte" in 1747 and "Artaserse" in 1749 (all five operas on Metastasio's libretti). Later ones included three written by David Garrick and based on Shakespeare - "The Fairies" (3 February 1755 at the Drury Lane, London), after "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "The Tempest" (11 February 1756, Drury Lane, London) - and a successful afterpiece, "The Enchanter" (13 December 1760, Drury Lane, London). His successful collaboration with Benjamin Stillingfleet produced his last opera "Medea" in 1763.