Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet and librettist whose texts helped shape early opera, including librettos for Jacopo Peri’s Euridice and Dafne.
Florentine Camerata: A group of Florentine intellectuals and musicians who discussed ancient Greek music and helped foster early opera. Its experiments with declaimed singing shaped the dramatic style Rinuccini wrote for.
Dafne (opera): An early opera by Jacopo Peri, now lost, set to a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. Rinuccini’s text for this lost work is associated with one of opera’s earliest experiments.
Jacopo Peri: An Italian composer and singer associated with the creation of the earliest operas. Peri composed Rinuccini’s Dafne and Euridice, turning his poetry into sung drama.
Florentine Renaissance: A period of cultural and artistic change centered in Florence from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Rinuccini inherited a city whose humanist culture encouraged classical subjects and courtly performance.
Libretto: The text written or adapted for a musical work such as an opera or oratorio. Rinuccini’s librettos gave early operas their words, characters, and dramatic structure.
Euridice (Peri opera): An opera by Jacopo Peri, first performed in Florence in 1600, with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. This surviving opera shows Rinuccini’s poetry shaped for the new genre.
Giulio Caccini: An Italian composer, singer, and theorist who helped develop early opera and monody. Caccini set Rinuccini’s Euridice and shared the Florentine musical world in which he worked.
Medici family: A Florentine family whose political power and patronage shaped Renaissance and early modern European culture. Medici court patronage supported the theatrical productions for which Rinuccini wrote.
Monody: A style of solo singing with instrumental accompaniment that emphasizes clear, expressive delivery of text. Its text-centered approach suited the dramatic poetry Rinuccini supplied.
Euridice (Caccini opera): An opera by Giulio Caccini, first performed in 1602, using Ottavio Rinuccini’s libretto for Euridice. Caccini’s setting demonstrates how another composer used Rinuccini’s dramatic text.