THE FIRST OPERAS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 26 July 1929, Page 8

THE FIRST OPERAS

Opera is much to (lie fore nowadays. This form of musical art is nearly 325 years old, for the opera generally regarded as the first to be hoard was Peri’s “Euridice,” which was first performed on October 6, 1600. at the plicate theatre of the .Medici, in Florence. Tile first French opera i,s believed to nave been the Pastoral Pomone, by Cambcrt, performed in Paris in 1671, hut it was Lulli’s subsequent “Lcs Fetes do I’A in our et de Bacchus” which gave opera its vogue in France. Germany’s great opera history begins with Schulz's "Dal'ne,” performed in 1640, and British opera- had its beginnings in 1656, when Davenant set the ball rolling with an entertainment bearing that title. We would give a good deal for gramophone records of-that music of the seventeenth century as it was actually heard then, the clavier playing and organ playing of Bach, or the first orchestral music. -Henieiiibcring what we lose by tin* absence of any- actual performance of old times,- we should prize the more highly tluv gramophone's present contribution to the musical knowledge of the centuries, to come.