Peri, Jacopo

Peri, Jacopo (yä`kōpō pĕ`rē), 1561–1633, Italian composer and singer. Dafne (c.1597), perhaps the first opera, was composed by both Peri and Jacopo Corsi. The librettist, Ottavio Rinuccini, also wrote Euridice, which Peri and Caccini set to music (1600). The music for this opera was performed at the wedding of Henry IV of France to Marie de' Medici.

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Peri, Jacopo 

(nickname Il Zazzerino, “the long-haired”). Born Aug. 20, 1561, in Rome; died Aug. 12, 1633, in Florence. Italian singer and composer. One of opera’s founders.

Peri was a member of the Florentine Camerata. In 1592 he, together with J. Corsi, composed the music for the first opera, Dafne, for which the poet O. Rinuccini wrote the libretto. It was first performed in 1597–98 in Florence. None of the music composed by Peri has survived. His opera Euridice (1600) is the most brilliant of the extant early operas; Peri himself sang the part of Orpheus in the first performances.

REFERENCE

Rolland, R. Opera v XVII v. v Italii, Germanii, Anglii. Moscow, 1931. (Translated from French.)