Ancient Greek Theatre and The mistaken birth of Opera.

Over the last few weeks I have found myself pulled back into resharpening my knowledge of ancient Greek (Athenian, really) theatre. Six years after completing my masters degree dissertation, surprisingly for me at least, on the subject of Greek theatre & transgressive women. A lot has been driven by trying to increase my reading time, attending a couple of plays one a few months ago and the triennial 'Cambridge Greek Play', this coming month. 

It was whilst reading a book on Greek Dramatists by, Prof Alan Sommerstein of Nottingham University (Not so far away from home) that I stumbled upon a fact I had not known. A little curiosity that seemed quite fun and that fact turned out to be that the creation of Opera may well have been by mistake and therefore, arguably one of the greatest misunderstandings that has spawned an expression of high culture and some of the most appealing works of art in the history of mankind. And it was all evidently built on a huge error made by a well meaning Italian aristocrat and his group of intellectual associates.

It all goes back nearly 600 years to renaissance Florence (and if you had a time machine, would this place in the 1500's be too tempting to not visit), where a group of Florentine men, containing humanists, intellectuals, poets, etc came to be known by the group name of 'Camerata de Bardi', a group named after the great patron/soldier, Giovanni de Bardi. Who like many men at the time had a deep grounding in the classical history of ancient Greece. A man seeking knowledge from under the influence of the great Italian minds and thinkers of the time with the most influential being, Girolami Mei, the foremost classicist at the time whose interest lay in reviving the ancient Greek plays of Aeschylus and Euripides. 

However, Mei, had made one fundamental mistake, he extrapolated the belief from his sources that Greek drama was an art form that was mainly sung, not spoken. He was wrong. The chorus did indeed sing parts of the play, but this was not their true role. The chorus was multi-functional and as a homogenous body represented that faction in theatre, from being the 'demos' - people to the old men of the city state, and they sang, a bit, they also spoke as did the main actors. It must be argued that Greek theatre was spoken with the odd song, more musical than full on Opera. Under this misapprehension he took to the Camerata de Bardi the idea that to recreate drama, meant a dramatic plot entirely sung, is this sounding familiar yet?

Here we have then, men, enthused by classical culture attempting to recreate the greatest plays, they believed, in the way in which they were presented. And how this plan, with on flawed assumption, would mean that, for arguments sake, a Pericles or a Cleon (Aristophanes' favourite comedy target) would not recognise what these Florentines created.

But, with this error embedded into their blueprint, what they did create in 1596, was the first opera, Dafne. Obviously a classically inspired sung, storytelling of the myth of Apollo's infatuation and chasing of the nymph Daphne. The new 'Greek theatre' caught on and it quickly evolved into the form of Opera we recognise nowadays which is typically viewed as 'high art'. All from this basic misunderstanding the florentine Camerata de Bardi created an art from that has been high successful over the last 400 years and like Greek theatre, Opera has produced some remarkable talents; both through writers and singers using the vehicle to showcase their exceptional talents.

For those who may well be interested in the genesis of Opera; Ancient Greek Theatre, which invariably is shorthand for, Athenian Greek theatre, there has been a very good 'populist' history series giving an understandable and engaging history and overview of the form and function of Greek theatre in the classical world; it is by Dr Michael Scott and information is here 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039gly5/profiles/dr-michael-scott from where, if it is still on iplayer the programme will astound you in how brutal and heart renderingly tragic the Greeks enjoyed their theatre and how much more of a community event the performing arts where to the 'outdoor' Greeks, than to us, 'modern Greeks'. (I am not going to mention here my opinion on TV celebratory historians, scientists, etc dominating the Televisual output...)