In today's
music history books you usually find Anima e Corpo described
as the first oratorio: while the first opera is described as the production
of Orfeo and Euridice, with part of the music composed by Giulio Caccini,
part by Jacopo Peri, each of whom published a complete version shortly
afterwards.
So what's
an oratorio? Firstly it's the Italian word for a place where people
pray, adopted in English as 'oratory', as in London's Brompton Oratory;
secondly it's a piece performed in such a place, and so normally having
a religious text: Anima e Corpo was
indeed first performed in an oratorio, and according to the publisher
Guidotti in 1600 it was the first time the genre 'rappresentatione'
in musica affetuosa had been used in a devotional context.
However
the association people have today with words is that, while an opera
is an extended dramatic work with costume, scenery, make-up, acting,
gestures and movement, often even a ballet, an oratorio has none of
those things - the performers wear concert clothes, there is no scenery,
make-up, acting, nor gestures: and the only movement is when people
stand up or sit down.
The foreword
to the printed edition of 1600 discusses the use of all the aspects
characteristic of an opera, so to describe it as an oratorio today gives
completely the wrong impression of what it was then.
Of course,
neither term, 'opera' or 'oratorio' were used until long after 1600:
Anima e Corpo is described as a 'rappresentatione', the earlier
examples of the genre as 'pastorale': but these two terms describe
different aspects - 'rappresentatione' says it's a dramatic performance,
'pastorale' that it's in the classical pastoral genre, dealing with
nymphs and shepherds rather then heroes or real people, so these pastorali
were also rappresentationi.
Nevertheless,
there's one big 'plus' about the musicologists' having labelled Anima
e Corpo as the first oratorio: it was that which led to the work's
being published in modern times in a facsimile edition, which led to
our discovering it in the musicology library at Detmold and discovering
what a unique treasure it was, as Ute as I sang little bits of it in
two parts, trying not to disturb the serious theoretical studies of
the others in the room which a practical application no-one seemed to
have thought of then.
