Opera as tragedy: catarsi melodrammatica

Speranza Opera as tragedy Contemporary with Shakespeare, an entirely different approach to facilitating the rebirth of tragedy was taken in Italy. Jacopo Peri, in the preface to his Euridice refers to "the ancient Greeks and Romans (who in the opinion of many sang their staged tragedies throughout in representing them on stage)." In creating the new artistic genre of "opera" (strictly, 'melodramma'), he and his contemporaries were striving to recreate ancient tragedy. --- The sources can be traced back to Cinquecento, with notably Gioralamo Mei, and his main student, V. Galilei. Cfr. "Edipo", Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, 1585 Some later operatic composers have also shared this aim. Richard Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ("integrated work of art"), for example, was intended as a return to the ideal of Greek tragedy in which all the arts were blended in service of the drama. Nietzsche, in his The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to support Wagner in his claims to be a successor of the ancient dramatists.