L'euridice

More than four hundred years separate us from Caccini's Euridice, and it is this that constitutes the greatest obsta-cle to our understanding of this first dramatic event to combine text and music on a stage. Many things have hap-pened in the past four centuries, events that distance us from the stylistic meaning of L'Euridice, making it almost incomprehensible. But there is a means that can put us back in touch with a primordial and primitive truth. Cacci-ni, like Peri, contextualises and makes concrete the necessi-ty of individual and subjective expression, through the human voice. Both of them theorise, invent, and demand that theatrical imitation be made visible through the indi-vidual contribution of the performer. They theorise and demand passion [l'affetto] as the primary condition that legitimises this new style - for it is a question of style even before that of a new kind of composition.' - Rinaldo Alessandrini