ABSTRACT
“Ahi caso acerbo”, cries the Messaggera as she disrupts the celebrations of Orfeo’s wedding to bring the disastrous news of Euridice’s death. Her abrupt entry on a high e” in act ii of Monteverdi’s Orfeo (example 1) surely counts as the first coup de théâtre of early opera: neither Jacopo Peri nor Giulio Caccini had managed a similar effect in their respective settings of Euridice. The idea must have been partly Alessandro Striggios, whose striking exclamation gets built into the libretto of act ii as a woeful refrain, first from a shepherd and then from the chorus. But Monteverdi did more than follow Striggios cue. That e”, the falling minor sixth and the disruptive sharpward harmonic move provide a powerful moment of musical dislocation to match the sudden turn from celebration to catastrophe; the rest of the act, indeed the opera, can never be the same.
