Donation Timeline

The earliest surviving opera, setting the stage for the Orpheus and Euridice myth to be the foundational operatic story.

The basic precepts of opera were created by a group of artists and intellectuals known as the 'Florentine Camerata'. They hoped, in a classic Renaissance project, to recreate in modern form the sung drama of Ancient Greece. Although what resulted would have been unrecognisable to Euripides, it was marvellous anyway. 1601 was a poorer year for not having any premieres.

Caccini set the same libretto (the text of an opera) as Jacopo Peri had two years earlier. Giulio has now been eclipsed by his daughter Francesca, who was probably the first woman to write an opera. Apparently Giulio rushed his Euridice into print to beat Jacopo Peri's version (1600).

One of the constituent elements that came together to open the door to the birth of opera was the idea, championed by Vincenzo Galilei, father of Galileo, of having one voice sing at a time. This allowed for the intelligible transmission of plot. Thank you Vincenzo, for two great contributions to European history!

So many works throughout opera's history have explored the story of Orpheus, the master musician who could control nature with his compositions. It's natural if you think of it like this: how could one justify setting a play to music? Well, if the character would be singing anyway! "Diegetic" music is a film theory term, which applies to music that the characters can hear. Because of opera's foundational concern with the Orpheus myth, we can see "diegesis" as one of the master themes of opera. Countless operas explore the place of music in our lives and its power, stretching from the earliest Orphic operas, right through to George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill (2006), which is a retelling of the Pied Piper story.

Sadly no operas were premiered in 1605, but it's a good opportunity to think about the basics. Opera has voices, and instruments, and it has stage images. The relationship between the 3 began pretty simply - the characters emote, the orchestra supports, and the stage images match. As things move further and further along, the relationship between the three elements becomes more complex, opening up a whole range of multilayered theatrical effects.

Francesca Caccini premiered The Slave Girl in 1607 at Pisa for the entertainment of the Medici Court. Sadly the music has been lost, and we only know of the opera's existence because 20 years later Caccini wrote to her librettist asking for the text. Caccini was 19 when she wrote this opera. Contrary to the neoclassicism of Monteverdi's Orfeo, premiered under similar conditions, Caccini's story was a contemporary one that focused on the slave trade.

Regarded as the first operatic masterwork, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo evolved the form of a complete musical drama, establishing him as a crucial figure in the history of opera.

Monteverdi's lost second opera. He claimed that writing it under huge time pressure almost killed him. Some things never change.

Another year without opera. But for £12 you can claim it! Help us make sure there isn't another year like 1609. A pox on that blasted year!

A handy thing to know about opera is that for much of its history (and even to some extent today) there were two main modes in the relationship of text to music. Recitativo (pronounced reh-chit-at-eevo - recitative in english), and aria (aah-ree-aah). Recitativo, often shortened to "recit" (reh-sit), uses speech rhythms with minimal accompaniment, and this is where the plot happens. In arias, the characters pause, emote, and consider their situations in longer musical lines, often with repetition.

In 1611 Shakespeare premiered The Tempest in London, but nothing seems to have been entered into the operatic record. Poor inhabitants of 1611, opera lovers can only apologise to you. With hindsight, it would have been better if you'd been able to watch an opera too.

At the beginning of its history, opera was paid for by princes and aristocrats who wished to commission things to glorify their name and to celebrate occasions such as marriage. As time went on, this shifted, with the paying public becoming increasingly important, with patronage still playing an important role. In the 20th century things shifted again as opera came to be viewed as an important cultural inheritance worthy of state support. With government funding for opera in decline across Europe, is it time for a new model?

For £16 you can claim the year 1613, and have your name represented here entirely alone, without competition from a composer.

One way of thinking about opera is that it's a 426-year project to explore different ways of placing music and text into relationship to create drama. Today's opera composers can draw on a lineage of experimentation in that direction, while pushing the boat out to explore new possibilities and relationships. One way of deciding if something is or isn't an opera is to ask if a work tries something in this area.

Francesca Caccini and Artemisia Gentileschi both performed as dancers in this court spectacle.

Inconsolable Orpheus. Domenico Belli, a renowned composer of court spectacles, turned to the new dramatic form with another retelling of the Orpheus myth about a musician who travels to the underworld to retrieve his lost bride, a story that has fascinated composers ever since.

In 1617 Monteverdi was working on the opera Le Nozze di Tetide, which remained unfinished and unperformed. Even the greatest operatic composers leave some works in the drawer.

As Terry Pratchett said, "opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong." We couldn't agree more - but sadly in 1618, those things must have gone wrong, because no opera appears to have been premiered.

The Death of Orpheus. A tragicomic opera, this piece treated the Orpheus myth in a completely different way to earlier operas, instead focussing on what happens to the musician after he fails to save Euridice.

It seems that Monteverdi wasn't overly enthusiastic about this project, which premiered at Carnival in Mantua. He tried to get the commission canceled. The music doesn't survive.

Francesca Caccini contributed an aria to this opera which was premiered in Orvieto. Translation: The Loving Garland.

The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha. Caccini premiered this work in Florence, which is now sadly lost, like most of her work.

Astronomers in 1623 probably failed to see a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn near the Sun, because the telescope had only just been invented. It was the same for opera, alas, and no one saw one this year, as it had only recently been invented.

The Combat of Tancredi and Clorinda. The distinguishing feature of this short scena is the musical depiction of battle, including the second known use of pizzicato - where string players pluck the strings with their fingers rather than using their bows.

The Liberation of Ruggiero. The first opera composer by a woman that premiered publicly. This work cast a long shadow in operatic history for powerful and dangerous central female characters. Today Caccini is beginning to get the recognition she deserves, after centuries of neglect.

The Chains of Adonis. Mazzochi tried with this work, premiered in Rome, to create a varied flow of arias (songs) and recitatives (speech rhythms) to counter what he saw as boring Florentine operas.

Possibly the first opera written in German, in a translation based on the original libretto for Jacopo Peri's Dafne. it was lost until reconstructed by Reinhard Seehafer in 2007

This opera was written for a Medici - Farnese marriage and was the last spectacle to be staged in the Teatro Mediceo in the Uffizi Palace in Florence. The piece was written to replace another by Jacopo Peri, which was cancelled because Francesca Caccini, in a feud with the librettist, convinced the mother of the bride that the proposed libretto made subversive suggestions. Opera is truly the place where high art and petty squabbles mingle in a perfect union.

Translation: The Resonant Spheres. Francesca Caccini contributed an aria to this opera by Robletti.

Written for the growing opera scene in Venice, with a libretto by Giulio Strozzi, father of the composer Barbara Strozzi. The Rape of Proserpine.

After opera's creation as a genre in the aristocratic halls of Tuscany, and in particular Florence, activity moved to Venice, the place where opera stabilised as a form and attracted a growing public audience. It wasn't long before opera became central to life in that watery city.

Stefano Landi followed up his 1619 comic opera with the first opera written on an historical subject, Saint Alexius. He kept his trademark comic scenes and added psychological complexity.

This year marked the death of Jacopo Peri, composer of the first opera.

Just as in France the early history of opera is connected to the Ballet de cour, in England things were bound up with the masque, an elaborate court spectacle serving to celebrate state power, in which royals and aristocrats would themselves act. This masque was paid for by parliament, a fact which scandalised the Puritans.

Ballets de cour (Court Ballets) were highly involved spectacles that used music, words, costume, design, and crucially, dance. They were elaborate social and political occasions, and although now they are not considered operas, their history is intimately bound up with that of early opera in France, particularly through the figure of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who worked in both genres. This spectacle was created by the King himself, Louis XIII, to celebrate the end of a blackbird hunt.

Possibly the last year in human history with no opera premieres. Something momentous happened in this year - the Tron family obtained permission to rebuild the destroyed Teatro San Cassiano as an opera house, which opened in 1637 as the first opera house open to the public. It set the tone, and more and more public opera houses began to open. Today a project is underway to try to rebuild the theatre again. Long live opera!

A seismic moment in the history of opera, as the first ever public opera was premiered, financed by the opera makers and including the composer singing one of the roles. L'Andromeda opened to the paying public at the newly rebuilt Teatro San Cassiano. This event ushered in a new way of financing operas, wresting control away from the palaces and private halls, and relying on the public for support. Help us do the same by claiming this year!

The early history of early opera in English is bound up with the masques of the Stuart Court, and this first "opera" in English is no different. It was first performed by Queen Henrietta Maria (wife of Charles I) and her ladies in waiting.

The Wedding of Thetis and Peleus. This opera marks the emergence onto the Venetian operatic scene of a giant of early opera - Francesco Cavalli, prolific pupil of Monteverdi who would go on to compose 41 operas. This story was later set as a cantata by Gioachino Rossi in 1816. The next year, Cavalli would continue with the old operatic fable of Apollo and Dafne.

The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland. First performed by the company of Manelli and Ferrari, who first brought opera to Venice, this large work is now regarded as one of the earliest operatic masterworks, despite having a chequered history in terms of its authenticity. It tells the story of Ulysses returning from the Trojan War to reclaim his kingdom.

First performed at the Teatro San Cassiano, the world's first public opera house, built by the "Tron Brothers" in 1637, who had a vision of building a theatre specifically designed to for music.

The Coronation of Poppea. This extraordinary opera, the last from Claudio Monteverdi, tells the story of how Poppea becomes Empress of Rome. Famed for its dark morality and sexually-charged plot, it remains a towering achievement of music drama.

The unstoppable Francesco Cavalli continued his relationship with the Teatro San Cassiano with this hugely successful ancient Greek tale.

Cavalli again worked with the Teatro San Cassiano to present this erotic comedy. which remained unperformed after its initial run until a production at Glyndebourne in 1967. That production marked the beginning of the Cavalli revival, and Ormindo ended up opening the newly-created Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London in 2015.

Apparently the first Venetian opera ever to feature an Amazonian warrior woman as its heroine.

Although this wasn't a world premiere, 1646 saw the French premiere of Cavalli's L'Egisto in Paris. This performance initiated an intense rivalry between Italian and French musical styles.

This six-hour beast was first performed in Paris at the carnival in 1647, and the extravagance of the performance contributed to civil unrest. While writing it, Rossi discovered that his wife had died, and he is said to have poured his grief into the music, mirroring Orpheus, the grief-stricken operatic hero-musician.

Although we have no records of operatic world-premieres this year, the Fronde kicked off, a series of uprisings in France, at least partly in response to the lavish lifestyle of Cardinal Mazarin, who commissioned Rossi's opera of the year before. Opera commissioners, watch out!

Giasone was despised by classical purists for its treatment of the myth of the Golden Fleece, and for mixing high and low elements into one plot. As Richard Wigmore pointed out in Gramophone, the opera came to symbolise Venice's "moral and aesthetic decadence. All of which helped make Giasone the most-performed opera in the whole of the 17th century."

The continuing dominance and popularity of Cavalli and his relationship with the Teatro San Cassiano can be considered something of a high watermark for the popularity of opera.

Cavalli premiered two operas in 1651, both at the newly opened Teatro Sant' Apollinare, led by the impresario Giovanni Faustini, who died during the run. Commissioning operas can be a dangerous business.

The Teatro Sant' Apollinare in Venice where this opera was premiered was a converted warehouse. Considering the fashion for operas in warehouses over the past 30 years, one can conclude that everything is cyclical. Give it up for the original hipsters! Giovanni Faustini, the librettist, was an impresario, and supplied the librettos to several of Cavalli's works. Sadly, he died at age 31, and didn't see their final two collaborations reach the stage. The opera was championed by Jane Glover in the 1980s.

This opera was premiered in Milan to celebrate the election of Ferdinand IV as King of the Romans.

It's not clear how much of this work is actually by Cavalli - Francesco Provenzale also must claim some credit, but the order of influence is yet to be established.

This opera was first performed at Innsbruck in Austria, where it was revived in 1996 at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.

Another contender for the first English opera, this piece shared a librettist, Sir William Davenant, with 1638's Luminalia, and had no fewer than five composers!

Cesti premiered this tragi-comic opera at the court theatre in Innsbruck, like his 1655 L'Argia. After that it travelled extensively through Italy.

This piece, with a libretto by Sir William Davenant (Luminalia, 1638; The Siege of Rhodes, 1656, The History of Sir Francis Drake, 1659), was sanctioned by the Puritans to be performed publicly for two reasons: it was a musical offering, and it was anti-Spanish propaganda. It's unclear whether this is a good model for aspiring opera makers today.

Locke and Davenant followed up their 1658 anti-spanish The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, with another Spain-bashing epic, encouraged by Oliver Cromwell while England was at war with Spain.

Jealousy, even groundless, kills. The first Spanish Opera, with a libretto by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, one of the most distinguished writers of the Spanish Golden Age. This opera was originally performed over three days.

Cesti premiered his Orontea in Innsbruck in 1656, but he supervised a new production in Rome in 1661 which was hugely influential.

This was the first Italian-language opera to be premiered in Dresden, with both the libretto and music by the multi-talented castrato Bonetmpi. The plot concerns Paris' abduction of Helen of Troy.

Praiseworthy Cadmus. This lost opera was first performed in the open air in the forest near the castle of Frederiksborg in Copenhagen in September 1663, in honour of a Saxon-Danish betrothal. It was a hugely intricate work involving dances throughout, and elaborate stage machinery including a cloud-machine. Immersive opera has a long history!

The 60-year-old Cavalli was on a high after returning to Venice from France where he spread the gospel of Italian Opera and received a diamond ring from the French king. This opera was hugely popular and was chosen to open Rome's first public opera house in 1671.

Premiered at the Neue Favorita open-air theatre at Laxenburg castle just outside Vienna, telling the story of the enchantress Circe.

Containing a huge number of characters, this work was premiered at the Teatro San Salvatore in Venice. The work was revived in Bologna in 1692.

The Misfortunes of Love. Cesti had gone up in the world, premiering this work at the Habsburg Court in Vienna.

The Golden Apple. This huge opera was performed in an open-air theatre in Vienna, and was so long that it had to be performed over two days, with 24 different sets. Cesti died the year after aged 46, rumoured to be poisoned by his rivals. Opera composers beware!

The Wicked One Punished. The first of many operas written on the story of the womaniser Don Juan, kicking off another favourite operatic topic.

Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazonians. This rather obscure opera was premiered in Milan, to a libretto by Giovanni Rabbia.

Considered to be the first true French opera, this pastoral tale premiered in Paris, performed by the recently established Académie d'Opéra, now known as the Paris Opera.

Another Orpheus retelling for the opera-hungry people of Venice, this opera is considered to a transitional work moving away from the dramaturgy of Cavalli and towards the new opera seria.

Originally born in Italy but a naturalised Frenchman, Lully became emblematic of the French national style. With this opera, Lully invented the tragedie lyrique, which resisted the formalism of Italian opera and mixed together a variety of musical forms in service of the drama.

Lully followed up his 1673 Cadmus with Alceste, performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal for the Paris Opera. The tale from Ancient Greece is preceded by an introduction in which the Nymph of the Seine longs for Louis XIV to return from battle.

The Division of the World. Giovanni Legrenzi wrote 19 operas, of which this, which tells the story of the division of the world after the Olympians defeated the Titans, was the most successful.

This opera became known as "the King's Opera" because of how much Louis XIV liked it, even though the Parisian public did not agree!

Premiered in Venice, the action takes place in the Gothic wars, with Rome under siege. The plot mixes heroic and comic elements, and Legrenzi focused on drawing four sharply differentiated characters.

Triumphant Love is the first opera written in Dutch, written to celebrate the Peace of Nijmegen. Sadly never performed in the composer's lifetime, it was given its premiere in 1920. Although believed lost, a reconstruction was attempted and recorded in 2012.

Trespolo the Tutor. Stradella, the composer of this opera, which is considered to be perhaps the second ever "opera buffa", a hugely influential form of Italian comic opera, met a grisly fate when he was murdered, allegedly stabbed to death by three brothers whose sister he had seduced. Composers beware!

This opera with a libretto by John Dryden, although little known today, is incredibly important for the development of English Opera, acting as a precursor and inspiration for Henry Purcell.

The aristocratic and ill-fated Stradella, who was apparently stabbed to death by the three brothers of a woman he seduced, premiered three different operas in 1681, displaying an incredibly strong work ethic.

The Pleasures of Versailles. Charpentier was a hugely prolific composer, who composed a large amount of dramatic music. This piece was intended to be performed in the King's apartments in Versailles.

A contender for the title of first English-language opera, Venus and Adonis is radical for its through-composed nature, and acted as a major influence on Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688).

A story about a hunter which was composed to be premiered in hunting season, although we don't know where or who commissioned it.

The Flourishing Arts. Commissioned for performance at the house of Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, Charpentier's patron. The text is by an unknown author.

This is arguably Lully's finest opera. The libretto is by Philippe Quinault, based on a poem by Torquato Tasso, set at the time of the crusades. The subject was chosen by King Louis XIV, and the opera was performed in the presence of his son, the Grand Dauphin.

Lully died from a conducting injury before he could finish this opera - his pupil Pascal Collasse took over. Conductors beware!

Purcell's Dido and Aeneas may be his only full operatic work, but it is a monumental work in Baroque operatic history. Dido's famous lament "When I am laid in earth..." casts a particularly long shadow.

Agostino Steffani was a bishop and diplomat as well as a composer, and managed in his busy life to write 20 operas. This one was premiered in Hanover, and is based on the life of the German Prince Henry the Lion.

It it an opera? Who knows! What's an opera anyway?

This semi-opera has a libretto by John Dryden, and was commissioned by Thomas Betterton, manager of the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden.

Working again with Thomas Betterton, this semi-opera adapted the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, and was performed at the Queen's Theatre. The score was lost and only rediscovered in the 20th century.

A major achievement, Charpentier's large opera tells the story from Ancient Greece of the jilted sorceress who kills her own children to take revenge on Jason of the Argonauts.

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, aside from having an amazing name, was an important composer in her day. She wrote only one opera, which was sadly not a success. We can now look back and celebrate this achievement: the first woman to premiere an opera at the Paris Opéra.

Purcell's last and unfinished stage work was performed at Drury Lane. In 2013 the American director Peter Sellars directed a new realisation.

This semi-opera has a libretto by John Dryden, and was commissioned by Thomas Betterton, manager of the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden.

Galant Europe. The first opera-ballet.

The Lucky Prisoner. Alessandro Scarlatti was a hugely influential and important composer of operas, and the most famous representative of the Neapolitan school. He was important in the development of the Da Capo aria, an operatic form in which you get an ABA structure. This opera was premiered in Naples.

André Cardinal Destouches was a hard-worker, and managed to premiere two operas in 1699.