Jacopo Peri’s "La Dafne" (1598) is widely regarded as the first true opera in the history of music. The surviving fragments already hint at the revolutionary "stile rappresentativo" — that expressive mode between speech and song through which Peri pioneered an entirely new musical-dramatic language. These scenes form the centerpiece of an evening that also features works by Peri, Marco da Gagliano, and other contemporaries. True to historical practice, just three singers perform all the roles, while instrumental interludes in the style of the Medici intermedios both frame and comment on the unfolding action. The result is an incisive glimpse into the birth of opera — a play of preserved fragments, imaginative reconstruction, and musical metamorphosis.

Jonathan will be singing multiple roles in both La Dafne by Peri and La Dafne by da Gagliano.