Mount St. Mary’s University’s Chorale to Perform Excerpts from Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo Mount St. Mary’s University’s Chorale will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the composition of the world’s first opera, Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, on Thursday, November 29. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on the Mount campus. Admission is free. Joining the Mount Chorale will be an ensemble of early instrumental and vocal specialists from Baltimore for a performance of excerpts from Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and other works. Monteverdi composed his landmark opera in 1607 for his employers at the court of Mantua. It is generally considered the first completely developed opera in history, a masterpiece that built upon the experiments in musical drama presented in Florence eight years earlier. The performers will present the opera’s prologue and second act in an unstaged performance, as well as several of Monteverdi’s five-voice madrigals. The pivotal act focuses on the wedding festivities of the mythological Orpheus, who learns of the snakebite death of his bride Eurydice and then vows to travel to the underworld and plead for her release. The ensemble, led by Dr. Andrew Rosenfeld, associate professor at the Mount, will be composed of vocal soloists performing the roles of Orpheus, the Messenger, and Orpheus’ companions; the Mount Chorale will perform the role of the shepherds and wedding guests. The instrumental ensemble, directed by William Simms, lecturer in guitar at the Mount, will include period violins and cello, viol da gamba, and a continuo group of harpsichord, portative organ, and Simms on the Renaissance theorbo, or arch lute. For more information, please contact the Office of Communications, 301-447-5366, charuhas@msmary.edu. | 
