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Pastoral opera is an operatic genre in which the libretto is based on pastoral literature, depicting an idyllic rustic landscape, populated by shepherds and nature deities from Greek mythology. The mood invoked is one of nostalgia for a simple lifestyle in an earthly paradise, no longer attainable to urbanized man.

As a genre, pastoral opera is rather loosely defined, spanning multiple centuries as well as nationalities. There is no single convention for the structure of a pastoral opera. The term "pastoral opera" can encompass more specific national operatic genres, such as the French pastorale héroïque. Alternatively, individual operas, such as Mozart's Il re pastore, may be designated "pastoral opera" in terms of thematic content, but may also be representative of a broader epochal and/or structural genre, such as opera seria.

Pastoral themes in antecedents to opera

Pastoral poetry became a dominant genre within Italian literature in the later Renaissance. The madrigals of the 16th century, both in Italy and England, frequently had pastoral poems as their text sources. As musicologist Donald Grout states, "pastoral poetry was at once the last stage of the madrigal and the first stage of the opera libretto."

• Jacopo Sannazaro - Arcadia (poem) - published in Naples 1504
• Torquato Tasso - Aminta (play) - published in 1573
• Giovanni Battista Guarini - Il pastor fido - published in 1589

The Florentine Camerata and Claudio Monteverdi

• Jacopo Peri – Dafne, Euridice
• Claudio Monteverdi – L'Orfeo

Pastoral operas of the English tradition

• Venus and Adonis (opera)
• Comus
• Blow
• Purcell

References

Sources

• Grout, Donald (1996) [1960]. A History of Western Music. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-96904-5. </ref>
• Leopold, Silke (1991) [1982]. Monteverdi (Music in Transition). trans. from German by Anne Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-315248-7.