Seven of Claudio Monteverdi's operas are lost, apart from a few fragments, out of ten the Italian composer wrote in whole or in part between 1607 and 1643. A few librettos from these early baroque works have survived. Opera as a genre emerged during Monteverdi's creative lifetime, and he became a principal exponent of this new form, first at the Mantuan court and later as director of music at St Mark's Basilica in Venice. The loss of these works, written during a critical period of early opera history, has been much regretted by historians and musicologists, but reflects the habit of the times, when stage music was thought to have little relevance beyond its initial performance and often vanished quickly. Contemporary documents, including many letters written by Monteverdi, have provided most of the available information on the lost works, and have established that four of them were completed and performed in the composer's lifetime. Of the little music that has survived, the lamento from L'Arianna (1608) is frequently performed.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_operas_by_Claudio_Monteverdi
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
919:
A coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, failed in their attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Islandbridge
1752:
In adopting the Gregorian calendar under the terms of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, the British Empire skipped eleven days: (September 2 was followed directly by September 14). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_(New_Style)_Act_1750
1927:
In a freak automobile accident, dancer Isadora Duncan was strangled to death in Nice, France, by her scarf after it was caught on the wheel of a car in which she was a passenger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadora_Duncan
1954:
In a top secret nuclear test, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40-kiloton atomic weapon just north of Totskoye village, exposing some 45,000 soldiers and 10,000 civilians to nuclear fallout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye_nuclear_exercise
2007:
Late-2000s financial crisis: The Northern Rock bank received a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England, sparking a bank run—the United Kingdom's first in 150 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Rock
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
middling: 1. Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre. 2. (colloquial, regional Britain) In fairly good health. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/middling
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong." --Sydney J. Harris https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris