Wendy Beth Heller

This study explores the uses of antiquity in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Italian opera and cantata. Poets, composers, and choreographers used music and drama to reconcile fragments of antiquity with their special vision of the ancient realms, considering as well how the genre reinterpreted ancient history. Taking into account the discovery and collection of antiquities in early modern Europe, their eclectic use in baroque art—with special attention to Ovid—this project provides new insights into opera's recuperation of the ancients.