Reconstructing the lost music of seventeenth-century Bolognese dialect comic opera

Around 1680, writers in Bologna began to create an indigenous comic opera repertory in the local dialect. By substituting the stylized language of mainstream opera with the innately more natural verbal patterns of dialect, Bolognese librettists reflected local life to a degree unheard of in other comic opera repertories. Not a single score has survived from this repertory, but through an analysis of Antonio Maria Monti's libretto for Li diporti d'amore in villa, the first dialect comic opera ever written, suggests that the music of Bolognese comic opera diverged drastically from the standard operatic model.