Orfeo: looking back at Monteverdi’s masterpiece

Don Paterson thought writing a singable English version of a 17th-century Italian opera would be a breeze, until he found himself ‘fitting a set of spanners into a velvet box made for a dinner service’L’Orfeo wasn’t quite the first opera, but the consensus seems to be that it was the first that was any good. Some still hold it to be the greatest. Monteverdi was smart enough to choose just about the best story we have; indeed it’s hard to imagine starting with any other. The tale of Orp