Though various ways of bringing music and drama together had been explored over centuries – such as liturgical dramas, the English court masque and its Italian equivalent, the intermedio– the first real opera can be accurately dated. A group of Florentine intellectuals called the Camerata decided to recreate the original form of Greek drama – which they wrongly believed to have been sung throughout – and one of them, Jacopo Peri, accordingly composed Dafne (1597).
