Adapting an adaptation Martin Opitz's Dafne among the Italians Alms, Anthony

RESUMEN: In adapting Rinuccini´s Dafne, German poet Martin Opitz (1597-1639) sought to establish a degree of cultural independence from his italian model, both by developing a prosodic approach uniquely fitted to the German language and by subtly imbuing his text with a German moralistic hue. The later adaptation of Opitz´s libretto by two 17th-century Italians- Giovanni Andrea Bontempi and Marco Gioseppe Peranda- for the same Dresden court (though for a different Elector) that witnessed tha 1627 premiere of Opitz and Heinrich SchÜtz´s Dafne thus offers important insights into both the desire for German cultural independence and the powwr of Italian onfluence to moderate such a desire. This article attempts to draw out some of the examine what Bontempi and Peranda retained, added and altered with respect to Opitz´s aims. Their opera points to changing tastes at the Dresden court under Johann Georg II, and, as a stylistic hybrid, also stand an early exemplar of a particular line of development in the broader history of German opera . Keywords: Giovanni Andrea Bontempi, Marco Gioseppe Peranda, Martin Opitz, Heinrich shÜtz, Johann Georg II, Dafne.