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| | The Medici Archive Project: News and Notes |
 | | In 1626, the Conde Duque Olivares, chief minister of Felipe IV, ordered the Duque de Pastrana, Spanish Ambassador Extraordinary to the Papal Court, to recruit a skilled hydraulicist and fountain expert for the royal gardens in Madrid and its vicinity. |
| | In the stile recitativo, as Ambassador Averardo de’ Medici terms it, the characters told their stories, expressed their emotions and interacted with each other in continuous monody (that is to say, with a single dominant ongoing voice line) in the manner that later came to characterize modern lyric opera. |
| | At the Spanish Court, the most characteristic spectacles were the so-called comedias de tramoyas ("transformation plays" or "machine plays".) Combining elements of ballet, masque, pageant and grand opera, their chief attractions were astonishing scenic effects that took place as if by magic before the eyes of the spectactors. |
| www.medici.org /news/dom/dom102002.html (2856 words) |
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