The chorus had seats assigned
on the stage, but rose to sing, employing suitable movements and
gestures. Time, Morality, Pleasure, and other solo characters bore in
their hands musical instruments and seemed to play as they acted and
declaimed their parts, while the playing actually came from the
concealed instruments. The World, the Body and Human Life illustrated
the transitoriness of earthly affairs by flinging away the gorgeous
decorations they had worn when they appeared on the stage, and
displaying their utter poverty and wretchedness in the face of death
and dissolution. The representation ended with a ballet, danced
"sedately and reverently" to music by the chorus.
Some idea of the oratorio in its infancy may be gained from this
description. Except that the subject had a religious bearing, it
differed little from the opera. With Giacomo Carissimi, director of
music at San Apollinare, Rome, from 1628 until his death, in 1674, the
paths of the two diverged. He laid down lines that have been followed in
the oratorio ever since.
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