Like cosmologists with telescopes trained on the edge of the universe, where time began, Haymarket Opera and the Newberry Consort join forces to revive Jacopo Peri’s Euridice in concert. Composed to a text by Ottavio Rinuccini, Euridice isn’t the very first Western opera but the second, following the same collaborators’ lost Dafne. As members of the illustrious Camerata of Florence, Peri, Rinuccini, and others were intent on recreating Greek tragedy, about which they knew little. Instead, unintentionally, they gave birth to a new art form. Centuries later, the antique avant-garde exemplar of Euridice already projects the shape of things to come. If Peri’s score lacks the lasting hits Gluck later dropped into Orfeo, his musical dramaturgy—contrasting plot-driven musical dialogue on the verge of speech (recitative) with expansive melodic expression (arias)—already establishes protocols in effect to this day. On a political note, Euridice’s premiere lent luster to the nuptials of Henri IV, of France, and his formidable second wife Maria de’ Medici, later regent and archrival of Richelieu. Might there be coded parallels between Peri’s mythological couple and the Renaissance royals? Some like to think so. Skeptics, though, point out that while Orpheus descended to Hell for Eurydice, Henri could not bestir himself to Florence to fetch Maria. Regarding the Chicago performances, the forecast is for heavenly concord, with Erica Schuller and Scott J. Brunscheen in tune as the lovers, uplifted by a lavish complement of cornetti, sackbuts, lutes, recorders, and other period instruments led by Craig Trompeter and Liza Malamut. —Matthew Gurewitsch