Elements of Opera begin with the greek dramatists; Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who combined poetry and music. Like mythology, Italy gained inspiration from the greek. The first Opera was composed in 1597 in Florence, Italy. The piece was called Dafne by Jacopo Peri. Opera, in its simplest form, can be broken down by the eras. From the Baroque period (1500-1750) with artists including Jacopo Peri, Guilio Caccini, Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Francesco Cavalli, Jean-Baptiste Lully, John Blow, Henry Purcell, Alessandro Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, G. B. Pergolesi & Jean-Philippe Rameau. The next era being the Classical Period (1750-1800). Artists include Niccolo Piccinni, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Hadyn, Giovanni Paisiello, André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, Antonio Salieri & Domenico Cimerosa. The third period is the Romantic Period (1800-1890). The artists of the time are Ludwig Van Beethoven, Gioachino Rossini, Carl Maria von Weber, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gaetano Donizetti, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Charles Gounod, Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, Johann Strauss, Modest Musorgsky, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Jules Massenet & Pietro Mascagni. The fourth-period Verismo or the 20th Century (1890-1920). This period is a back to basics of Opera's Italian origins. One of the most famous operas ever were composed during this time, La Boheme, Tosca, & Madame Butterfly. Artists for this period include Ruggero Leoncavallo, Giacomo Puccini, Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Ethel Smyth, Hans Pfitzner, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Béla Bartók, Alban Berg, Franco Alfano, Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Igor Stravinsky, Virgil Thomson, George Gershwin, Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Philip Glass, Thea Musgrave, Harrison Birtwistle, & John Adams.