“The very first opera publicly performed in Venice, Andromeda, was already elaborate, as [this] account printed in 1637 . . . shows: ‘The sky opened and one saw Jove and Juno in glory and other divinities. This great machine descended to the ground to the accompaniment of a concerto of voices and instruments truly from heaven. The two heroes, joined to each other, it conducted to the sky. Here the royal and ever worthy occasion had an end.’”

—Leslie Horry, from A Concise History of Opera, 1972.