Keywords
Circe
opera in the Netherlands
libretto
classical tradition and its transformation
Neo-Stoicism
virtues (constancy
temperance)
emotions
How to Cite
Abstract
The present article is a close reading of the libretto of the first opera (drama musicale) staged in the Netherlands, in Brussels in 1650. The main point of interest is Ascanio Amalteo’s transformation or even breakaway from the classical tradition (esp. Homer and Ovid) to create a work with its own message, quite distant from classical texts but, paradoxically, approaching moral and psychological categories in Neo-Stoic mode. Perhaps it is not by chance that a parallel piece, Calderon’s second play on Circe (after the fiesta entitled El mayor encanto, amor, 1635), i.e. the auto sacramentale entitled Los encantos de la culpa (ca. 1650), is also a significant transformation of the motive done in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. Both plays are the last allegorical interpretations of Circe myth and for the next two-hundred years the last important literary works about Ulysses.
References
Amalteo, Ascanio. 1650. Ulisse all’Isola di Circe. Dramma musicale. Brusselles: Apresso d’Huberto Antonio Velpio.
Badoaro, Giacomo. 1644a. Scenario Dell’ “Ulisse errante. Opera musicale.” […]. Venetia: Pietro Pinelli.
Badoaro, Giacomo. 1644b. Ulisse errante. Opera musicale. Venetia: Pietro Pinelli.
Biały, Leszek. 1997. “Wstęp.” Calderon de la Barca, Pedro. Autos sacramentales: Wielki teatr świata, Magia grzechu, Życie jest snem. Ed. and trans. Leszek Biały. Wrocław: Ossolineum.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. 1511. Genealogiae Joannis Boccatii cum demonstrationibus in formis arborum designata. [Genealogia deorum gentilium.]. Venetiis: Augustinus de Zannis.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. 1963. Concerning Famous Women. Ed. and trans. Guido A. Guarino. New Brunswick – New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. 2013. O słynnych kobietach [bilingual edition]. Eds and trans. Piotr Bańkowski, Inga Grześczak, and Agnieszka Szopińska. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
Brumble, H. David. 1998. Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: A Dictionary of Allegorical Meanings. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 1861. Love the Greatest Enchantment: The Sorceries of Sin: The Devotion of the Cross. Trans. Denis Florence MacCarthy. London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 2004. Los encantos de la culpa. Estudio de Aurora Egido. Edición de Juan Manuel Escudero. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger – Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra.
Capodieci, Luisa, and Ford, Philip, eds. 2011. Homère à Renaissance: Mythe et transfi guration. Rome: Académie de France à Rome.
Comes, Natalis. 1612. Natalis Commitis Mythologiae, sive explicationis fabularum libri decem […]. Genevae: Samuel Crispinus.
Conticelli, Valentina. 2011. “Omero (e Porfi rio) a Palazzo Vecchio: le virtu di Ulisse nella Sala di Penelope.” Eds Capodieci, Luisa, and Philip Ford. 241-265.
Haas, Robert. 1920-1921. “Gioseppe Zamponis Ulisse nell’ Isola di Circe.” Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 3: 385-405.
Jong, Irene J. F. de. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the “Odyssey.” Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Kuhn, Barbara. 2003. Mythos und Metapher: Metamorphosen des Kirke-Mythos in der Literatur der italienischen Renaissance. Munchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Lipsius, Justus. 1604. Ivsti Lipsi Manvdvctionis Ad Stoicam Philosophiam Litri Tres […]. Antverpiae: Ex Officina Plantiniana.
Louden, Bruce. 2007 [1999]. “Kalypso and the Function of Book Vive.” Homer’s “The Odyssey.” . Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism. 169-196.
Montiglio, Silvia. 2011. From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought. Ann Arbor: The Univ. of Michigan Press.
Ovid. 1916. Metamorphoses. With an English translation by Frank Justus Miller. I-II. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Rahner, Hugo. 1971. Greek Myths and Christian Mystery. Trans. Brian Battershaw. New York: Harper & Row.
Rasch, Rudolf. 1999. “Opera in Netherlands.” Spectaculum Europaum: Theater and Spectacle in Europe (1580-1750). Eds Pierre Behar, and Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 429-435.
Schoppe, Caspar. 1606. Casp. Scioppii Elementa Philosophiae Stoicae Moralis […]. Moguntiae: Ex Calcographeo Ioannis Albini.
Segal, Charles. 1968. “Circean Temptations: Homer, Vergil, Ovid.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 99: 419-442.
Solomon, Jon. 2014. “The Infl uence of Ovid in Opera.” A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid. Eds John F. Miller, and Carole E. Newlands. Oxford: John Willey & Sons. 371-385.
Stanford, W. B. 1963 [1954]. The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. 2 revised ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Sullivan, Henry W. 1985. “Calderon and Semi-Operatic Stage in Spain after 1651.” Calderon and the Baroque Tradition. Eds Kurt Levy, Jesus Ara, and Gethin Hughes. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. 69-80.
T’Hooft, Sigrid. 2008. “Italianita in Brussels around 1650: The Opera Ulisse nell’isola di Circe by Giuseppe Zamponi.” Italian Opera in Central Europe 1614-1780. II: Italianita: Image and Practice. Eds Corinna Herr, Herbert Seifert, Andrea Sommer-Mathis, and Reinhard Strohm. Berlin: BWV Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag. 87-102.
Tochtermann, Sibylle. 1992. Die allegorische gedeutete Kirke Mythos: Studien zur Entwicklungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Witte, Bernd. 1999. “Goethe und Homer: Ein Paradigmenwechsel.” Goethes Ruckblick auf Antike: Beitrage des deutsch-italienischen Kolloquiums Rom. Eds Bernd Witte, and Mauro Ponzi. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. 21-37.
Yarnall, Judith. 1994. Transformations of Circe: The History of Enchantress. Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press.
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Piotr Urbański
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.