ANCIENT DRAMA IN MUSIC FOR THE MODERN STAGE This page intentionally left blank Ancient Drama in Music for the Modern Stage Edited by ˇ PETER BROWN AND SUZANA OGRAJENSEK 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #OxfordUniversityPress2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2010 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby CPIAntonyRowe,Chippenham,Wiltshire ISBN 978–0–19–955855–1 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Preface This book explores the relationship between ancient drama and music for the stage from the late sixteenth century to the present day. It is a companion volume to Fiona Macintosh (ed.), The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World (Oxford, 2010). Like that book, it has been produced under the auspices of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) at the University of Oxford. Chapters 4–11 are based on papers given at the APGRD conference, ‘Ancient Drama in Modern Opera, 1600–1800’, held at the University of Oxford on 12 July 2007.1 Chapters 13, 15, 16, and 19 are basedonlecturesdeliveredatOxfordfortheAPGRD.Theremainingchapters have been written specially for this volume. In keeping with the objectives of theAPGRD,thefocusofthebookisonworksbasedonancientplays,anarea thathasnotbeensystematicallyexploredtodate,ratherthanmoregenerallyon ancient mythology or history. As well as concentrating on some of the earliest uses of ancient drama itself on the operatic stage, it charts the gradual assimi- lation of individual ancient plots into the operatic repertoire, discussing the relevantsocial,cultural,andintellectualcontext.Theauthorsareexpertsinthe fields of Classics, Musicology, Dance Studies, English Literature, Modern Languages, and Theatre Studies. The first three chapters provide an introductory survey of various aspects of thesubject;theremainingchaptersareorganizedlargelyinchronologicalorder. A full study even of this sub-branch of operatic history would be a very substantial volume indeed, and our aim here has been both to chart the main outlines of the subject and to advance it by offering new studies of important aspects.Mostofthechaptersareconcernedwithopera,butchapters3,15,and 19discussmusicwrittentoaccompanyspokenperformancesofGreektragedies: already in 1585, before the invention of opera itself, Andrea Gabrieli had composed music for the choruses in the production of Sophocles’ Oedipus TyrannusthatinauguratedtheTeatroOlimpicoatVicenza,andsuch‘incidental music’hasplayedanimportantpartinthemodernreceptionofancientdrama; Felix Mendelssohn’s music for Sophocles’ Antigone at Potsdam in 1841 is another striking example. Since tragedies have loomed much larger than com- ediesinthemusicalreceptionofancientdrama,thevolumemostlyconcentrates onthetragicrepertoire.Inaddition,however,thereisonechapter(Chapter13) 1 WearegratefultotheBritishAcademy,theClassicalAssociation,theSocietyforthePromo- tion ofHellenic Studies, and(within the University ofOxford) theCraven Committee andthe FacultiesofClassicsandMusicfortheirgeneroussupportofthatconference. vi Preface discussing comic opera; this chapter also discusses relevant incidental music, ballets,andmusicals. Theformofmusicaldramawhichwenowcalloperawasinventedattheendof thesixteenthcenturyinpartasanimitationoremulationofancientGreektragedy, in the belief that Greek tragedy had been sung throughout. That belief is now thoughttohavebeenmistaken,anditwasdisputedevenatthetime;itmayalsobe suspected that a development on these lines would have taken place in any case, sincethenewformwasnotentirelyuninfluencedbyperformingstylesalreadyin existence in genres such as the pastoral play and the intermedii (interludes) per- formedbetweentheactsofspokenplays.Nonetheless,itwastheinterestofagroup of Renaissance intellectuals (members of the Camerata at Florence) in ancient Greekmusic,andintherelationshipbetweenwordsandmusicinGreektragedy, thatstimulatedthedevelopmentofastyleofperformance—expressivemonody— that gave particular attention to conveying the meaning and the dramatic and emotional force of the words being sung. This was an exceptionally fruitful development in the history of European music, and the relationship between wordsandmusichasbeenattheheartofdebateaboutoperaeversince. However,theinterestoftheCameratainthestyleofdeliveryofGreektragedy did not extend to a desire to reproduce the plots of the plays, and it was sixty yearsbeforelibrettiststookthesurvivingGreektragediesthemselvesasthebasis oftheirtexts.Thisisperhapsnotsurprising,sincethemainfocusoftheCamera- ta’s interest had been on Greek music rather than Greek drama, and in the cultural context of the time mythological and pastoral stories were more obvi- ouslyacceptable—seeinparticularChapter9belowforadiscussionofthispoint. Admittedly,asubjectwhichearlybecamepopularwasthestoryofAndromeda, staged as early as 1610 at Bologna; Euripides’ play on this subject has not survived, and Ovid was undoubtedly the main source for the story, but anyone whoknewAristophanes’FrogsorWomenattheThesmophoriawouldknowthatit had formed the subject matter of a very famous tragedy.2 So there was no absolutebanonEuripideanmaterial.Butitremainstruethattheuseofsurviving Greek tragedies can be traced back only to the 1660s, starting with Antigona delusadaAlceste(‘AntigonetrickedbyAlcestis’,librettobyAurelioAureli,music byPietroAndreaZiani,Venice,1660),basedinpartonEuripides’Alcestis(but notatallonSophocles’Antigone!). The subject matter of ancient drama has not always been at the forefront of operaticcomposition,butithasbeenthereatparticularlyimportantmomentsin thehistoryofthegenre.Thosewhohavecalledforareformofthetheatrehave tended to return to ancient drama to seek support for the ideas that they were promoting, for opera as well as for spoken drama. It is notable that Euripides’ 2 ThispointhasbeenstressedbyBlairHoxbyaspartofhisargumentthattheimportanceof Euripidesfortheearlydevelopmentofthegenrehasnotbeensufficientlyappreciated:seeHoxby (2005),drawingattentiontothefactthatseveralofEuripides’playshave‘happyendings’. Preface vii Alcestis was the catalyst for two important debates about operatic reform: Jean- Baptiste Lully’s Alceste (Paris, 1674) helped to win acceptance for French- language opera; and Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Alceste (Vienna, 1767) had a preface to the score, signed by Gluck but probably written by his librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, outlining proposals for a return to the original ethos of thegenre,witharenewedemphasisonpoeticexpressionanddramaticforceand areductionintheopportunitiesforvirtuososinging.Calzabigihadbeentosome extent anticipated by Francesco Algarotti in his Saggio sopra l’opera in musica (‘EssayonOpera’,1755),whichurgedthatalltheelementsofanoperashouldbe subordinatedtoaunifyingpoeticidea;Algarotticoncludedthetreatisewiththe fulltextofalibrettoforIphigeniaatAulis,basedonEuripidesandRacine,asan example of the simple style he advocated. Algarotti also influenced Christoph Martin Wieland’s approach to the creation of a German operatic tradition at Weimarin1773;onceagainAlcestiswasthesubject,andtheopera,withmusic byAntonSchweitzer,wasastrikingsuccess. Two notable operas called M´ed´ee and based ultimately on Euripides’ Medea were those of Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Paris, 1693) and Luigi Cherubini (Paris, 1797), the latter particularly famous as a vehicle for Maria Callas in the mid-twentiethcentury.ThesubjectofJean-PhilippeRameau’sfirstoperaHippo- lytus and Aricia (Paris, 1733) can be traced back to Euripides’ Hippolytus and Seneca’sPhaedra,thoughJeanRacinewasanimportantintermediary,ashewas for a number of the operatic librettos on classical subjects—see Chapter 7. Rameau’sintenselydramaticcompositionseemedrevolutionaryatthetimeand provoked furious debate between Ramistes and Lullistes, supporters of Rameau andofhispredecessorLullyrespectively;itwasthefirstmusicalworktowhichthe (atthattime)pejorativeterm‘baroque’isknowntohavebeenapplied. It was Richard Wagner’s reading of Aeschylus that prompted him to reform operainthenineteenthcentury,andHugovonHofmannsthal’sinterpretationof Sophocles’ElectrathatpromptedRichardStrausstocomposehishighlyoriginal version of that play (Elektra, Dresden, 1909). As Chapters 2 and 15–19 show, therewasaparticularfloweringofinterestinancientdramaamongsomeofthe most adventurous composers of the twentieth century, in terms of both operas and incidental music; and recent decades have seen a considerable interest in ancientdramaonthepartofcomposersfromallovertheworld.3Amongothers, Mark-AnthonyTurnagemadehismarkatMunichin1988withhisfirstopera, Greek, based on the play of that name by Steven Berkoff which transposes the storyofOedipustocontemporaryLondon;Turnage’soperawascommissioned by Hans Werner Henze, who had himself composed the music for a notable versionofEuripides’Bacchae,TheBassarids(Salzburg,1966). The book covers four centuries of musical production and could not possibly discusseverythingofimportanceinthattime.Wehavetriedtoofferarepresentative 3 SeeBrown,P.(2004). viii Preface sample. Some major works are not included, either because they have been fully discussed elsewhere (e.g. Wagner’s Ring, to which Ewans (1982) is devoted, and Strauss’s Elektra, discussed by McDonald (2001), Goldhill (2002), and Ewans (2007))orsimplyforreasonsofspace.Detailsofseveralhundredrelevantmusical worksmaybefoundinthedatabaseonthewebsiteoftheAPGRD(www.apgrd.ox. ac.uk).4 The magisterial study of Flashar (1991, 2nd edn. 2009) gives an overall surveyofmodernproductionsofGreekdrama,includinganaccountofmanykey operatic productions; but his main focus is on productions of the ancient plays themselves,asheacknowledgesexplicitlyintheprefacetothesecondedition. We are very grateful to Stephe Harrop for putting the list of References in order, to our eagle-eyed copy-editor Tom Chandler, and to Brenda Hall for providingtheindex. P.B.;S.O. 4 WorkonthispartofthedatabasewasmadepossiblebyagrantfromtheArtsandHumanities Research Council, with additional funding from the Onassis Programme at the University of Oxford; we are gratefulto both bodies fortheir support.Much ofthe research for thedatabase wascarriedoutbySuzanaOgrajenˇsek. Contents Illustrations xi Contributors xiii NotetotheReader xvii 1. Precursors,Precedents,Pretexts:TheInstitutionsofGreco-Roman TheatreandtheDevelopmentofEuropeanOpera 1 RogerSavage 2. GreekTragedyandOpera:NotesonaMarriageManque´ 31 MicheleNapolitano 3. IncidentalMusicandtheRevivalofGreekTragedyfromthe ItalianRenaissancetoGermanRomanticism 47 JasonGeary 4. Phaedra’sHandmaiden:TragedyasComedyandSpectaclein Seventeenth-CenturyOpera 67 WendyHeller 5. DanceinLully’sAlceste 85 JenniferThorp 6. TheGhostofAlcestis 96 AmyWygant 7. TheRiseandFallofAndromacheontheOperaticStage, 1660s–1820s 112 SuzanaOgrajenˇsek 8. OperaLibrettosandGreekTragedyinEighteenth-Century Venice:TheCaseofAgostinoPiovene 139 RobertC.Ketterer 9. AncientTragedyinOpera,andtheOperaticDebutof OedipustheKing(Munich,1729) 160 ReinhardStrohm 10. EstablishingaText,SecuringaReputation:Metastasio’sUse ofAristotle 177 MichaelBurden 11. TheGodsoutoftheMachine...andtheirComeback 193 BrunoForment