Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven by Daniel Heartz

Author:Daniel Heartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2015-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Orfeo ed Euridice

Badini set his story further back in Ovid’s Orpheus myth relative to Calzabigi’s telling. He began with the attempted rape of Euridice by Aristeus (Arideo). King Creonte promised to marry his daughter to Arideo against her wishes. She flees and is about to enter a hostile wood when a chorus warns her of its dangers. Beast-like creatures threaten to capture and kill her. The chorus sends for Orfeo, who subdues the creatures by the beauty of his singing. Creonte, informed, agrees to the union of Orfeo and Euridice. Act I ends happily with their love duet.

In Act II hostile forces erupt again, distracting Orfeo, who leaves Euridice unattended. An emissary of Arideo attempts to abduct her, and while trying to escape she is fatally bitten by a poisonous snake. Orfeo returns, finds her lifeless form, and laments. Creonte decrees revenge on Arideo and sounds the alarm to rouse his forces.

Act III commences with general mourning (at the point chosen by Calzabigi and Gluck). Orfeo consults the Sibyl, who sends Genio (Gluck’s Amore) to bid the Thracian singer pluck up his courage and follow him to the abyss if he wishes to see his spouse. Furthermore, Genio tells Orfeo that tears are of no avail and that to remedy his loss he must put his trust in Philosophy. “Philosophy,” scoffs Orfeo, “in order to make me happy must bring back Euridice to my forlorn heart.” On this slender thread, apparently, hangs Badini’s fancy title “The Philosopher’s Spirit.” Haydn makes little of this scene, setting it in a short simple recitative that is over in a trice, thus undercutting Badini’s pretentious title. Act III ends with a request sung by a chorus asking Orfeo to let justice reign in his heart and to respect divine power.

Act IV opens with a chorus of unhappy shades on the banks of the Lethe. Genio leads Orfeo to Charon’s bark and they are attacked by a band of Furies. Orfeo does not win them over gradually by his singing as in Gluck. They quickly agree, as does Pluto. A chorus tells Orfeo his pains have ended but if he looks back upon his spouse while still in the netherworld he will lose her. Genio urges him to heed their warning. Euridice appears and in a brief recitative—quite inadequate to the situation, which should be a climactic moment—is lost again when the admonition is not heeded. Alone in the infernal fields Orfeo laments and is given a text so trite it would dispirit any composer: “I have lost once more the heart of my heart. Whatever will become of me?” Thus ends Act IV, scene 4, with Orfeo making an exit after his aria. What is called Act IV, scene 5 begins with him on stage again, either a gross ineptitude or a hint that something is amiss or lacking here. The scenery has changed to a seashore, which could be used to argue that this was conceived as the beginning of an Act V. The Bacchantes arrive and attempt to entice Orfeo.

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