Thanks, Seneca!
You do realise you’re dragging me away from Thyestes? I was just about to read the chorus from Act IV, after the Messenger’s gruesome description of Atreus’s nefas! In the spirit of one good turn deserves another, I’ll recommend Barchiesi’s Homeric Effects in Vergil’s Narrative. I think it’s an analysis that you will find interesting. I remember Hylander saying that Vergil virtually channels Homer. In many ways, he certainly does, but Barchiesi shows how Vergil goes about adapting and transforming elements from Homer’s poem so that it could be received by an audience with quite different cultural expectations and values. Quick example: in the Iliad, the practice of planting a foot on the corpse of the vanquished opponent and making an εὐχή is considered acceptable behaviour. In the Aeneid, it is not. Turnus’ act of gloating over the corpse of Pallas is considered excessive (The Roman value being moderation both in victory and defeat) and by taking Pallas’ buckler, he has doomed himself.
As to Les Troyens, I must confess I’ve never seen it. I’ve listened to Symphonie Fantastique. I’ve read that everything Berlioz ever produced could be considered a masterpiece.
P.S. I couldn’t get it to play in Edge, but it was fine in Chrome.
Thank you Aetos for your, as ever, interesting post. As I explained to you privately I had replied to this and was about to post when something happened and my post disappeared. I will try to remember what I originally wrote.
Most things I have read by Barchiesi are really illuminating. The re-writing of Homer goes beyond (as I am sure you know) modifying it for the cultural expectations of Romans. It is part of a process in which Virgil “enscribes” himself in the Greek and Roman literary tradition and canon following in the footsteps of his Hellenistic and neoteric predecessors. He in his turn was similarly treated by Ovid Lucan Statius et al. If you haven’t read “The epic Successors of Vergil, a study in the dynamics of a tradition”, Philip Hardie, Cambridge 1993 I recommend it.
As Hardie says “The epic strives for totality and completion, yet is at the same time driven obsessively to repetition and reworking” . You will have noticed that Seneca from whom I have distracted you with Berlioz, is similarly obsessed with repetition and reworking . His characters are often driven to greater crimes in an attempt to outdo the past. So for example Tantalus and Atreus in their different ways embody Seneca’s metapoetics as no doubt you will have read in Schiesaro.
I am glad you enjoyed the Berlioz. There was much to note for someone who has read Virgil and useful signposting for those who have not. This time I noticed the eyes on Cassandra’s hands. She is terrifying when she touches Astyanax’s head and sees his bloody future. I loved the storm music which ends the Hunt and brings Aeneas and Dido together in the cave. The lightening hitting the tree which bursts into flames to stand in for the marriage torches was a deft touch.
In the first part of the opera the scene with Sinon was cut, as is usual since it was one of the cuts Berlioz made in his struggle to get part at least of his work performed - he never saw a complete performance of the work as he wrote it. Indeed it was not until 1959 that an attempt was made to stage it more or less complete. That was at Covent Garden and the British have always been the most enthusiastic Berlioz supporters. Until recently he was largely ignored in France apart from a few works.
Another piece with vaguely classical connections is “La mort de Cléopâtre” . A wonderful rattle at the end. Text is here http://www.hberlioz.com/Libretti/Rome.htm. A performance by Véronique Gens is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma70ZMx-4Bs. If you dont know his “nuits d”été” you should listen to it. I have found a deeply moving concert performance given by Janet Baker here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlApRH-yc-0. Unfortunately it has German subtitles and is embedded in a German program. Nothing is perfect!
Hi Seneca,
Thank you for taking the time to reconstruct your post! I too have known the frustration of having written a lengthy post only to find it gone missing when I went to post. My theory is that when one navigates away from the editing page (for want of a better description)and the draft is not saved, it is lost. Having had this happen more than once, I now type out long posts in notepad and paste them into the drafting window when I’m ready to post. It takes about the same amount of time as saving the draft and reloading it and is far safer.
I shall have to add Hardie to my ever growing list of important classical commentators! I haven’t finished Schiesaro quite yet. My plan with Thyestes, as I think I’ve mentioned before, was to read an act, then follow that with a chapter from Schiesaro. Schiesaro, however, was giving me a great deal to think about, so I found that I was spending a great deal of time reading Schiesaro and very little reading Seneca. My new plan is to finish Schiesaro after this first read-through of Thyestes and before my second reading and who knows - perhaps the price of the Boyle will have come down by then! Right now, I read roughly 50 lines at a time, and work out the meaning as best I can. Then I reread those same 50 lines the next day, flipping back and forth between the text and Tarrant’s commentary. Finally, I read the lines metrically aloud to try to capture how it must have sounded to a listener.
One of the many things I’ve learned from Tarrant’s commentary is just what you mention: Seneca reworks many expressions from his predecessors and himself. I am constantly finding references to mostly Ovid, Vergil, and Horace as well as to similar lines or thoughts in his own plays and prose writings. Seneca’s constant striving to exceed what has previously been imagined leads to some powerful imagery. After reading Chorus IV, my first thought was that this is Seneca’s Götterdämmerung. I imagine scholars have written books on this one ode. I’ll be starting Act V tomorrow.
Regarding Berlioz, thank you for the links! I shall have a listen this afternoon! One more observation on Les Troyens:
I love how Berlioz achieves the effect of Cupid assuming Ascanius’ appearance by giving him wings! Simple, yet effective.
I did see in the credits that Covent Garden as well the San Francisco Opera assisted in the production.
Thank you, Seneca, for recommending La mort de Cléopâtre and Les nuits d’été. I listened to Veronique Gens’ performance of Cléopâtre, as well as her offering of Les nuits, then I listened to Dame Janet’s. I enjoyed both performances, but for sheer power, clarity, and passion, Dame Janet is peerless. I also enjoyed the interview with Sir Colin Davis. I see now why you say Berlioz has always been appreciated more in England than his native France. It was the era of the Romantic movement which was not far past its peak in Germany and England and slowly getting started in France. Berlioz was perhaps ahead of his time in bringing the Romantic ideal to music in France, not surprising then that he set Gautier’s poems to music. I didn’t mind the subtitles; I just followed the libretto in another browser window.
I was just about to read the chorus from Act IV, after the Messenger’s gruesome description of Atreus’s nefas! In the spirit of one good turn deserves another, I’ll recommend Barchiesi’s Homeric Effects in Vergil’s Narrative. I think it’s an analysis that you will find interesting. I remember Hylander saying that Vergil virtually channels Homer. In many ways, he certainly does, but Barchiesi shows how Vergil goes about adapting and transforming elements from Homer’s poem so that it could be received by an audience with quite different cultural expectations and values. Quick example: in the Iliad, the practice of planting a foot on the corpse of the vanquished opponent and making an εὐχή is considered acceptable behaviour. In the Aeneid, it is not. Turnus’ act of gloating over the corpse of Pallas is considered excessive (The Roman value being moderation both in victory and defeat) and by taking Pallas’ buckler, he has doomed himself.