festival opera
extends heartfelt thanks to the following individuals and institutions for their
extraordinary support of our North American premiere of Agostino Steffani’s
Glenn A. KnicKrehm and ConstellationCenter
Principal Production Sponsor
Diane and John Paul Britton
Sponsors of Anna Watkins, Costume Designer
The Gregory E. Bulger Foundation
Sponsor of Philippe Jaroussky, performing the role of Anfione
Bernice K. and Ted Chen
Sponsors of Gilbert Blin, Stage Director & Set Designer
Randolph J. Fuller
Sponsor of the Production
Constance and Donald P. Goldstein
Sponsor of Cynthia Roberts, Concertmaster of the BEMF Orchestra for Niobe
The Isaacson-Draper Foundation
Sponsor of Amanda Forsythe, performing the role of Niobe
Grace and Scott Offen
Sponsors of the Production
Joan Margot Smith
Sponsor of Carlos Fittante, Co-Choreographer
Hungwah Yu and David J. Elliott
Sponsors of Yulia Van Doren, performing the role of Manto
The Dante Alighieri Society
Partial Production Sponsor
Emily Cross Farnsworth
Sponsor of Niobe’s Costume
Mim Kelly and Richard Greene
Partial Sponsors of José Lemos, performing the role of Nerea
Edward B. Kellogg
Sponsor of Pre-Opera Fanfares in Great Barrington
Heather Mac Donald
Partial Production Sponsor
Amanda and Melvyn Pond
Sponsor of Miloš Valent, Principal Second Violin, BEMF Orchestra
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metamorphoses – change and transformation
festival opera
EVENING PERFORMANCES:
Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, June 14, 15 & 17, 2011 at 7pm
Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College, 219 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts
EVENING PERFORMANCES:
Friday & Saturday, June 24 & 25, 2011 at 7pm
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Music by Agostino Steffani (1653–1728)
Libretto by Luigi Orlandi, after Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors
Gilbert Blin, Stage Director
Caroline Copeland and Carlos Fittante, Choreographers
Anna Watkins, Costume Designer
Gilbert Blin, Set Designer
Lenore Doxsee, Lighting Designer
Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer
Abbie H. Katz, Associate Producer
Ellen Hargis, Assistant Stage Director
FLYING EFFECTS PROVIDED BY ZFX, INC.
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2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
MATINÉE PERFORMANCES:
Sunday, June 12 & Sunday, June 19, 2011 at 3:30pm
festival opera
Niobe, Regina di Tebe
Principals
Niobe, Queen of Thebes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Amanda Forsythe
Anfione, King of Thebes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Philippe Jaroussky
Clearte, a Theban Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kevin D. Skelton
Manto, a Theban Maiden,
daughter of Tiresia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yulia Van Doren
Tiberino, son of the King of Alba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Colin Balzer
Tiresia, a Soothsayer,
and Priest of Latona . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charles Robert Stephens
Creonte, son of the King of Thessaly . . . . . . . . . .Matthew White
Poliferno, Prince of Attica, Magician . . . . . . . . . .Jesse Blumberg
Nerea, Nurse of Niobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .José Lemos
Sons and daughters
of Niobe (Niobids)
Carolina Bragg
Samuel Green
Jerilyn McLean
Max Morgenstern
Felicia Rosen
Julia Shneyderman
Elias Sink
Javier Werner
Ladies-in-Waiting
Julia Cavallaro
Abigail Renée Krawson
Megan Stapleton
Pages
Kevin Liao
Erik Traub
Bodyguard of Niobe
Jay Lloyd Smith
Knights of Anfione
Sean Lair
Brendan Quinn
Alexander Nishibun
Hernan Berisso
Hunters with Tiberino
Carlos Fittante
Olsi Gjeci
Andrew Trego
Scott Weber
Bear
Jay Lloyd Smith
Noble Thebans
Caroline Copeland
Carlos Fittante
Karin Modigh
Andrew Trego
Warriors of Creonte
Carlos Fittante
Olsi Gjeci
Andrew Trego
Scott Weber
Sisters of Manto
Caroline Copeland
Karin Modigh
Apollo and Diana
Frederick Metzger
Emy Metzger
Guides of Tiresia
Emy Metzger
Frederick Metzger
Boston Early Music Festival Dance Ensemble
130
Melinda Sullivan, Ballet Mistress
Caroline Copeland, featured dancer
Karin Modigh, featured dancer
Carlos Fittante, featured dancer
Olsi Gjeci
Andrew Trego
Scott Weber
metamorphoses – change and transformation
festival opera
Violin I
Cynthia Roberts,
concertmaster
Robert Mealy
Dagmar Valentová
Cynthia Miller Freivogel
Johanna Novom
Violin II
Miloš Valent, principal
Peter Spissky
Julie Andrijeski
Daniel Elyar
Basse de Violin
Phoebe Carrai, principal
David Morris
Sarah Freiberg
Brent Wissick
Trumpet
John Thiessen, principal
Alexander Bonus
Brian Shaw
Kris Kwapis
Double Bass
Robert Nairn
Theorbo & Baroque Guitar
Paul O’Dette
Stephen Stubbs
Oboe & Recorder
Gonzalo X. Ruiz, principal
Kathryn Montoya
Baroque Harp
Maxine Eilander
Bassoon
Mathieu Lussier
Harpsichord
Luca Guglielmi
Percussion
Ben Harms
Viola da Gamba
Erin Headley
Viola
Pat Jordan, principal
Laura Jeppesen
David Douglass
Members of the Off-Stage Viol Consort
Christel Thielmann, director
Caitlin Cribbs
Rachael Ryan
Beiliang Zhu
Boston Early Music Festival
Young Artists Training Program
Hernan Berisso
Julia Cavallaro
Abigail Renée Krawson
Sean Lair
Alexander Nishibun
Brendan Quinn
Jay Lloyd Smith
Megan Stapleton
PALS Children’s Chorus
Alysoun Kegel, Artistic Director
Jill Carrier, Executive Director
Carolina Bragg
Samuel Greene
Kevin Liao
Jerilyn McLean
Emy Metzger
Frederick Metzger
Max Morganstern
Felicia Rosen
Julia Shneyderman
Elias Sink
Erik Traub
Javier Werner
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2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra
festival opera
Boston Early Music Festival Niobe, Regina di Tebe
Production Credits
Kathleen Fay
Abbie H. Katz
Mercedes Roman-Manson
Darren Brannon
Gordon Manson
Arunas Ciuberkis
Justin Paice
Rebecca Hylton
Seth Bodie
Chelsea Basler
Ron Demarco
James McCartney
Maria van Kalken
Laudon Schuett
Rémy-Michel Trotier
Camille Tanguy Research
Julie Streeter
Leslie Chiu
Leslie Sears
Alycia Marucci
James Garner
Jen Bertha
Ellen Hargis
Dan McGaha
Gina Rhodes
Janet Meyers
Mary Lauve
Katherine “Kat” Nakaji
Zak Fayssoux
Daniel Alaimo
William Delorm
Ryan Began
Caitlin Klinger
Lorraine Fitzmaurice
Sarah Hager
132
metamorphoses – change and transformation
Executive Producer
Associate Producer
Production Manager
Production Stage Manager
Technical Director
Company Manager
Master Electrician
Costume Shop Supervisor
Wig Supervisor
Makeup Supervisor
Props Master
Sound Designer
Assistant to the Executive Producer
Assistant to the Musical Directors
and the BEMF Orchestra
Artistic Assistant to the Set Designer
Assistant to the Stage Director
Assistant Production Manager
Assistant to the Associate Producer
Assistant Stage Manager
Assistant Stage Manager
Assistant Technical Director
Assistant Master Electrician
Supertitle Creator
Supertitle Supervisor
Stitcher
Costume Crafts
Dresser
Stage Run Crew
Stage Run Crew
Stage Run Crew
Stage Run Crew
Intern, Assistant to the Stage Director
Intern, Assistant to the Choreographers
Intern, Assistant Company Manager
Intern, Assistant Company Manager
festival opera
The Boston Early Music Festival wishes to thank the following
organizations and individuals for assistance with this
production: the entire BEMF Niobe Directorial Team—
including Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors;
Gilbert Blin, Stage Director and Set Designer; Caroline
Copeland and Carlos Fittante, Choreographers; Anna
Watkins, Costume Designer; Lenore Doxsee, Lighting
Designer; Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer; Abbie H. Katz,
Associate Producer; and Ellen Hargis, Assistant Stage
Director—for their painstaking and conscientious research and
work preparatory to mounting Agostino Steffani’s Niobe,
Regina di Tebe as the centerpiece production of the June 2011
Festival; Jörg Jacobi for editing our Boston Early Music
Festival performing edition of Niobe, Regina di Tebe together
with Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs; Ellen Hargis for the
translation of the libretto; Andrew Sigel for his meticulous
attention to detail as editor of our Festival publications
including the libretto and essays throughout this Niobe
section; the dedicated staff at the Cutler Majestic Theatre and
Office of the Arts at Emerson College, especially Lance Olson,
Associate Director, ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage; the
staff at Emmanuel Church in Boston, especially Barbara Kroft,
Parish Administrator, and The Reverend Pamela L. Werntz,
Rector; High Output, Inc., and Advanced Lighting and
Production Services, for providing lighting equipment; Jeff Bird
and Brittany Burke, for their technical support; and United
Staging, Emerson College, and Peterson Party Center for
providing rehearsal props and equipment. The BEMF
Choreographers would like to thank our colleagues for so
generously pointing us in helpful research directions, namely
Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Carol Marsh, Deda Colonna, Gloria
Giordano, Barbara Sparti, Marie-Thérèse Mourey, Stephanie
Schroedter, and Rose Anne Thom.
Finally, BEMF Co-Choreographer Carlos Fittante would like to
thank the following individuals and institutions for their
assistance with movement research for Niobe: Martinez
Academy of Arms; J. Allen Suddeth, Stage Combat Specialist;
Islene Pinder, Founding Director of BALAM Dance Theatre; and
Toshinori Hamada, Noh Theatre Actor and Martial Artist. !
W Franco-Flemish double-manual harpsichord by William Dowd, 1974, after a Hans Ruckers transposer of 1638, courtesy of X
James S. Nicolson Harpsichords of Belmont, Massachusetts.
! Flying Effects provided by ZFX, INC.
! Sets and Scenic Props built by the American Repertory Theatre Scene Shop, Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the
direction of Stephen Setterlun, assisted by Chris Swetcky.
! Fabric for Sets printed by Rose Brand, Secaucus, New Jersey.
! Costumes made by The Huntington Theatre Company, in residence et Boston University: Nancy Brennan, Costume
Director; Anita Canzian, Head Draper; Michelle Theresa Ross, Draper; Rebecca Hylton, First Hand; Denise Wallace,
First Hand; Colin Jones, First Hand; Susie Moncousky, Stitcher; Virginia Emerson, Stitcher; Sally Ravitz, Stitcher.
! Principals Costumes made by Annabel O’Docherty, Tracy Caulfield, and Sonja Harms, London, England.
! Headdresses and hats made by Debbie Boyd, London, England.
! Animal Costume provided by Western Costumes Company, North Hollywood, California.
! Lighting Equipment provided by High Output, Inc., Canton, Massachusetts.
Sponsoring Organizations
133
2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Thanks
festival opera
Steffani, Opera, and Niobe
I once was told, of the world-famous and musically
learned Steffani, that, before he even set pen to paper, he
continually carried the opera, or the projected work
[libretto], around with him for a period of time and, as it
were, came to a complete agreement with himself as to
how the whole thing might most suitably be organized.
After that he committed his [musical] statements to paper.
It is a good method, though I suspect that nowadays,
when everything has to be done on the wing, there are few
who take pleasure in exercising such deliberation.
Agostino Steffani (1654–1728) was a remarkable man—a
natural musician who became a prominent diplomat, politician,
and bishop, and an industrious Roman Catholic vicar.
Furthermore, although he was born in Castelfranco, in the
Veneto, he spent most of his life in Germany—at Munich
(1667–1688), Hanover (1688–1703), Düsseldorf (1703–1709),
and again at Hanover. The first two of these periods were
dominated by music, the others by politics and religion.
A contemporary of Corelli, Purcell, and Alessandro Scarlatti,
Steffani was a choirboy at the Basilica del Santo in Padua and
sang in Venetian opera at the ages of eleven and twelve. At the
Bavarian court he was given keyboard and composition lessons
by Johann Kaspar Kerll and opportunities to further his education
elsewhere. From 1672 to 1674, he studied composition with
Ercole Bernabei in Rome; there he published his earliest sacred
works and wrote his first secular cantata. In 1678–1679 he visited
Paris and Turin, where he absorbed the French style and was
admired for his harpsichord playing. After his return to Munich,
he was appointed Director of Chamber Music by Elector
Maximilian II Emanuel, who also commissioned Steffani’s first
opera for the Carnival season of 1681. During the 1680s, in
addition to motets, cantatas, and chamber duets, Steffani
composed five operas and the music for an equestrian ballet.
Having presented Niobe in Carnival 1688, he moved in the
summer to Hanover. His brief as Kapellmeister was to establish
Italian opera in the magnificent new theater then nearing
completion. At Hanover he composed seven full-length and
two one-act operas and directed all but one in performance; Il
Turno was premiered (as Amor vien dal destino) at Düsseldorf
in 1709. He also achieved wider recognition. During the 1690s,
six of his Hanover operas were translated into German and
staged in public at Hamburg; arias from Roland (Orlando
generoso) were printed at Lübeck in 1699, and instrumental
music from all six operas was published at Amsterdam in ca.
1705. During the same period his numerous chamber duets
circulated in manuscript throughout Europe.
Although he devoted the last third of his life to affairs of church
and state, he continued to compose and take an interest in
music. Between 1703 and 1712 he met Handel; from 1720 he
corresponded about singers and opera with Giuseppe Riva in
London, and in 1727 he was elected president of the Academy
of Vocal Music, for which he composed his last work—his
Stabat mater, which he described as his masterpiece.
a b
Most of Steffani’s operas survive only in manuscript and have
lain unperformed since the eighteenth century. The neglect is
unmerited, not least because he took the composition of opera
very seriously. In 1737 the Hamburg theorist and critic Johann
Mattheson wrote:
Mattheson was describing Steffani’s practice at Hanover, but it
was at Munich that the composer developed his approach to
musical drama.
Most of his operas are based on ancient Greek or Roman
history; four are concerned with medieval German history, and
three draw on literary sources. Many are allegorical, reflecting
the politics of the courts where they were written, and as in
much court drama of the period, there is a heavy emphasis on
spectacle. The music lies somewhere between Cavalli and
Handel in style. The recitatives are shorter and more lyrical
than in operas for Italy, and they often include rapid flourishes
with difficult syncopation; only at moments of exceptional
dramatic significance are they accompanied by orchestral
strings. The arias, or ariette, are shorter and more numerous
than those of Handel and his contemporaries, and not
necessarily in da capo form.
In some respects, however, Steffani is distinctive. Celletti
describes him, along with Scarlatti, as “the late seventeenth- or
early eighteenth-century composer closest to the Golden Age
of bel canto singing.” His vocal parts are among the highest of
the period, and his writing for tenor and bass is characterized
by cantabile “grace and elegance.” His feeling for melody must
derive from his experience as a singer and a linguist: there is an
intimate relationship between his music and the words that
inspired it. The principal sentiment is often captured in a
musical “motto” (opening phrase) or a basso ostinato (ground
bass)—a technique of which Steffani, like Purcell, was a master.
His operas also feature an unusually high number and variety
of ensembles, and in his duets, as Mattheson observed, the
voices do not move simply in parallel but engage in imitative
counterpoint—which is difficult to sing from memory on stage.
Steffani’s love of textural variety is evident also in his use of
instruments. His orchestra often includes oboes and bassoons
and occasionally recorders, trumpets and drums are employed
in royal or martial contexts, and Amor vien dal destino features
chalumeaux. But his most original contributions of this kind
are his use of one or more solo instruments, with or without
orchestra, as an obbligato accompaniment to the vocal line,
and the instruments are deployed in a variety of ways—
sometimes playing throughout, sometimes alternating with the
voice, and sometimes only used before or after the aria.
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a b
Premiered in the Salvatortheater at Munich on January 5, 1688,
Niobe, Regina di Tebe was Steffani’s first opera based on Greek
myth. The libretto was by Luigi Orlandi, a court secretary who
had supplied him with the text of 1687’s Alarico il Baltha. The
most important source for Niobe was Book VI of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses.The moral of the opera is“pride comes before
a fall,”but the work is concerned also with the power of music.
The influence of sorcery and the supernatural is reflected in
Orlandi’s request for numerous sets and spectacular stage
machinery. Ballets at the ends of the acts—and in Act II, Scene
IV, when Anfione (Amphion) is made a god—were devised by
the court choreographer and dancing master, François Rodier.
The score of the opera is exceedingly rich. Its musical language
reaches heights of intensity in melody and harmony, and its
orchestration is exceptionally finely conceived and precisely
notated. Niobe is also the first Steffani opera with fewer than
sixty arias and five ostinato basses. Many of the arias are
accompanied by instruments in addition to continuo.Ten extra
musicians were engaged for the production: a document in the
Bavarian state archives records their names and the amounts
they were paid for seven rehearsals and four performances.
That Niobe is an exceptional score is announced by trumpets
and drums in the overture, but the work’s most extraordinary
features are associated with the role of Anfione, a vehicle for the
castrato Clementin Hader and a tribute to Max Emanuel (a
musician as well as a soldier). Eight of Anfione’s ten arias call for
additional instruments, and in five of them—an unusually high
number—the instruments play throughout. The scoring is
particularly rich in the Palace of Harmony (Act I, Scene XIII),
where the king seeks comfort from worldly affairs. Here he is
accompanied on stage by “viole” and “bassi,” and in the
orchestra by recorders and strings (two players per part);
plucked instruments (harpsichords and theorboes) are silent.
The recitative is introduced by the on-stage instruments; these
being hidden (“in scena nascosti”), the music sounds ethereal
and soothing.The orchestra enters when Anfione starts singing,
and breaks into repeated chords as he tries to throw off his cares,
but the “viole” continue to provide a sustained background,
suggesting the impassivity of the universe. The aria “Sfere
amiche, hor date al Labro,” invokes the music of the spheres.
The circling of the planets is captured in a six-quarter-note
ostinato—the aria is in 6/4—that begins on the subdominant
note of the scale and is drawn down as if by gravity.These falling
phrases in the bass are counterbalanced by rising motion above;
furthermore, when the violins move, the “viole” are generally
stationary, and vice versa. In this way the effect of rotation
created by scales in contrary motion is reinforced by alternation
between stage and pit. Finally, to lead smoothly into the da capo
repeat, the second section ends (atypically) in the subdominant
key, so that tonality, too, comes full circle.
Most of Anfione’s arias are masterly and could be discussed in
similar detail. In “Come Padre, e come dio” (Act I, Scene XXI),
he persuades Jove to build walls around Thebes; in “Dal mio
Petto o pianti, uscite” (Act II, Scene V), he trembles to staccato
chords and weeps to chromatic scales; in “Trà Bellici carmi”
(Act II, Scene XII), his desire for vengeance is conveyed by
furious coloratura. He begins his last aria,“Spira già nel proprio
sangue” (Act III, Scene XII), after stabbing himself in the chest,
and leaves it incomplete at his death. As he expires, Niobe
surveys in horror the demise of her offspring and husband, and
voices a recitative.As she feels herself turning to stone, she sings
a short continuo aria, “Funeste Imagini,” terrifying in its
intensity, which also is left incomplete. Notwithstanding her
love songs to Anfione and Creonte, and her warlike “In mezzo
al Armi” (Act III, Scene VIII), her final utterance is arguably the
climax of her role. Creonte’s aria in the following scena ultima
balances the overture in its use of trumpets and drums.
Carefully balanced, also, are the roles of the young lovers Tiberino
and Manto, who have six arias each. All but one of his are in
common time, while most of hers are in triple. Her father Tiresia
has two arias in 4/4 and major keys, and two in 3/4 and E minor.
Poliferno’s exceptional status as a prince versed in magic explains
why all four of his arias are supported by instruments, while the
highlight of Clearte’s role is probably the accompanied recitative
that he sings as Niobe’s children are slain (Act III, Scene X).
The nurse, Nerea, stands outside the action, serving as confidante,
observer, and mediator between stage and auditorium. Her
comic role—a staple of earlier opera and commedia dell’arte—
is reflected in her arias, which are in lively tempos and major
keys, with syllabic word-setting, syncopation, simple phrase
structure, and much repetition. Most of the texts are wry
observations on relations between men and women and their
light-headed expectations of love. Two of her arias are linked:
“Che agli assalti degli amanti” (Act I, Scene XVIII) points out
that women cannot help falling for men, while “Che alla fè di
Donne amanti” (Act III, Scene IX) states the opposite. To
highlight this parallel, the music of the first aria is repeated for the
second. The latter is a substitute for an earlier movement, still
present in the score, and an example of the inspiration that pulses
throughout Steffani’s greatest Munich opera. !
© Colin Timms
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A taste for French dances is something that Steffani acquired in
Paris and which distinguishes him from his compatriots. The
minuet, gavotte, bourrée, and sarabande underpin many of his
arias and ensembles, and the instruments that alternate with
the vocal lines are occasionally reduced to two oboes and
bassoon—a combination favored by Lully. Some of these
movements were danced as well as sung. The acts of Steffani’s
operas normally end with a ballet, for which the music often
has been lost, and his operas invariably begin with a French
overture, even if it is called a “sinfonia.” His writing for strings
and woodwinds in dance-based movements and overtures was
heavily influenced by what he heard in Paris, and his fusion of
French and Italian styles, combined with skillful counterpoint,
helped forge the musical language of the late Baroque.
festival opera
Seven Keys to Niobe,
Regina di Tebe
Combining the strong influences from Venice and France with
the culture of the Bavarian court gave rise in the seventeenth
century to operas written for Munich that were rich with
various cultural references. These references were unified under
the auspices of the classical custom of allegory, a figurative
mode of representation that conveys meanings other than the
literal one. Widespread at the time, allegory communicated its
message by means of symbolic figures, emblems, or parables.
Allegory was generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but since
an allegory does not have to be expressed in language and can
be entirely visual, it was a style particularly suitable to the
representative art of opera. A performance was like a symbolic
hall of mirrors, where reality and fiction were intertwined
through the power of allegory. Seven gates, according to Ovid,
stood at the entrances to the city of Thebes, and this number
is used here as an allegorical pathway to offer seven keys to the
construction of the staging.
I
One Patron
The history of opera in Munich begins under the monarchic
power of the Prince Elector of Bavaria, Ferdinand Maria, who
in the 1640s commissioned the Venetian architect Francesco
Santurini to convert a grain storehouse into the first
freestanding theater in Germany: the Salvatortheater. The birth
in 1662 of Ferdinand’s son and heir, Maximilian Emanuel, was
the occasion for a festival of operas, tournaments, and
fireworks. The popularity of opera in Munich continued
unabated during the reign of Maximilian II Emanuel. The
young Prince Elector had big political ambitions for his
dukedom, which involved him in many wars, and his court
life was that one of a generous patron. Typical of his time, Max
Emanuel had all of the qualities that were associated with a
Baroque prince: the quest for military glory, the desire for
glorious self-representation, the pursuit of dynastic prestige,
and an insatiable appetite for courtly entertainment. Not
surprisingly, being raised by a Francophile mother who hired
French tutors for him, Louis XIV was held up to the young
prince as a model to emulate.
Elector Maximilian II Emanuel was a genuine music lover who
was able to play several instruments, and his liberal patronage
supported the flourishing musical life of Munich. The Venetian
composer Agostino Steffani started his career as an opera
composer there in 1681, and the union in 1685 of the Prince
Elector with a young Austrian princess, Maria Antonia, heralded
a particularly prosperous time for opera and festivities in
Munich. The opera house was modernized on this occasion by
the Venetian brothers Domenico and Gasparo Mauro, and for
four consecutive years Steffani composed a new opera in Italian
that was premiered in Munich. Niobe, Regina di Tebe,
Maximilian II of Bavaria
“Maximilian Emanuel D(ei) G(ratia) El(ector) Bav(ariae).” Portrait as “Gubernator
Generalis” from Spanish Belgium. German Etching from Theatrum Europaeum by
Matthäus Jr. Merian and Caspar Merian under the name Merian Erben
(i.e., Merian Heirs), Frankfurt, 1698. Collection of Gilbert Blin.
performed as the first spectacle of the 1688 Carnival in Munich,
was created using an Italian libretto by Luigi Orlandi.
Though influenced by Italy—and especially by the dramaturgy
and the scenery of Venetian opera—the spectacles of Munich
for Max Emanuel also contained some French elements, such
as costumes, instrumentalists, and dance. Paris was, at the time,
the place where clothes for special occasions had to be
purchased, and we know that for Steffani’s Servio Tullio in
1686, all of the costumes were ordered in Paris. French
musicians, notably wind players, were also invited to join the
Munich orchestra. The ballets integrated with the operas in
the French manner were danced by members of the court and
by the numerous extras recruited from the ranks of the army
or the benches of the Jesuit schools. Ballet music was
considered such a specialized art that it was usually composed
by a different musician from the one who wrote the rest of the
opera; instead of Steffani, the ballets for Niobe were by the
director of the court orchestra, Melchior d’Ardespin. For the
ballets required by the lavish staging, the French
choreographer François Rodier was a guarantee that the dance
would include the latest developments in French style.
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
II
Twins
The libretto of Niobe, Regina di Tebe, which was the second
one written for Munich by Luigi Orlandi, is based on Greek
mythology. Niobe and Anfione are the central characters of
the plot. Amphion—“Anfione” in the Italian text—was rightly
famous as a king of Thebes, but also as an incomparable
musician, whose abilities built the walls of Thebes. Niobe was
his wife, and together they had many children. So proud was
Niobe of her offspring that they were called the Niobids, a
notable exception to the rule that a Greek family is usually
named after the Father. Niobe boasted of her superiority to
Latona (Leto), the mother of Apollo and Diana, because the
goddess had only two children, while she had given birth to
many offspring. For her hubris, Apollo killed her sons, and
Diana, her daughters. Amphion, at the sight of his dead
children, killed himself. The devastated Niobe turned to stone
as she wept. The myth is clearly a moral warning to the human
race to remain humble while enjoying earthly glory.
Ovid, when he tells of the goddess’s revenge on Niobe in his
Metamorphoses, notes that the children of Leto are twins:
“The goddess was deeply angered, and on the top of Mount
Cynthus she spoke to her twin children.‘I am your mother and
you are my pride, no one but Juno is a greater goddess, and
even now someone presumes to doubt my powers and
worship will be prevented at my altars, unless you help me,
my children.’ ” In mythology, Diana was associated with the
Moon, as her twin brother Apollo was associated with the Sun.
This twinning, although based on a sexual difference,
symbolizes their complementary places in the cosmic balance.
According to Ovid, Latona was wandering the earth with her
newborn twins when she attempted to drink water from a
pond. The peasants there refused to allow her to do so by
stirring the mud at the bottom of the pond. Latona turned
them into frogs for their lack of hospitality, forever doomed to
swim in the murky waters of ponds and rivers. This scene is
represented in the central fountain, the Bassin de Latone, in the
gardens of Versailles. The choice of such a myth for the central
spot of the gardens is an allusion to the difficult Regency for
the mother of Louis XIV, to the “Fronde”—the uprising of the
nobility against the queen regent—and to the ultimate victory
of the French monarchy. The Parterre of Latona was designed
by André Le Nôtre and built when the idea of making
Versailles the center of power was still being developed; in
1686, Jules Hardouin-Mansart adjusted the Latona Basin by
elevating the central sculpture by the brothers Marcy with
three levels of marble, placing it so it faced in the direction of
the Grand Canal where Apollo in full adulthood emerges
triumphantly from the water on his chariot. This use of the
space in the garden was itself an allegory of the coming of age
of the Sun King.
Niobe’s tale, as part of the story of Apollo, was also chosen to
Latona and her children, Apollo and Diana, French etching of 1694 by
Simon Thomassin (ca. 1652–1732) of the sculpture by Balthazar Marcy (1628–1674)
and Gaspard Marcy (1624–1681), from Recueil des Figures, Groupes, Thermes,
Fontaines, Vases, Statuës & autres Ornemens tels qu’ils se voyent á present dans
le Château et parc de Versailles, gravé d’après les originaux.
Par Simon Thomassin, Paris, 1694. Collection of Gilbert Blin.
decorate the bedroom of the Sun King in his Parisian castle of
Tuileries. The writer Félibien describes how the paintings of
Mignard “from the story of Apollo befit the Sun, and besides,
they are emblematic images of the beautiful actions of the king.
[…] The story of Niobe shows the inevitable downfall of those
who fail to keep the respect they owe to the sacred person of
such a powerful monarch.” Le Brun used this same symbol in
his first project for one end of the “Grande Galerie de
Versailles,” known today as the Hall of Mirrors, which was to
become an allegorical temple to the Sun King.
The choice of Niobe as a subject for the entertainment of
Maximilian Emanuel in Munich can also be read in the same
allegorical way. In his dedication, printed at the beginning of
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his libretto of 1688, Orlandi reworks the Apollonian emblem
and compares Maximilian Emanuel and his wife to “two
living suns in the great Firmament of Bavaria” who dispense
their beneficial “Rays” on the whole world. Orlandi makes his
point by attributing the sun—“the greater Light today, like a
symbol of your supreme Attributes”—to the Prince Elector.
III
Three Princes
Orlandi’s dedication offers some keys to the allegory but, in his
drama, the poet creates more allusive references to the Prince
Elector. Although the sons and daughters of Niobe and
Anfione are an essential part of their story, the source of
Niobe’s pride, and the cause of her downfall, Orlandi added
three subplots to the original story of Niobe and her children
as told by Ovid. These subplots depict the characters of three
princes—Anfione, Tiberino, and Creonte—and their royal
destinies.
Frontispiece of the funeral oration of Maximilian II, Munich, 1726.
Collection of Gilbert Blin.
The figure of king Anfione is represented as a disturbed
character wishing for a life of contemplation and willing to
renounce the throne in favor of his wife Niobe. Although he
is a great musician, he is shown to be a bad ruler who wants
to flee from his duties. Orlandi changes the episode of the
erection of the walls of Thebes: far from being due to the
musical excellence of Amphion, their building is mostly due
to Jupiter answering the prayer Anfione addresses him as his
father. The suicide of the king at the end of the opera is not a
heroic act, but shows rather a man who puts his personal grief
above his responsibilities. Amphion is a counterexample to
that of a good ruler, lacking two of the qualities—modesty and
courage—that Orlandi attributes to Max Emanuel in his
dedication.
A Pastoral intrigue balances the tragedy: under the protection
of Diana, goddess of the Hunt, the foreign prince Tiberino, a
kind of Hercules on his quest for glory, falls in love with
Manto, daughter of the high priest Tiresia. The prince courts
her during the course of the opera, marries her, and at the end
leaves with her to go back to his native country. Like the forest
of the Temple of Latona where they meet, these characters are
shown as pure, devoted, and true to their faith, and Tiberino
himself as courageous and courteous, two princely qualities.
But it is the third subplot that reveals a precise link between
Maximilian Emanuel and Niobe, Regina di Tebe. Having some
rights to the Theban throne, Creonte, crown prince of Thessaly,
is on a quest to conquer Thebes. Creonte is first seen under
the spell of his ally, the magician Poliferno, who sends him an
enchanted dream causing him to fall in love with Niobe. While
his armies are approaching Thebes, Creonte appears to Niobe
as the god Mars, flattering the high opinion Niobe has of
herself. The intervention of the real gods over the city of
Thebes gives victory to his army, as the gods have destroyed
the new walls of the city: Creonte enters Thebes victorious,
and is awarded palm branches, as a symbol of his triumph,
and laurels, a plant associated with Apollo, which is used to
crown the victorious. His first actions as a good ruler are to
banish the bad magician, to bless the union of lovers, and to
forgive the old nurse.
With the character of Creonte, Orlandi gives a new twist to the
allegory in his libretto: In the 1680s, keeping in mind that the
entire Bavarian court was aware of the well-established
symbolic relationship between Apollo/sun and Louis XIV, he
creates in his drama a more vivid parallel between Creonte
and Maximilian Emanuel; indeed, in his dedication, he alludes
to the military exploits of the Prince Elector and praises also
the modesty of Max Emanuel in his glorious victories, “That
which all admire in him, he alone does not see himself,” which
he conveniently opposes to the pride of Niobe. In his praises
and his portrayal of the character of Creonte, Orlandi follows
what seems to be the official propaganda for the persona of
Max Emanuel. All representations show the Prince Elector in
military apparel, in an attitude of both command and energy.
A statuette of Max Emanuel by one of his favorite artists, the
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sculptor Wilhelm de Groff, portrays him in full armor and long
cloak, standing at ease, right foot forward in what on stage
would have been the position of the victorious Creonte. His
left hand is on the hilt of his sword, and the right holds the
Marshal’s baton of commander in chief as if giving an order.
This is a picture of a victorious military chief whose clear
attributes are courage and control, two qualities to which a
noble soldier should add clemency or magnanimity toward
the vanquished. Maximilian Emanuel’s fame grew and spread
in these years; later, in the oration after his death in 1726, the
Elector of Bavaria was called Der Großmüthige (“The
Magnanimous”) Maximilianus II. This quality, attributed to
Creonte, was important to display in front of Max Emanuel at
the very beginning of 1688.
IV
Four Cities
A new key is given by the full title of the opera: Niobe, Regina
di Tebe. As there is no other famous character called Niobe in
history or myth, the subtitle is not needed for clarity. Rather,
the royal status immediately links the title character with the
place of the action, Thebes. This precision speaks to the
collective imagination and the memory as the city of Oedipus
was since the beginning of time a city of maledictions. The first
king of Thebes was Cadmus, after whom the city was
originally called Cadmeia. Juno cursed the city after her
husband Jove consorted with Europa, the sister of Cadmus.
Actaeon, the great son of Cadmus, would be a victim of this
curse: while hunting, he was transformed into a stag by Diana,
and torn to pieces by his own hounds.
But the story of Thebes, as a city, started when the king
Nycteus had a daughter named Antiope who fled Thebes to
evade her father’s wrath after finding herself pregnant with
twins by the god Zeus (Jove). A nearby king welcomed
Antiope, and Nycteus declared war against his neighbor, but
was defeated; his brother, Lycus, took the Theban throne. The
new king of Thebes waged war to avenge his brother, and was
victorious; Lycus and his wife Dirce took their niece Antiope
captive, and proceeded to treat her cruelly. Antiope later
managed to escape, and was reunited with her grown twin
sons, Amphion and Zethus. The twins then marched on
Thebes, slew King Lycus and his wife Dirce, seized power and
ruled as joint kings of Thebes. Amphion married Niobe and
Zethus married Thebe, after whom the city of Thebes was
named. Zethus, Thebe, and their only son died soon thereafter.
The story of Niobe, Regina di Tebe starts a few years later.
The city of Thebes didn’t disappear during ancient times; Latin
hegemony in Thebes lasted until 1458, when the Turks
captured it. The Ottomans renamed Thebes “İstefe” and
controlled it like they did most of Greece. Orlandi refers to the
expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the contemporary
situation when, after describing Niobe as a “gran Mostro della
superbia”—great monster of pride—he compares the haughty
Victory, German etching by Melchior Küsel (1626–1683) after
Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1641). Collection of Gilbert Blin.
queen to “l’Asiana Superbia,” the proud Asia. The Great
Turkish War had started in 1683 and would not end until
1699.
When the Turks besieged Vienna in 1683, the Bavarian elector
came to the aid of the Austrian emperor, his future father-inlaw. With Bavarian assistance, they succeeded in taking Vienna
from the Turks. Through his great courage, Maximilian
Emanuel earned a reputation as an outstanding commander.
The Holy League was initiated in 1684 by Pope Innocent XI,
and by 1686 it consisted of the Holy Roman Empire, the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Venetian Republic,
and the Russian Tsardom. The Holy League and the Ottoman
Empire were fighting for territory in the east of Europe, and
Max Emanuel was one of the leading figures among the
military commanders. The Prince Elector took a big part in
the campaign of 1686 and was distinguished for his success in
the siege of Buda (now Budapest).
In 1687, Venetian forces took Thebes, one of the Ottoman
army’s strongholds, and although Maximilian Emanuel didn’t
take an active part in this encounter, he was himself planning
a new campaign. After the recent events at Vienna and Buda,
the city of Thebes past and present served as examples to
inspire Max Emanuel: Belgrade was to be the theater of the
Prince Elector’s most famous military exploit. The Siege of
Belgrade took place in 1688, few months after Niobe was first
performed. Belgrade was at that time a part of the Ottoman
Empire, and had been the Ottoman’s chief fortress in Europe
for just over a century. The forces of Holy League commanded
by Maximilian II Emanuel laid siege to the city on July 30,
1688, and subjected it to cannon fire for nearly a month. When
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his offer to allow the Turkish garrison to surrender was
refused, an event that gained him the title of “Magnanimous,”
Maximilian ordered an assault on September 6. Maximilian,
like Creonte in Niobe, Regina di Tebe, drove the garrison from
the walls and entered the city, victorious. The occupation of
Belgrade by the League forces was the turning point of the
Great Turkish War, which was mainly a religious war between
Christian and Muslim forces.
V
Five Religions
With its mix of mythology, allegory, and history, Niobe, Regina
di Tebe is rich with possible interpretations, but it remains a
drama where the action revolves around a religious conflict,
between Niobe and Tiresias. The story of Tiresias is told by
Ovid: in a forest near Thebes, Tiresias stumbled upon a pair of
mating snakes; he hit the pair with his stick and was changed
into a woman. Being a woman, Tiresias became a priestess,
married, and had three daughters: Manto, Historis, and
Daphne. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found
mating snakes; by hitting them once more, he was permitted
to regain his masculinity. Tiresias, being the only person who
had lived in both a man's and a woman's body, was the best
arbiter of a dispute between Juno and Jupiter, the latter of
whom stated that “In Venus deeds, The Female’s pleasure far
the Male’s, exceeds.” Tiresias confirmed Jupiter’s words and
Juno, it is said, was so upset that she damned the one who had
made the judgment to endure eternal night. As no god has the
right to void what another god has done, Jupiter could not
restore the priest’s sight; instead, he gave Tiresias the
knowledge of the future, in exchange for his loss.
The destiny of Tiresias is clearly presented as a series of
initiations making him the custodian of a special gift and this
is why, as a blind seer, his character appears in several Greek
stories and tragedies based on the legendary history of Thebes.
Following the examples of Euripides, Sophocles, and
Aeschylus, Orlandi gives Tiresias a role in his “drama per
musica.” But in Niobe, Regina di Tebe, although Tiresias
retains his power of prophecy, he is also the high priest of
Latona. His daughter is also devoted to the goddess and to her
children Apollo and Diana. Orlandi cunningly opposes the
“paganism” of Niobe, who orders her people to revere her
family as gods, to the “orthodoxy” of Tiresias and Manto, who
both reject this “blasphemy.” This religious debate is not just
an exchange of theory; it precipitates some of the most violent
scenes, bringing the opera to the proportions of a biblical
drama: curse of the Prophet, sack of the Temple, and slaughter
of the unfaithful. This opposition by those adhering to the old
faith to the reformed religion desired by Niobe has clear
parallels to the determination with which the Catholic faith
opposed the newer Protestant one. In the years leading up to
the opera, religious tensions in Europe rose to extreme levels.
In France, Louis XIV issued the edict of Fontainebleau in
Pope Innocent XI, French etching from the eighteenth century.
Collection of Gilbert Blin.
1685, putting an end to the tolerance of Protestants that his
grandfather had established in 1598. The beginning of the
persecution of the Protestants in France led to a huge exodus
of Huguenots to the north of Europe and to North America.
In England, the Catholic king James II loses his throne in 1687
and is replaced by Protestants William III and Mary II. Bavaria,
a stronghold of Catholicism, aimed to stop Protestantism from
spreading and became one of the centers of the CounterReformation.
Even though busy opposing the Ottoman Empire, the
countries of central Europe also needed to consider domestic
affairs, especially spiritual movements, as religious dangers
could also come from inside. The stage, as was customary in
Jesuit Theater, could offer a moral lesson, and the terrible effect
of Niobe’s religious reform was a reminder to Max Emanuel
to be vigilant in his own dominion. The five principal religions
in the Occident at the time—Jewish, Orthodox, Catholic,
Islam, and Reformed (Protestant)—were all struggling for
expansion and the right to practice their faiths. But while the
struggle against the Turks had united Christianity for a while,
the Protestants themselves had gained a foothold in
Switzerland, Germany, England, Holland, and France. New
Catholic orders were created by the Church of Rome to
zealously combat the teachings of the Reformed religion.
Agostino Steffani, the composer of Niobe, was a member of
such a religious order. A priest himself since 1680, he belonged
to the order of the Theatins, and his missionary work in the
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North of Germany was later to become his principal pastoral
activity. Founded in Rome in 1524, the main object of the
Theatin order was to recall the clergy to an edifying life, which
would serve as an example for the laity, and thus a way to
balance the Reformation. Supported by Pope Innocent XI, the
Theatins founded oratories and hospitals, and devoted
themselves to preach the Gospel and reform lax morals. In
Bavaria, the Theatine Church St. Kajetan was founded by
Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adélaïde of
Savoy, as a gift of thanks for the birth of the long-awaited heir
to the Bavarian crown, Maximilian Emanuel, in 1662. The
dynastic continuity was essential for the monarchy, and
Orlandi makes this obsession an important part of Niobe’s
character.
VI
Six children
The children of Niobe were so numerous they were called the
Niobids, and the exact number differs in the many ancient
sources available to us. In Homer’s Iliad, like in Orlandi’s
libretto, they are twelve (six boys and six girls): “For even the
fair-haired Niobe bethought her of meat, albeit twelve children
perished in her halls, six daughters and six lusty sons. The sons
Apollo slew with shafts from his silver bow, being wroth
against Niobe, and the daughters the archer Artemis [Diana],
for that Niobe had matched herself with fair-cheeked Leto
[Latona], saying that the goddess had borne but twain, while
herself was mother to many; wherefore they, for all they were
but twain, destroyed them all.” According to Sophocles’s
Antigone, Apollodorus’s Library, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
they are fourteen children, seven boys and seven girls. In
Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, they are eighteen. In all
variations, an even number results in an equal quantity of boys
and girls, as the number of Niobe’s children needs to speak to
the imagination. Seneca, in his tragedy about Oedipus, gives
another beautiful poetic twist to the number by saying that
Niobe flattered her vanity over her children by also counting
their shadows.
This emphasis on a large number of offspring is not only the
stuff of myth, but it was also the measure in the 1680s. France
was a prime example: Louis XIV had a numerous family and
was very proud of it. By tradition a large quantity of children
was a clear expression of virility and fertility, which was
appealing to the imagination of the people. But from a dynastic
perspective, after producing an heir, a large number of
offspring allowed for the opportunity to create a large network
of alliances through unions between the children of royal
families. Indeed, in 1680, the French crown prince, The Grand
Dauphin, married Maria Anna Victoria, Max Emanuel’s
sister—the link between France and Bavaria was strong. Louis
was hoping Max Emanuel would return the gesture and marry
a French princess, but the Prince Elector was keen to keep a
kind of independence and decided to balance the French union
The death of the Niobids
Dutch etching by Bernard Picart (1673–1733), Amsterdam, 1731, from the Temple
of the Muses (Neu-Erofneer Musen-Tempel), Chatelain, Amsterdam and Leipzig,
1733. Collection of Gilbert Blin.
of his sister by marrying himself to an Austrian Princess. As
Maria Antonia was also a niece of the Spanish king, the
offspring of this union could give the Bavarian house a claim
to the throne of Spain.
When Steffani and his brother, poet Ventura Terzago, created
the ballets for Servio Tullio for the Carnival of 1686, the first
one to be celebrated in Munich by the newlywed couple, they
showed their sense of allegory: in the first Ballet a number of
gods, each more flattering to the couple than the one before,
appear on a cloud machine. The gods announce a wondrous
horoscope for the royal couple including the prediction of
twelve children, which then, as in a vision of the future, appear
as twelve dancers—six men and six women—on the stage. The
horoscope was not at all farfetched, as Max Emanuel went on
to have fourteen children with his two wives and his mistress.
Of the fourteen children, seven died at an early age. In 1688,
infant mortality was still common, even in the highest class of
society. The killing of the Niobids by Apollo the sun and Diana
the moon may also been a cruel allegory of the death of
children in one day and in one night. Seventeenth-century
commentators remind us that Cicero, reflecting on the final
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event of the myth of Niobe, wrote that the metamorphosis of
Niobe into a rock was nothing but an allegory of a woman
whose grief has made her mute and insensitive.
VII
Seven chords
If Niobe’s reason for ambition to godliness is her fertility, her
husband Anfione is, through his musical skills, also close to
the gods, as at the beginning of time the first musicians were
the gods. Hermes created the lyre with three strings, which he
gave to Apollo, who added four more. The god of the arts
extracted such harmonious sounds from it that the gods forgot
their quarrels on Olympus. Hermes made for himself the
Shepherd’s pipe, and Pan invented the reed flute with its
enchanting music. Only a small number of mortals, whose art
was out-standing, could measure themselves with those divine
practitioners. After Orpheus, the most renowned, comes the
name of Amphion. Like his half-brother Apollo, he also
received his lyre from Hermes. And like Apollo, when
Amphion married Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, the Lydian
king, he learned to play in the Lydian mode, a particular tuning
of the diatonic scale, by adding four strings to his lyre.
Amphion, French etching by Louis Gaultier (1561–1635)
after Antoine Caron (1520 or 1521–1599), from Les Images ou Tableaux de
Platte-Peinture des deux Philostrates Sophistes mis en français par Blaise de
Vigenere bourbonnois enrichis d’arguments et d’annotation... et représentez en
taille douce en cette nouvelle edition avec des épigrammes sur chacun d’iceux par
Thomas Artus sieur d’Embry, Paris, Guillemot, 1637. Collection of Gilbert Blin.
Anfione’s abilities as a musician surpass his fame as a king: it
is said that his singing raised the walls to protect the city of
Thebes. Stones were moved by the beauty of the music and
got moved by its power of attraction, and this motion was
ordered: buildings were taking shape. Some who were trying
to explain the meaning of the fable of Amphion, who built the
walls of Thebes by the sound of his lyre, said that in truth he
was an excellent musician, but there was not much magic
involved: having a plan to build a town, he employed all those
who were coming from very far to hear him, and they all
obeyed him gladly, if only he would touch the strings of his
lute. Lyre or lute, magic or talent, the power of his music was
architectural: the seven strings of his lyre corresponded to the
seven gates of Thebes.
In Niobe, Orlandi and Steffani clearly chose to modify this
part of the story: although the creation of the walls of Thebes
is precipitated by Anfione, they appear during his prayer to
Jupiter, his father, and are mostly due to the protection of the
god. Steffani reserves the depiction of the supreme talents of
Anfione for another scene: a contemplative moment where the
king is studying the harmony of the spheres: the complex order
which controls the universe. Musica universalis, or music of
the spheres, is a philosophical concept that regards proportions
in the movements of celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, and
the planets—as a form of music. This “music” was not usually
thought to be literally audible, but of a mathematical nature.
The fact that mathematics and music are related was clear to
the Greeks, and the laws of the cosmos and of music have been
compared by Pythagoras. Music was included in the
“quadrivium,” subjects that are driven by logic: arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music. This concept of a number
theory would also have been present in the education of Max
Emanuel, which was essentially entrusted to the Jesuits, who
have always included astronomy and music in their
curriculum. In 1670, the Jesuit Father Michael Pexenfelder
dedicated to the eight-year-old prince more than a thousand
pages of Apparatus eruditionis, a compendium that offered,
along with Arithmetica and Geometria in concise form, the
basic concepts of Musica and its notation.
By placing the music of Anfione in relation to Astronomy
instead of Architecture, Orlandi expands the allegory. Steffani
refines this moment further by writing a complex musical
number where the singing of Anfione is accompanied by the
sound of four viols hidden on stage. In creating such a spatial
effect, Steffani seems to indicate that Anfione is “playing” his
lyre and that the music we hear (played by the hidden viols) is
his doing. The distance between the lyre with seven strings and
the Renaissance string instrument is mostly a matter of time,
and in much of the pictorial legacy of the myth, Amphion is
shown playing a string instrument with a bow. It was quite
characteristic for figures like Orpheus and Amphion to be
depicted with a modern equivalent of the ancient lyre, either a
lute or a lira. Although a seventeenth-century engraving seems
to have Amphion playing a vihuela de arco, the artist was
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This scene of Amphion and the harmony of spheres was, in
the context of Niobe, an expression of the intellectual
ambition of Amphion, and it made a great impression on
Pietro Torri, a composer who arrived in Munich in 1687.
Later, in 1716, Torri presented Max Emanuel with the cantata
La Reggia dell’Armonia, in which Anfione’s solo aria with its
quartet of hidden viols is interpolated completely and without
modification. To make his cantata about Harmony, Torri
added the character of Il Tempo (Father Time), and wrote a
dialogue between Anfione and Il Tempo. More than twenty
years after Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Torri was paying homage
to its timeless expression of the Harmony of the Spheres,
associating the fame of Amphion, the mythic musician of the
antiquity, with the art of Steffani, the influential composer of
the reign of Maximilian Emanuel. This new context, created
by extracting this extraordinary piece of music from its
original dramatic setting, was freed from the tragic ends of
Amphion and Niobe, bringing it back instead to its original
allegory of the eternal power of music. !
—Gilbert Blin
BEMF Stage Director in Residence
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likely attempting to describe a lira da braccio, the Renaissance
instrument closely associated with Orpheus and with
recitations of poetry by humanists. This type of lira, a sevenstring chordal instrument played with a bow, died out in the
early seventeenth century, and in 1688, when Steffani chose
to evoke its sound to depict Amphion’s lira, it was an attempt,
supported by the illusion of the music from the hidden viols,
to reconstruct the mythical sound of the antique lyre.
festival opera
Niobe, A Choreographic
Journey
There is very little surviving information about the original
dances of Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe,
excepting that found in the original libretto. It is from this
document that Carlos Fittante and I gleaned the first clues
of how to proceed in this otherwise mysterious journey of
re-creation. Needless to say, this leaves the choreographers
with more questions than answers and that is, in fact, the
most exciting part of our job.
In general, the act of choreographing is largely based on
creative problem solving; add to this the detective work
required of researchers, and one has an inkling of the
rewarding but complicated process of recreating the
intricate and exquisite art of Baroque dance. In
choreographing the dances, we have tried to honor the
clearly existing French influence at the Bavarian Court of
Maximilian II Emanuel, while also incorporating the
opinions and suggestions of the German dancing masters
whose works would follow in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century.
One of the first ballets at the court of Bavaria was created
to celebrate the marriage of the Prince Elector Ferdinand
Maria to Henriette Adélaïde of Savoy, in 1651. The
tradition of the court ballet was cultivated in Henriette
Adélaïde by her mother, Christine-Marie (sister of Louis
XIII of France), and she enthusiastically brought this form
of spectacle with her to Munich. These entertainments,
composed of songs and dances and featuring elaborate set
designs, were initially frowned upon by her new family, but
once Henriette Adélaïde bore her first son, Maximilian II
Emanuel, the atmosphere at court brightened considerably.
It appears that the casts of these first ballets were mainly
female, and the subject matter was conceived by Henriette
Adélaïde herself. Giovanni Maccioni, a poet and composer,
wrote the libretti and music, and the dances were created
by Emanuele Somis, a dancing master brought from the
Savoy court.
The court ballet in Munich, just as in France, was a family
affair. Henriette Adélaïde performed alongside her children
in mythological epics, replete with gods and cloud
machines, and Louis XIV was held up as a model to the
young Elector-to-be. Both he and his mother were avid
dancers, and as a lover of all things pleasurable, Max
Emanuel was said to have danced hours at a time, allowing
no interruptions. Given his nature, it was perhaps
appropriate that his first dancing role (at the tender age of
six) was that of Amor for the 1669 Carneval festivities. In
the hopes of developing his own cult of personality in the
style of Louis XIV’s “Sun King”, there were attempts by
the courtiers to cast Max Emanuel as “Amor-Guerriero”—
Love, the Warrior—but the title did not stick. Once he took
over his official duties as Elector, he ceased performing
publicly.
Henriette Adélaïde was instrumental in importing the
French style of dancing to the Bavarian Court. In 1666,
Jacques Rodier was hired to teach dancing to the royal
children and courtiers, and to create new ballets for court
entertainments. There is scant biographical information
about Rodier, but his name appears in the illustrious cast
of the famous Ballet Royal de la Nuit (1653), which also
included a fifteen-year-old Louis XIV. Jacques passed away
sometime in 1680, and his son François was sent to Paris
to study with French dancing masters in preparation for
taking over his father’s appointment at court. Returning to
the court in 1683, the younger Rodier began preparing for
the festivities surrounding the royal wedding of
Maximilian Emanuel to the Austrian Princess, Maria
Antonia. Steffani’s Servio Tullio (1686) was a part of these
celebrations, and the descriptions of his choreography that
have survived from that opera detail a pleasing variety of
effects, including a scene with twelve dancers representing
the bountiful future offspring of the royal couple, a ballet
on youth and beauty, and a grotesque divertissement with
music in the Renaissance style. The ballets François created
for Niobe have been lost, but records show that the
Carneval season of 1688 was busy in terms of dancing,
including the ordering of twelve long wigs, à la Louis XIV,
for his new dance troupe of male courtiers. He maintained
his position at the court until his death, but it is unclear
what his duties were between the years 1692 and 1715, the
period of intermittent exiles for Max Emanuel and his
court.
Despite the Bavarian court’s various uprootings, Max
Emanuel continued his mother’s practice of hiring French
dancing masters. In 1715, he brought Jean-Pierre Dubreuil
with him on his return to Munich, giving him the title of
“compositeur de ballets de Cour.” Dubreuil was
particularly renowned for his role as Scaramouche; a
surviving engraving attests to this. There also exists a
manuscript of Dubreuil’s choreographies from around
1718 and 1730; the collection includes danses à deux as
well as figures for country dances. Dubreuil dedicated these
dances to the Bavarian Court, and they are appropriately
titled: “La Bavaroise,” “La Palantine,” and so on. We have
used some of these choreographies as inspiration for the
dances you will see this evening.
The dance music for Niobe has also been lost, but we
know from the libretto the placement and character of the
ballets, as well as the composer of the ballet music, one
Melchior d’Ardespin. A cornettist and orchestra director
for the Bavarian Court, d’Ardespin taught music to Max
Emanuel and brought the French style of playing to the
144
metamorphoses – change and transformation
festival opera
In terms of our choreographic aims, we first investigated
the apparent French influence at Max Emanuel’s court; we
particularly looked to the French theorists and dancing
masters of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Along these lines, we are indebted to the wonderful
research by Carol Marsh and Rebecca Harris-Warrick on
Jean Favier’s choreography for Le Mariage de la Grosse
Cathos (1688). It is unusual to have so much information
about the original choreography from a particular
spectacle, and especially fortuitous that this comic
masquerade was created in the same year as Niobe, albeit
in France. Through their detailed study we gained insight
into what steps and step patterns were in practice that year
as well as ideas for spatial patterns for the group
choreographies.
We have also turned to Raoul Auger Feuillet’s
Chorégraphie, ou l’art de décrire la danse (Paris, 1700), an
indispensable guide for today’s early dance specialists as
well to the dancing masters of eighteenth-century Europe.
Feuillet’s book not only instructed the reader how to
decipher the system of dance notation most widely used
and published in the eighteenth century, but included
choreographies from Guillaume-Louis Pécour, whom
François Rodier may have met or studied with on his trip
to Paris. Noting its importance to the art of dance, the
German dancing master, Gottfried Taubert, included a
German translation of Feuillet’s treatise in his own tome,
Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister (The Worthy Dancing
Master, Leipzig, 1717).
Interestingly, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century,
many dance treatises were published in German by
German, Italian, and French dancing masters, perhaps
signaling a rise in the popularity of dancing at the German
courts. Amongst the surviving treatises are an interesting
array of authors and perspectives on theatrical and
ballroom dancing, including Louis Bonin’s Die neueste Art
zur galanten und theatralischen Tantz-Kunst (The newest
way of going about the galant and theatrical Art of Dance,
Frankfurt, 1711), Gregorio Lambranzi’s Die neue und
curieuse theatralische tantz-Schul (The New and Curious
School of Theatrical Dancing, Nuremberg, 1716), and
Taubert’s treatise, already mentioned above.
We were specifically interested in what these dancing
masters had to say on the differences between la belle
danse, or ballroom dancing, and le ballet sérieux, the
serious and theatrical style of dancing. Both Bonin and
Taubert wrote about what steps were more appropriate for
le ballet sérieux and their suggestions included complex
enchâinements (linked steps) and higher jumps, as well as
the usage of higher movement of the arms. We have
incorporated these ideas while also placing emphasis on
our desire that each of the dancers’ steps and gestures be
representative of the characters and passions they will
portray on the stage—our poetic ode to the ideals and
wishes of the early dancing masters who prized invention,
proportion, and spectacle in their own works. !
—Caroline Copeland
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2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
court; thankfully, some of his compositions from other
productions have survived. It is from these surviving works
that we have chosen the music for the ballets at the end of
Act I (Ballo de Cacciatori), Act II (Ballo de’ Pastori), and
for the Adoration dances in Act II, Scene IV. The final
chaconne in Act III, added for the Ballo di Soldati
Festeggianti, was composed by Steffani himself for Enrico
Leone (1689). Again, in the style of the French, ballets were
called for at the end of each act, and d’Ardespin’s music
was written in the French style. There are also arias within
the opera that lend themselves beautifully to
“divertissement” moments; whenever appropriate, we have
included dance in those scenes.
timeline
Historical Timeline of Niobe
and Polish armies including the Bavarians under
Maximilian II Emanuel.
Blow’s Venus and Adonis (BEMF 2008) thought
to have premiered in London
Cultural and political events which help to place
Niobe in its true surroundings
1643
Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (BEMF
2009), with a libretto by Busenello, premiered in
Venice
1647
Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo (BEMF 1997), with a
libretto by Buti, premiered in Paris
1654
July: Birth of Agostino Steffani at Castelfranco,
Veneto
1662
Ercole Amante (BEMF 1999), Cavalli/Buti,
premiered in Paris
July: Birth of Maximilian II Emanuel
1666
January: Steffani, age 11, travels to Venice to sing
in Demetrio, Carlo Pallavicino’s first opera
1667
July: Steffani, just turned 13, travels to Munich
to enter the service of the Elector of Bavaria
1669
Melchior d’Ardespin is employed as a cornettist
at the Bavarian electoral court at Munich
1672
Steffani goes to Rome to study with Ercole
Bernabei
1675
Steffani is appointed court organist at Munich
Thésée (BEMF 2001), Jean-Baptiste Lully’s third
opera, with a libretto by Quinault, premiered in
Paris
1676
Benedetto Odescalchi is elected Pope Innocent XI
1678
Steffani travels to Paris; probably meets Lully and
hears his opera Bellérophon
Lully’s Psyché (BEMF 2007), with a libretto by
Thomas Corneille, premiered in Paris
1679
Elector Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria dies, and is
succeeded by his son Maximilian II Emanuel
1680
Steffani ordained as a priest.
Wedding of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Maria
Anna Victoria of Bavaria, sister of Maximilian
Emanuel
1681
Steffani’s first opera, Marco Aurelio, with a
libretto by his brother Ventura Terzago,
premiered in Munich
1682
Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles
1683
July: A 140,000-man Ottoman force arrives at
the wall of Vienna.
September: Battle of Vienna; the Ottoman siege is
broken by a combined force of Austrian, German,
1684
Pope Innocent XI forms the Holy League with
the Habsburg Empire, Venice, and Poland to
oppose the Ottoman Empire.
Charpentier’s Actéon (BEMF 2008) first performed.
1685
Solone, Steffani/Terzago
February: Birth of George Frideric Handel (d.
1759)
March: Birth of Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1750)
July: Wedding of Maximilian Emanuel and Maria
Antonia of Austria
Charpentier’s Epithalamio in lode dell’Altezza
Serenissima Elettorale di Massimiliano Emanuel
Duca di Baviera (H 473) performed in Paris to
honor the wedding of Maximilian Emanuel of
Bavaria
October: Louis XIV issues the Edict of
Fontainebleau, making Protestantism illegal in
France.
October: Birth of Domenico Scarlatti (d. 1757)
1686
Servio Tullio, Steffani/Terzago, with ballets by
Melchior d’Ardespin
The League of Augsburg is formed to resist the
expansion of Louis XIV, consisting of the Holy
Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain,
Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatinate. Innocent XI
plays a major role in its formation.
Armide, Lully/Quinault, premiered in Paris
Charpentier’s opera La Descente d’Orphée aux
Enfers (BEMF 2011)
1687
Alarico il Baltha, Steffani/Orlandi, with ballets by
Melchior d’Ardespin
André Le Nôtre finishes the park of the castle of
Versailles (started in 1662).
Lully’s Thésée performed in French in
Wolfenbüttel
March: Death of Jean-Baptiste Lully
The Venetian navy attacks Turkish strongholds in
Greece.
The Parthenon in Athens is damaged when
Venetian mortar fire explodes a Turkish powder
magazine housed in the building
Melchior d’Ardespin is appointed director of the
court orchestra of Munich
1688
Niobe, Regina di Tebe (BEMF 2011),
Steffani/Orlandi, with ballets by Melchior
d’Ardespin
Steffani becomes Kapellmeister at the court of
Hanover
Dido and Aeneas (BEMF 2010), Purcell/Tate,
146
metamorphoses – change and transformation
timeline
1689
Enrico Leone (BEMF 1989), Steffani’s first
Hanover opera, with a libretto by Ortensio
Mauro, premiered
Lully’s Acis et Galatée performed in French in
Hamburg
August: Death of Innocent XI.
1690
Melchior d’Ardespin is appointed electoral councillor
1691
Ariadne (BEMF 2003), Conradi/Postel, premiered
in Hamburg to great public acclaim
Purcell’s King Arthur (BEMF 1995), with text by
Dryden, performed at Dorset Garden in London
1695–
1699
Six Steffani operas, presented a few years earlier
in Italian in Hanover, are performed in German
translation in Hamburg
1703–
1706
Handel performs in the second violin section of
the Gänsemarkt Orchestra under Keiser and
Mattheson, and composes his first three operas
for Hamburg.
1706
Handel leaves for Rome, carrying scores of
several operas by Keiser and (probably) Steffani,
from which he borrows arias over the course of
his career. Within a few months of arriving in
Rome, he acquires a volume of Steffani duets that
he will use as compositional models and for more
borrowings.
1708
Antiochus und Stratonica (BEMF
Graupner/Feind, premiered in Hamburg
1710
Mattheson writes Boris Goudenow (BEMF
2005); it is not performed for 295 years.
1718
Handel’s Acis and Galatea (BEMF 2009), with
text by Gay, Pope, and Hughes, is first performed
1726
February: Death of Maximilian II Emanuel
1728
February: Death of Agostino Steffani
2013),
!
—Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs, and Gilbert Blin
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2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
performed at the Josiah Priest school in London
Maximilian II Emanuel takes Belgrade from the
Turks.
November: Louis XIV declares war on the
Netherlands. The Nine Years’ War begins in
Europe and America.
synopsis
notes on our edition of
Niobe, Regina di Tebe
A total of nine original sources were used in making our
performing edition of Niobe, two libretti and seven musical
sources. Our primary source for the music was the autograph
score in Vienna, with some additional details and corrections
gleaned from manuscripts in Schwerin and Munich. While
these three sources largely agree with one another, there are
occasional pieces of information lacking in the autograph—
mostly articulations, text underlay, or unclear pitches—that
are more carefully notated in the other manuscripts, both of
which seem to have been copied around the time of the first
performance.
For the 1688 performances, the original Italian libretto was
published, as well as a separate German translation, which
probably functioned as the program book for the Munich
audience. These two documents were invaluable in sorting
out the text and the stage directions for our edition. There are
numerous differences between the text found in the published
Italian libretto and that used in the musical sources, suggesting
that Steffani was at liberty to change word order, or even
individual words, where he felt he could create a clearer or
more dramatic effect. The libretto also contains detailed stage
directions as well as descriptions of the ballets, the music for
which is lacking in the scores. The libretto indicates that the
dance music was composed by Melchior d’Ardespin, the
orchestra director at Maximilian Emanuel’s court in Munich.
While d’Ardespin’s dances for Niobe are lost, those he
provided for two operas performed in 1690 are extant, and
from those we selected movements that seemed to best
represent the ballets described in the Niobe libretto. Since
d’Ardespin’s dances have a flavor distinct from those of
Steffani, we felt it was important to select dances by the
composer of the original dance music. For the final “Dance of
Celebrating Soldiers,” however, we have used the Chaconne
from Steffani’s next opera, Enrico Leone of 1689.
The German libretto also proved quite valuable in that it
contains additional stage instructions not included in the
other sources, as well as shedding light on how the Italian text
was to be received by the public. There is no way of
determining how closely the German translator was involved
in the preparation of the original production, but from the
details of the stage instructions, it appears that he must have
witnessed rehearsals, if he was not actually a member of the
production team. Thus the translator’s reading of the Italian
text may offer an eyewitness view of the production. At the
very least, it provided the most important source of
information about the opera for the audience members who
attended the first performances.
After Steffani had composed the score, it was apparently
decided that the opera was too long, and numerous cuts were
made, all clearly indicated in the autograph score, and also in
both the Italian and German libretti. In particular, Act I was
initially longer than the other two acts combined, and the
bulk of the cuts were made there, some of them involving the
elimination of entire scenes. We used those original cuts as the
basis of our own pruning, to shorten the opera to a size we
could manage within the schedule of this year’s festival. !
—Paul O’Dette
notes on the libretto
and our translation
The translation of Luigi Orlandi’s libretto for Niobe, Regina
di Tebe was prepared from the original 1688 Italian text,
although we consulted the German source for clarification of
some passages. We present the full libretto here, including the
published introductory text. The cuts made for our
performance are marked with gray shading. Indentations
denote either single poetic lines divided between characters, or
a multi-line aria. The language of this libretto is enriched by
frequent references and allusions to classical mythology,
ancient geography, and literary works by Ovid, Homer, Virgil,
Tasso, and the like. These terms are marked with a “†” and
are explained in a Glossary of Terms on pages 208–209. !
148
metamorphoses – change and transformation
—Ellen Hargis
synopsis
Niobe, Regina di Tebe
Act One
The City of Thebes
Anfione, King of Thebes, has ruled for many years and is
weary of the pressures of the throne. His wife, Niobe, has
born him many children—her Niobids—and is inordinately
proud of them. Anfione decides to transfer power to his wife.
To this purpose he calls Prince Clearte back from voluntary
exile to serve as Regent to Niobe. Clearte is reluctant to accept
this rank. Nerea, the nurse to the queen, is aware of the source
of Clearte’s discomfort, and she encourages him to reveal his
feelings for Niobe. Clearte, left alone, laments his sad state.
A Forest on the outskirts of Thebes
Tiberino, a prince from a faraway land, is on a quest for fame
and glory. During the course of a hunt, he rescues Manto, a
young maiden in distress. She is overwhelmed by gratitude,
and introduces Tiberino to her blind father, Tiresia, the High
Priest of Latona. Tiresia is also clairvoyant, and reveals that
Tiberino is the son of a King. Manto is smitten, but declares
that she serves the goddess Latona, and has not yet
worshipped at the altar of Cupid, god of Love. Tiberino is
charmed by her naiveté. Left alone, Manto laments her
inexperience and inability to express her feelings.
On their way to Thebes, the magician Poliferno has enchanted
Creonte, Prince of the rival state of Thessaly. Poliferno casts a
spell that causes Creonte to believe that he is in love with
Niobe. The magician rouses the Prince and promises to help
him to win the queen and the throne of the kingdom to further
the cause of Poliferno’s family vendetta against Anfione.
The City of Thebes
Meanwhile, back in Thebes, Anfione devotes his time to the
study of the Harmony of the Spheres, and Niobe encourages
him. Clearte arrives with the news that Creonte’s army is
invading the country. Anfione reluctantly returns to his royal
duties. Niobe toys with Clearte under the shrewd eye of
Nerea. Nerea cynically rails about the emotional neediness of
women.
Creonte and Poliferno have reached Thebes, and find their way
through a secret passage into the city. To protect his people,
Anfione invokes Jove’s help with a hymn, and his prayer causes
walls to rise and encircle Thebes. When she sees this feat,
Niobe is convinced of her husband’s divinity, and asks the
people to bow down and worship Anfione as the new Theban
god. High Priest Tiresia is appalled by this blasphemy, and
protests vigorously. Niobe will suffer no dissent and throws
the old man to the ground, forcing him to make obeisance to
her husband. Anfione, still in a trance and oblivious to the
conflict, finds comfort in Niobe’s praise. Tiresia is left on the
ground, hurt and alone, where Manto and Tiberino find him
and are appalled by this abuse. They entrust him to the care of
Tiberino’s companions. Manto takes comfort from Tiberino,
and the young couple explores their feelings for each other.
Tiberino is touched by Manto’s inexperience, and he resolves
to declare himself to her. His companions congratulate him
and tease him about his new love.
Act Two
The City of Thebes
Poliferno uses magic to hide himself and Creonte in a cloud
so that they can observe Niobe unseen. Clearte and the
Theban court arrive, still in awe of Anfione’s power and the
raising of the walls. The Thebans, their confidence renewed,
rally to engage the Thessalian invaders, but Clearte struggles
with his unrequited love for Niobe.
The queen arrives, and declares her desire to raise Clearte to
the throne. Clearte is reluctant to defy Anfione, but Niobe
justifies her command by explaining that Anfione has
relinquished his royal responsibilities. The king arrives, and
is shocked to see Clearte in his place. Niobe placates Anfione
by offering him a place more suited to his station, and
presents a celestial shrine worthy of his godlike powers.
Anfione is beguiled by her plan, and enters the starry vault.
The whole court is compelled to make obeisance to their new
god. Poliferno interrupts the idolatry and abducts Niobe.
Anfione, frightened and alone, laments the disappearance of
his wife.
A Forest on the outskirts of Thebes
Tiresia, confused, cannot clearly discern the omens, but before
he leaves, he reveals to Tiberino that the prince’s quest will be
fulfilled not by success in war, but by other conquests. Manto
arrives with her companions, and confesses her affections to
Tiberino, but he decides to wait for a better time to reveal his
feelings for her. Manto, left alone, is puzzled by his reticence.
Poliferno, disguised as Mercury, leads Niobe through the
forest. He flatters her by telling her that the god Mars has
chosen her as his wife. Niobe is ecstatic at this turn of fortune.
Posing as Mars, Creonte is able to declare his love for the
queen. Under Poliferno’s spell, the couple is transported by
amorous rapture.
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2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
synopsis
synopsis
The City of Thebes
The Temple of Latona
Tiresia reveals to the king that he has been deceived by
Poliferno’s magic, that Niobe has been abducted by Creonte,
and that these misfortunes are the result of the royal couple’s
arrogance. Anfione vows to take revenge on the Thessalian
invaders.
Tiresia celebrates of union of his daughter Manto with
Tiberino. The High Priest and his new son-in-law leave
Manto to her devotions. Niobe sweeps into the temple and
boasts of her supremacy over the gods; she then commands
her followers to destroy the altars of Latona, Diana, and
Apollo. The Queen orders Clearte to prepare a ceremony to
acknowledge her children as gods, and exults in her victory.
Nerea scolds the followers, pointing out that those who live
a life of deception will never find true love.
A Forest on the outskirts of Thebes
Nerea, who has fled the city, finds Manto complaining of her
amorous suffering. The confused girl rejects Tiberino’s efforts
to console her, and the young Prince finds little comfort in the
jaded observations of Nerea. He realizes that he is a prisoner
of his love. Nerea preaches her philosophy by lecturing
sarcastically about the wiliness of men.
Act Three
A Forest on the outskirts of Thebes
Niobe enjoys the attentions of Mars/Creonte and abandons
herself to sensual oblivion. Their erotic rapture is interrupted
by Poliferno, who bursts in to warn Creonte that the Theban
army is approaching. Creonte and Poliferno leave in haste;
the spell is broken, and Niobe is left behind, unconscious.
Anfione discovers his wife and reveals to her that she has been
deceived, and that her so-called Mars was none other than
their enemy Creonte. Niobe, outraged at having been duped
in this way, blames the gods for this humiliation, and swears
revenge. Anfione loses hope of ever finding peace of mind.
The Square of Thebes
In the great square of Thebes, Clearte leads the Niobids in a
triumphant procession, but Diana and Apollo destroy the
walls of the city and strike the children from above, killing
them all. Seeing this, Anfione takes his own life in despair, and
Niobe arrives as he takes his last breath. She cries out in
horror at the devastating sight of her dead family, but her grief
is so great that she cannot weep. She is turned to stone by her
own torment.
Creonte, victorious, enters the city. Free of enchantments, he
exiles Poliferno, blesses the union of Tiberino and Manto, and
promises a secure future for Nerea. The Thessalians and
Thebans celebrate their new King. !
—Gilbert Blin and Ellen Hargis
Bo!on Early Music Fe!ival
Extends sincere thanks to
Randolph J. Fuller
for his leadership support of the fully-staged North American premiere of
Christoph Graupner’s
June 8–16, 2013 at Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston
June 21–23, 2013 at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in the Berkshires
Please join BEMF's Friends of Antiochus und Stratonica, the June 2013 Boston Early Music Festival's
fully-staged operatic centerpiece. For more information, please contact BEMF Executive Director
Kathleen Fay at 617-661-1812 or [email protected]. Thank you for your support.
150
metamorphoses – change and transformation
festival opera
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
libretto
Translation by Ellen Hargis
NIOBE
REGINA DI TEBE
NIOBE
QUEEN OF THEBES
Drama
Drama
PER MUSICA
Da rappresentarsi
ALL’ALTEZZE SERENISSIME
ELETTORALI
IN MUSIC
To be performed
FOR THEIR MOST SERENE
ELECTORAL HIGHNESSES
Di
Of
MASSIMILIANO
EMANUELE,
MAXIMILIAN
EMANUEL,
Duca dell’una, e l’altra Baviera, e dell’alto
Palatinato, Elettore del Sac. Rom. Imp., Conte
Palatino del Reno, Langravio di Leictemberg,
&c. &c.
Duke of the one and the other Bavaria, and of the Upper
Palatinate, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Count
Palatine of the Rhine, Landgrave of Leichtemberg,
etc. etc.
MARIA ANTONIA,
MARIA ANTONIA,
Arciduchessa d’Austria, &c. &c.
L’Anno 1688.
Composto da Luigi Orlandi Segretario di S. A. E.
E
Posto in Musica dal Sigr. D. Agostino Steffani
Direttore della Musica di Camera di S. A. E.
Con l’Arie per i Balli Del Sigr Melchior d’Ardespin
Maestro de Concerti, & Aiutante di
Camera di S. A. E.
___________________________________________
Archduchess of Austria, etc. etc.
The Year 1688.
Devised by Luigi Orlandi Secretary of H. E. H.
And
Set in Music by Don Agostino Steffani,
Director of the Chamber Music of H. E. H.
With the Airs for the Ballets by Mr. Melchior d’Ardespin
Director of the Court Orchestra & Groom of the
Chamber of H. E. H.
___________________________________________
In MONACO, Per Giovanni Jecklino,
Stampatore Elettorale.
In Munich, at Johann Jaecklin,
Electoral Printer.
SERENISSIME ALTEZZE
ELETTORALI
MOST SERENE ELECTORAL
HIGHNESSES
Se l’oppressione del Vitio è lo Spettacolo più gradito da gli
occhi eterni de Numi, non poteva la mia ubbidiente
divotione offrire divertimento più proprio à benignissimi
sguardi dell’Altezze Vostre Seren.me Elett.li quanto la
prosternatione d’un Vitio, e d’un Vitio direttamente
opposto alla Virtù più pregiata dalle vostre grand’Anime.
If the oppression of Sin is the Sight most pleasing to the
eternal eyes of the Gods, my obedient devotion could not
offer diversion more appropriate to the most kindly regard
of your Highnesses, the most Serene Electors, than the
overthrow of a Sin, and of a Sin directly opposed to the
Virtue most esteemed by your great Souls. Behold therefore
E DELLA
SERENISSIMA ELETTRICE
AND OF HER
MOST SERENE ELECTRESS
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Ecco per ciò dalla famosa Reggia di Tebe risorto sù la
Scena il gran Mostro della superbia à provocare i Fulmini
nelle tremende Destre de Numi, perche servano di Faci
luminose nel sacro Tempio de vostri Regi Lari, dove il
Nume d’una eccelsa Humiltà magnanimamente si adora.
All’immutabil Gloria di cosí potente domatrice del vano
Fasto, che nel Serenissimo Cielo del vostro Soglio bella più
del Sole risplende, innalza Colossi di sestesso l’Orgoglio
nella memorabile peripetia di quella infelice Regnante, di
cui và publicando con Tromba maestra la Fama:
the great Monster of pride risen up on the Scene from
the famous Throne of Thebes, to incite Lightning bolts
from the great Right Hand of the Gods, because they
serve shining Torches in the sacred Temple of your
Household Gods, where the God of a great Humility is
adored generously. To the eternal Glory of such powerful
dominion over vain Pride, which in the most Serene
Heaven of your Royal Seat shines more beautifully than
the Sun, rises the Colossus of Pride itself in the
memorable circumference of that unhappy Ruler, of
whom Fame proclaims with her Trumpet:
Et felicissima Matrum
Dicta foret Niobe, si non sibi visa fuisset.
Quinci felicissime Voi Seren.me Elett.li Altezze, che nell’
Altezze appunto del Vostro glorioso Dominio quasi Augelli
di Paradiso havete cent’Occhi aperti sempre alla Fortuna
de Vostri sudditi, ma coperti ad ogn’hora sotto l’Ali d’un
sapere ammirando, per non mirare gl’immensi Pregi della
propria sublime Grandezza. Quando un Mondo intero,
benche abbagliato, si affissa à gli adorati Raggi di Vostre
Glorie, solo da Voi rimangono sconosciuti i Vostri
Splendori; e parmi, che per degno Applauso di Virtù così
rara, e rara Dote de vostri generosissimi Cuori, vadi hoggi
di Voi decantando il Mondo ciò, che del Sole fû detto:
And the happiest of Mothers
Could have been said to be Niobe, if she had not
said so herself.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI/155
Therefore most happy You, Serene Electoral Highnesses,
who by highest charge of Your glorious Dominion, like
Birds of Paradise have a hundred Eyes, always open to
the fortunes of Your aforesaid Dominion, but hidden
always beneath the Wings of an admirable wisdom, so
as not to regard the immense Merit of your own sublime
Greatness. When a whole World, although embattled, is
itself affixed by the adored Rays of Your Glory, to You
only Your Splendors remain unknown; and it seems to
me, worthy Applause of Virtue so rare, and the rare Gifts
of your most generous Hearts, today the World may say
of you Thus, as was said of the Sun:
Quæ omnes in ipso mirantur, ipse solus non videt.
That which all admire in him, he alone does not see
himself.
Et ecco il maggior Luminare hoggi come simbolo de vostri
supremi Attributi abbattere con fulminante destra la
Tebana Alterezza, rappresentando non meno all’ombre
atterrite dell’Asiana superbia i Lampi vittoriosi della
Vostra acclamata Possanza. Ma dove à fronte di Voi, che
siete i due vivi Soli del gran Cielo della Baviera, ardisco
con Ali d’Icaro seguire il Volo, che spiega trionfante la
Vostra Fama? Intraprendano l’Aquile sí eccelsa Meta, &
alla tarpata mia Penna solo sia Meta fortunata il
publicarmi con profonda veneratione.
And here the greatest Light today, like a symbol of your
supreme Attributes, to strike the Theban Royalty with
your thundering right hand, no less visible in the
shadows, the victorious Lightning of Your acclaimed
Power terrifies the pride of the Asians. But where, before
You, who are two living Suns of the great Heaven of
Bavaria, do I dare with the Wings of Icarus to follow that
Flight which spreads Your Fame triumphantly? The
Eagle undertakes so excellent a Destination, and to the
quill of my Feather may the only happy Goal be this
publication, with deep veneration.
Dell’Altezze Vostre Seren.me Elett.li.
Of Your Most Serene Electoral Highnesses.
Monaco po Gennaro 1688.
Monaco, January first, 1688.
Humilissimo, Divotissimo, Ubbidientissimo servo.
Luigi Orlandi
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Most Humble, Most Devoted, Most Obedient servant,
Luigi Orlandi
festival opera
ARGUMENT.
Niobe, & Anfione due gran Regnanti di Tebe celebrati per
massimi da gli Applausi di tutta Grecia; l’uno per esser
nato di Giove potentissimo Rè di Creta; l’altra per esser
figlia di Tantalo famosissimo Rè di Frigia. Questa per esser
dotata d’animo così grande, e virile, che superando
l’ordinaria conditione del Sesso, s’acquisto Nome più che
di Donna, di Dea. Quello per havere con larga Vena
d’Ingegno, e prerogative di Senno cosí legate l’Intelligenze
delle Sfere nella sua Musica, si come negli Affari Politi ci
resa humana, e civile l’incivile Barbarie de Popoli, che
meritò gl’Attributi non che di Huomo, di Nume. Ma
avvenendo, che gran Fortuna conduce sovente à gran Fato;
resa Niobe per tante Glorie superba, diviene de gli Dei
sprezzatrice, e togliendo il Culto à Latona, Dea da Tebani
adorata, vilipende Manto figlia di Tiresia Indovino, e
Sacerdote della medesima Dea, mentre da Manto si
procurano à Latona gl’Holocausti dovuti. Vendicano gli
Dei con la Morte i Disprezzi, e colti da improvisa Parca
tutti i Figli di Niobe, Anfione disperato s’uccide, e Niobe da
gran Dolore oppressa perde la Vita. Manto poscia condotta
dalla Sorte in Italia fù da Tiberino Rè d’Alba ricevuta in
Consorte.
Niobe and Anfione, two great Rulers of Thebes, were
rightly famous in all Greece; he because he was the son of
Jove, and a powerful king of Crete; she because she was
the daughter of Tantalus, a most famous king of Phrygia.
She was endowed such a great and virile spirit, that it
overcame the usual condition of her Sex, and acquired her
a name more than that of Woman: of a Goddess. He, with
a broad Vein of Genius and preeminent Judgment, had
thus bound the Intelligence of the Spheres in his Music,
just as in political affairs he rendered human and civil the
uncivil savagery of the people, so that he merited the
attributes not of man, but of a divinity. But so it is that
great Fortune often leads to a great Destiny; Niobe,
rendered Proud by so many Glories, became scornful of
the Gods, and abolished the Cult of Latona, Goddess
adored by the Thebans; she insulted Manto, daughter of
Tiresia, a Seer and Priest of this same Goddess, while from
Manto they obtained burnt Sacrifices to Latona. The Gods
are avenged by the Death of the Despisers, and by an
unforeseen Fate taking all the Children of Niobe. Anfione
kills himself in despair, and Niobe, oppressed by great
Sorrow, loses her Life. Manto, then was led by Fate to Italy,
and received as Consort by Tiberino, King of Alba.
Gran Campo hebbe la favolosa Grecia di finger Menzogne
nel Poetico Racconto di tali successi, onde attribuendo altri
al Canto, altri al Suono di Anfione l’erettione delle mura di
Tebe, fece vedere con l’Armi in Mano Latona, & i suoi figli
Apolline, e Diana à saettare dal Cielo la Tebana superbia,
e convertir Niobe in sasso.
It was a great Specialty of fabled Greece to allow some
Variation in Poetic Recountings of such events, where
some attributed to the Song of Anfione, and others to his
Playing, the erection of the walls of Thebes; they made
Latona appear with Arms in Hand; and her children
Apollo and Diana to shoot the proud Thebans from
Heaven, and to turn Niobe into stone.
Interpr. Histor. Metamor. Ovid De Niobe.
Historical Interpretation of the Metamorphoses
by Ovid, of Niobe
Si aggiungono li seguenti verisimili.
The following likelihoods are added.
Anfione impossessatosi del Regno di Tebe con la
debellatione di Lico Rè suo Antecessore, si finge, che dal
Rè di Tessaglia congionto di Lico, doppo molti Anni, per
vendicare lo scempio del medesimo, sia all’impensata
mandato Creonte suo Figlio all’Assedio di Tebe, e che
Creonte sii allettato à tal Guerra dalla speranza fattagli
concepire da Poliferno Prencipe mago d’Attica, di godere
il possesso delle bellezze di Niobe, interessato Poliferno à
tale vendetta per la consanguinità di Dirce, seconda
Consorte di Lico, fatta ancora morire da Anfione.
Anfione seized the kingdom of Thebes with the defeat of
King Lico, his Predecessor, and it is supposed that the King
of Thessaly, an ally of Lico, after many years, to avenge the
slaughter of the latter, would have unexpectedly sent
Creonte, his Son, to the Siege of Thebes; and that Creonte
was enticed to such Warfare by the hope—implanted by
Poliferno, Prince and magician of Attica—of enjoying the
possession of Niobe’s beauty; Poliferno was honor bound
to such revenge by his kinship to Dirke, second Consort of
Lico, also killed by Anfione.
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
ARGOMENTO.
Che bramando Anfione viver al riposo, libero dal peso del
Regno, dichiari Niobe assoluta Regolatrice del Soglio, e le
dia Clearte per effecutore de suoi Decreti, richiamandolo
alla Reggia dalle Selve, ov’egli à molto Tempo vivea,
lontano da quella, per non morir vicino à Niobe, di cui
fortemente s’era gia’invaghito, ma senza concepire
speranza alcuna di corrispondenza.
Since Anfione yearned to live in repose, free of the weight
of the Kingdom, he declared Niobe absolute Ruler of the
Land, and appointed Clearte as executor of her Decrees,
recalling him to Thebes from the Woods, where he had
lived for a long Time, far from the Kingdom, in order not
to die near to Niobe, of whom he was still enamored, but
without any hope of mutual affection.
Che Tiberino non havendo ancora hereditato il Regno
d’Alba dal Padre, portatosi in Grecia per desiderio di
propagare le Glorie del suo Valore in Giostre, in Caccie,
in Lotte, & in altri essercitii militari usati in quei Tempi da
Greci, finalmente in Tebe s’innamori di Manto, e la
conduca sua sposa nel Latio.
Tiberino, not yet having inherited the Throne of Alba
from his Father, went to Greece desiring to add to the
Glory of his Valor in Jousts, in Hunts, in Wrestling, and
in other military exercises used at that Time by the
Greeks; finally in Thebes he fell in love with Manto,
married her, and led her to Latium.
RAPPRESENTATI.
PERFORMERS.
Niobe Regina di Tebe.
Anfione Rè.
Manto Donzella Tebana figlia di
Tiresia Indovino, e Sacerdote di Latona.
Clearte Prencipe Tebano.
Creonte figlio del Rè di Tessaglia.
Poliferno Prencipe d’Attica Mago.
Tiberino figlio del Rè d’Alba.
Nerea Nutrice di Niobe.
Niobe, Queen of Thebes
Anfione, King [of Thebes]
Manto, a Theban maiden, daughter of [Tiresia]
Tiresia, a Soothsayer, and Priest of Latona
Clearte, a Theban Prince
Creonte, son of the King of Thessaly
Poliferno, Prince of Attica, Magician
Tiberino, son of the King of Alba
Nerea, Nurse of Niobe
APPEARANCES.
COMPARSE.
Di Sei figli, e
Sei figlie
di Niobe
Di Dame,
Paggi, e
Deitá apparenti.
con Niobe.
Di Cavalieri,
Paggi, e
Popolo.
con Anfione.
Di Pastorelle con Manto.
Di Servi con Tiresia.
Di Nobili Tebani con Clearte.
Di Guerrieri con Creonte, e Poliferno.
Di Cacciatori con Tiberino.
Of Six sons and
Six daughters of Niobe.
Of Ladies,
Pages, and
False Deities with Niobe.
Of Knights,
Pages, and
Citizens with Anfione.
Of Shepherdesses with Manto.
Of Servants with Tiresia.
Of Noble Thebans with Clearte.
Of Warriors with Creonte, and Poliferno.
Of Hunters with Tiberino.
SCENE.
SCENERY.
NELL’ATTO I.
IN ACT I.
Regale con Trono.
Boscaglia.
Regio Museo, che ostenta la Reggia dell’Armonia.
Campagna con veduta di Tebe sfornita di Muraglie.
Royal Room with a Throne.
Forest.
Royal Study, which vaunts the Seat of Harmony.
Countryside with a prospect of Thebes without Walls.
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Anfiteatro con grande Globo aereo nel mezzo, che
poscia aprendosi forma una Celeste.
Infernale, che sorge nel vacuo di detta Scena,
e poi si profonda.
Colline con Fonte.
Camare Regie.
Pianura ingombrata da Capanne di Pastori.
NELL’ATTO III.
Sfera di Marte, che si trasforma poi in
Solitudini con Grotte.
Tempio di Latona.
Piazza di Tebe.
MACHINE.
Gran Mostro, che si risolve in molti Guerrieri.
Fantasma, che sorgendo di sotterra, forma grande
Voragine in Aria.
Mura di Tebe, che s’innalzano à poco à poco.
Due Draghi infernali, che di sotterra conducono sù
la Scena Creonte & Poliferno.
Nube, che sorge in Aria, e nasconde li sudetti.
Gran nuvolosa, che dall, alto scende con Creonte in
apparenza di Marte.
Carro trionfale fulminato da Latona, Apolline, e Diana,
che compariscono in Aria con Deitá compagne.
Caduta di molti Edificii ad un Terremoto.
BALLI.
Di Popolo in atto di adorar Anfione.
Di Pastori.
Di Soldati festeggianti.
IN ACT II.
Amphitheater with a large aerial Globe in the center,
which after opening forms a Heavenly Body.
Hell, which rises in the empty space of this Scene,
and then sinks.
Little Hills with Springs.
Royal Chambers.
A Plain filled with Shepherds’ Huts.
IN ACT III.
The Planet Mars, which then is transformed into
A Lonely Place with Grottos.
The Temple of Latona.
A Square of Thebes.
MACHINES.
Enormous Monster, which turns into many Warriors.
Shadow that, rising from underground, forms a great
Chasm in the Air.
Walls of Thebes, which raise themselves little by little.
Two infernal Dragons, which from underground lead
Creonte and Poliferno onto the stage.
Cloud, which rises in the Air, and suddenly conceals them.
Large Cloud, which descends from above with Creonte
in the form of Mars.
Triumphal Chariot, struck by Latona, Apollo, and Diana,
who appear in the Air with the company of Gods.
Falling of many Buildings in an Earthquake.
BALLETS.
Of the Citizens in the act of worshipping Anfione.
Of Shepherds.
Of celebrating Soldiers.
FURONO COMPOSTI.
WERE DEVISED.
Dal Sig.r Francesco Rodier Maestro di Balli,
& Aiutante di Camera di S. A. E.
By Mr. Francesco Rodier, Master of the Ballets,
& Groom of the Chamber of H. E. H.
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
NELL’ATTO II.
ATTO I.
ACT I
Scena I.
Scene I
Regale con Trono in cui Niobe, & Anfione circondati da
numerosa loro Prole in mostra guerriera, Corteggio di
Cavalieri, e Dame, e Nerea.
Royal Room with a Throne, in which are Niobe and
Anfione, many of their Children dressed as warriors,
Court of Knights and Ladies, and Nerea.
Anfione
Venga Clearte.
Anfione
Clearte is coming.
Niobe
E che sarà?
Niobe
And what then?
Anfione
Già udisti
Niobe mio Cor, mia speme,
Che de giorni tranquílli?
Resa avara la mente,
Di più compor mal soffre
Con lo scettro la mano. A miei riposi
Mal più s’adatta il Trono, & à bastanza
Sotto il pesante incarco
Del Diadema Regal sudò la Fronte.
Alle Glorie ben conte
Di me, di Te, de Figli,
Stanche son già le Ismenie Incudi; e il Fato
Più non può dar, per far un Rè beato.
Tu, cui gli Dei formaro
Di Nume il senno, e la Beltà di Dea,
Hor ben con tua virtute
Puoi, dando Legge al soglio,
Serbarmi alla quiete, e se tu sei
Risplendente mio Cielo, il Ciel ben suole
Con istancabil moto
Dar riposo alla Terra. homai da Boschi
Tuo Compagno al gran peso
Clearte io richiamai.
Anfione
You have already heard,
Niobe, my Heart, my hope,
That my mind
Craves tranquil days,
My hand can no longer bear
To rule with the scepter. The throne is badly suited
To my peace of mind, and for long enough now,
My Brow has sweated
Beneath the weighty prison of the Royal Crown.
The Deaf Ismenians† are already Tired
Of oft-recounted Glories,
Of me, of You, and of our Children, and Fate
Can do no more to bless a King.
You, whom the Gods formed
With the wisdom of a God, and the Beauty of a Goddess,
Surely now with your virtue
You can, by conferring Law upon the throne,
Keep me in peace; and if you are
My Shining Heaven, the Sky is well-accustomed
With tireless movement
To give rest to the Earth. now from the Woods
I call Clearte back,
To be your Companion for this weighty position.
Nerea
Ohimè!
Nerea
Alas!
Anfione
Fedele
Questi, qual sempre saggio,
Esseguirà tuoi cenni, & il tuo Impero
Già decantare in lieta pace io spero.
Anfione
These faithful ones,
Ever wise,
Shall follow your orders, and of your Reign
I hope now to sing in happy peace.
Nerea
Oh bell’imbroglio in vero.
Nerea
O, lovely mess in truth!
Note: text with gray shading has been omitted from the
performance; please see page 148
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Niobe
Where am I? By what sweet enchantment
Do I feel my Soul ravished,
Sweetly wounded?
Alas, well I see, O darling,
That from your Divine lips
Issue such delightful timbres,
That I always feel,
With my happy fate,
Delightful languor, and sweet death.
Yes, yes, in the Bosom of the Ruler
Joy over-abounds, and the great Spirit,
Discharged of external cares
Of Wife, of Sons, and of Subjects,
If it now approaches the Gods,
It is because having lived for others, it now lives for itself.
Nerea
Per indurci à regnare,
Fatica non si dura,
Ch’allo scettro è proclive ogni Natura.
Nerea
It is not difficult
To persuade someone to rule,
For every nature is inclined to the scepter.
Anfione
Sollievo del mio seno,
Conforto del mio ardor.
In tè ritrovo à pieno
La pace del mio Cor.
Sollievo, &c.
Anfione
Relief of my breast,
Comfort of my passion.
In you again I find fully
My Heart’s peace.
Relief, etc.
Niobe
Mia gioia, mio Diletto,
Diletto di mia fè.
Quest’Alma nel mio petto
Hà vita sol per te
Mia gioia, &c.
Niobe
My joy, my Delight,
Delight of my trust.
This Soul in my bosom
Lives only for you
My joy, etc.
Scena II.
Scene II
Clearte, e Sudetti.
Clearte and the Aforementioned.
Clearte
Ecco à Piè di chi impera
Il suddito inchinato, Al Regio cenno
Ecco homai del Vassal l’Arbitrio humile,
E da boschi Clearte
Ecco si toglie ad ubidire accinto
Il voler del sovrano:
Ahi ch’un Guardo di Niobe il Cor m’hà estinto (à parte.
Clearte
Behold, at the Foot of him who rules
The subject bows; at the Ruler’s sign
Here always is the humble Vassal’s Reward;
And from the woods, Clearte,
Here you are brought to obey
The will of the sovereign:
Alas, a Look from Niobe has crushed my heart. (aside)
Nerea (à parte.
Ei ritorna d’Amor nel Labirinto.
Nerea (aside)
He returns to the Labyrinth of Love.
Anfione
Già su’l Trono Celeste il Re de gl’Astri
Librò l’Anno due volte,
Da che l’humil soggiorno
Frà le selve eleggesti,
Anfione
Now on the Celestial Throne, the King of the Stars
Has counted two years
Since you chose to live
In humble habitation in the forests,
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Niobe
Dove son io, da qual soave incanto
Dolcemente ferita,
Sento l’Alma rapita?
Ahi ben m’aveggio o caro,
Che dal tuo Divin labro
Escon si vaghe tempre,
Perche io provi mai sempre
Con mia felice sorte
Dilettoso il languir, dolce la morte.
Si si nel Regio Petto
Sovrabondi la Gioia, e la grand’Alma
Scarca d’esterne cure
Di Consorte, di Figli, e di Vassalli,
S’à Numi hora s’appressa,
Poiche visse ad altrui, viva à se stessa.
Et in ozio trahesti,
Nelle romite Piagge
In sembianza di Fera orme selvagge.
Tempo è homai, che tù rieda
A’ compensar con le vigilie illustri
Si lungo oblio: nel Regno
A sostener mie veci
Della mia Niobe al fianco
Ti destinai.
And have taken your ease
On remote Shores,
Wandering the wilds in the guise of a Beast.
It is now time that you return
To pay for such long oblivion
With illustrious vigil: to the Throne,
To rule in my stead
At the side of my Niobe,
I appoint you.
Clearte
Che ascolto?
Clearte
What am I hearing?
Anfione
L’Arco talhor gran pezza
Rallentato si serba,
Perche poscia à grand’huopo
Con più robusta tempra
S’incurvi à i colpi à ben colpir lo scopo.
Anfione
Sometimes the Bow
Is better served by slowing down
For it can, in time of great need,
With stronger tempering,
Bend itself the better to hit the target.
Clearte (à parte.
Dall’empio Amor deluso.
Che risolvi mio core?
Clearte (aside)
Deluded by wicked Love
What do you resolve, my heart?
Nerea (à parte.
Egli è confuso.
Nerea (aside)
He is confused.
Anfione (Discende dal Trono, e cuopre Clearte d’una
veste Regia.
Sù di Regali spoglie
Cinta la nobil salma,
Mostri, che di regnar degna è quell’Alma.
Tu con sì fido Atleta
Non temer mia Reina
Forza d’invide stelle:
Piu m’ardete io v’adoro o Luci belle.
Miratemi begl’Occhi,
E’ fatemi morir.
I vostri dolci sguardi
Avventan mille Dardi,
Mà è caro ogni martir.
Miratemi, &c.
Anfione (Descends from the Throne and covers Clearte
with a Royal mantle)
Come, with Royal clothing
Gird the noble body,
Show that this Soul is worthy to reign.
With such a faithful Champion,
Fear not, my Queen,
The strength of evil stars:
The more you inflame me, the more I adore you, O lovely Lights.
Gaze at me, beautiful Eyes,
And make me die.
Your sweet glances
Fling a thousand Darts,
But every torment is sweet.
Gaze at me, etc.
Scena III.
Scene III
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea, Corteggio.
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea, Court.
Niobe
Splendetemi d’intorno
Raggi d’eterna luce, e impresso resti
Sù la fronte del sol così gran giorno.
Clearte!
Niobe
Rays of eternal light,
Shine all around me, and remain etched
On the face of sun this great day.
Clearte!
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Clearte (à parte.
Ahi fiera guerra
Frà l’Amor, e il rispetto
Io racchiudo nel Petto
Clearte (aside)
Alas, I hide a fierce battle
Between Love and respect
In my Breast.
Niobe
Non rispondi? frà boschi.
Forse la mutolezza
Dalle Fere apprendesti?
Niobe
You don’t answer? Perhaps in the woods
The muteness
Of the Beasts overtook you?
Clearte (à parte.
In gran periglio
Io ti veggio mio Cor; Alma consiglio.
Clearte (aside)
I see you
In great danger, my Heart. Soul, counsel!
Niobe
O pur sordo à gli accenti
I Tronchi imiti al susurrar de Venti?
Niobe
Or deaf to words,
You mimic the whispering of the Wind in the Branches?
Clearte
Nè da Tronco, ò da Fera
Appresi io ciò giamai,
Ma à venerar con il silenzio i Numi
Dal mio Cor imparai.
Clearte
I never learned this
From the Trees or the Beasts,
Rather, I learned from my heart
To venerate the Gods with silence.
Nerea
Si scuote affè.
Nerea
He wags his tongue indeed.
Niobe
Dunque tuo peso sia
Frà Popoli soggetti
Il Culto propagar de miei gran pregi,
Di Regina frà Dei, di Dea frà Regi.
Niobe
Therefore, may it be your charge
Among the subject People
To spread the Cult of my worship,
Of a Queen among Gods, of a Goddess among Rulers.
Clearte
Ubbidirò fedele, ei primi voti
Ecco porge il mio labro,
Hor che prostrato imploro
(Quasi dissi pietade)
Benigni Influssi da quel sol, che adoro.
Clearte
I shall obey faithfully, and the first vows
Here I offer from my lips,
Now that I beg, prostrate,
(You could almost say mercy)
Beneficence from that sun which I adore.
Nerea
Accorta invenzion.
Nerea
Shrewd fabrication!
Niobe
La fè ci è grata;
Se muto fosti già, Niobe è placata.
Niobe
Your loyalty is pleasing to us.
Though you were formerly silent, Niobe is now placated.
Nerea
Buon premio in ver.
Nerea
Nice reward in truth!
Clearte
Dimostra, ahi che non erro,
Da due Lumi di foco Alma di Ferro.
Clearte
Alas, if I am not mistaken, a Soul of iron
Is displayed by those fiery Eyes.
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Niobe
E’ Felice il tuo Cor, ne sai perchè.
Un certo tuo sprezzo,
Non sò qual tuo Vezzo
M’invoglia di tè,
E’ Felice, &c.
Niobe
Your Heart is Happy, and you know why.
A certain nonchalance,
A charm about you I can’t name,
Attracts me to you.
Your Heart is Happy, etc.
Scena IV.
Scene IV
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte
Che sento?
Clearte
What do I hear?
Nerea
E che mai disse?
Signor, humil Nerea,
Hor teco si rallegra.
Nerea
And whatever is she saying?
Sir, humble Nerea
Now with you, is cheered.
Clearte
Il rivederti
M’è caro o fida, a cui
Sola son noti i miei infelici ardori.
Clearte
Seeing you again
Is dear to me, oh faithful one, the only one
Who notices my unhappy ardor.
Nerea
Ma felici al presente,
Se pur Niobe non mente.
Nerea
But happy at present,
If in fact Niobe doesn’t lie.
Clearte
E possibil ti sembra,
Ch’ella senta pietà del foco mio?
Clearte
Do you think it is possible
That she feels pity for my passion?
Nerea
Il Cor di bella Donna è sempre pio.
Nerea
The Heart of a beautiful Woman is always charitable.
Clearte
Ma se à lei sempre occulto
Fù l’incendio del Core?
Clearte
But if the inferno in my heart
Is always hidden to her?
Nerea
Troppo ci vede, è pur e cieco Amore.
Nerea
Too much is visible, and yet Love is blind.
Clearte
Per te vive mia speme.
Clearte
Because of you my hope lives.
Nerea
Il Cor consola.
Io penetrar prometto
Gli Arcani di quel sen, per cui sospiri.
Nerea
Comfort your Heart:
I promise to figure out
The Mysteries of that bosom for which you sigh.
Clearte
Il ristoro tu sei de miei martiri.
Clearte
You know what will assuage my sufferings.
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Nerea
Almost all of them
Are Ugly,
These ladies who don’t love.
But she who vaunts inner beauty
Always nourishes pity in her Heart
For the Lovers who long for her.
Almost all of them, etc.
Scena V.
Scene V
Clearte.
Clearte.
Rio destin che pretendi
Hor che à canto al mio foco
Tu à forza mi trahesti; e fummi vano,
Per saldar la mia piaga; irne lontano.
Son Amante, e sempre peno,
Perche peno per chì nol sà
Alla Lingua ò sciogl’il freno,
O Amor dammi la libertà
Son Amante, &c.
Bitter destiny, what do you intend,
Now that You’ve drawn me by force
To the side of the one I burn for, and made me wander afar
In vain to cure my smart.
I am in Love, and I suffer
Because the one for whom I suffer doesn’t know it.
Either loosen my Tongue,
Love, or release me.
I am in Love, etc.
Scena VI.
Scene VI
Boscaglia.
Forest.
Tiberino con suoi seguaci.
Tiberino with his followers.
Tiberino
Della famosa Tebe
Ecco Amici le selve; il Piè già calca
Le disiate Arene,
Ch’esser dovran del valor nostro il Campo.
Già de gl’Albani il Nome
Mercè di nostre imprese,
Nella Grecia superba hor và fastoso:
Huom non v’è glorioso
In Caccie, in Lotte, alla Palestra, al Corso,
Che a noi fin hor non ceda; Argo, e Micene,
E Corinto, e Tessaglia
Heroe non hà, che à Tiberin prevaglia.
Alba essulti, e il Lazio goda.
Il sudor di questa Fronte
Nutre i Lauri al Dio Bifronte,
Che al suo Crine i Fati annoda.
Alba essulti, &c.
Tiberino
Behold, Friends, the woods
Of renowned Thebes;† our Feet now tread
The longed-for Sands,
That should be our Field of valor.
Already the Name of Alba,†
Thanks to our exploits,
Is known throughout haughty Greece:
There is no man glorious
In the Hunt, in Wrestling, at Horsemanship, at Horse racing,
Who does not cede to us in the end: Argos† and Mycenae,†
And Corinth† and Thessaly,†
Have no heroes who prevail over Tiberino.
Alba exults, and Latium† rejoices!
The sweat of this Brow
Nourishes the Janus’s† Laurels
Twined on his head by the Fates.
Alba exults, etc.
Scena VII.
Scene VII
Udendosi rimbombare di lontano per la selva Trombe di
Cacciatori, Manto in atto fuggitivo inseguita da una
Belva, e sudetti.
Heard resounding from afar through the woods the
Horns of Hunters, Manto in the act of fleeing followed
by a Beast, and the aforementioned.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Nerea
Quasi tutte
Son le Brutte
Quelle Donne, che non amano.
Mà chi vanta in sen beltà.
Nutre sempre al Cor pietà
Per gli Amanti, che la bramano.
Quasi tutte, &c.
Tiberino
Suon di lontana Caccia
Fà rimbombar la selva.
Tiberino
The sound of a faraway Hunt
Resounds through the woods.
Manto (di dentro
Aita o Numi.
Manto (from behind)
Help, O Gods!
Tiberino
Qual mesta voce?
Tiberino
What is this sad voice?
Manto
Ahi non v’è scampo. oh sorte.
Manto
Alas, there is no rescue. Oh, fate!
Tiberino
Che miro o Ciel? non paventar Donzella:
In tua difesa è la mia destra o Bella.
Tiberino
What do I see, O Heaven? Do not fear, young Lady,
My right hand comes to your defense, O Beauty!
(Si pone à guerreggiare con la Fera, e l’atterra.
(He sets himself to battle with the Beast and fells it.)
Manto
Oh valor; oh Virtute.
Manto
Oh, valor; oh, Manliness!
Tiberino
Il propio sangue
Bevon l’ingorde Fauci; e già cadendo,
A Trofei di mia destra
Erge nuovo Trofeo con le sue spoglie;
Tuo scherzo, e gioco, hor ch’il timor ti toglie.
Tiberino
The greedy Maw
Drinks its own blood; and now fallen,
As a Trophy of my right hand,
He arises as a new Trophy with his spoils;
Your plaything, and a toy, now that your fear is gone.
Manto
Se la vita à me donasti,
Nume sei di questa Vita.
La memoria de tuoi Fasti.
Nel mio Cor terrò scolpita.
Se la vita, &c.
Manto
If you gave me life
You are the God of my Life
The memory of your Deeds
I shall keep inscribed in my Heart.
If you gave, etc.
Tiberino
Di vezzo, e leggiadria
Venere, non cred’io, fù più compita.
Tiberino
I don’t believe even Venus† was made
Of such charm and grace.
Scena VIII.
Scene VIII
Tiresia cieco appoggiato ad un servo, e sudetti.
Blind Tiresia, leaning on a servant, and the aforementioned.
Tiresia
Figlia ove sei, Tesor dell’Alma mia!
Tiresia
Daughter, where are you, Treasure of my Soul?
Tiberino
Qual huomo appare?
Tiberino
Who is this man who appears?
Manto
Padre.
Manto
Father!
†
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Tiresia
At last I have found you again!
Manto
Honora o Genitore
Il domator della Belva,
Che ver nostre Capanne
Ratta fuggendo à Cacciatori occulta,
Assalí me poc’anzi, e mi disgiunse
Dal fianco tuo, dand’io alla fuga il piede.
Manto
Honor, oh Father,
The tamer of the Beast,
That swiftly fleeing
Toward our Huts, invisible to the Hunters,
Attacked me a little earlier, and removed me
From your side, whence I ran.
Tiresia
Tutto vidde la mente: Heroe si prode
E’ dell’Alban Regnante
L’unico Herede, e Tiberin s’appella.
Tiresia
I saw everything in my Mind. You are the valiant Hero,
And the sole Heir
Of the Alban Royalty; and you are called Tiberino.
Manto
Figlio di Rè?
Manto
Son of the King?
Tiberino
Come del ver favella?
Tiberino
How can you tell the truth?
Tiresia
Tiresia io son, cui Giove
Diede mente presaga,
Se Giunone sdegnata
Privò d’esterni Lumi, & è mia Prole
La Donzella difesa.
Tiresia
I am Tiresia, to whom Jove†
Gave a prescient mind,
Although disdainful Juno†
Deprived me of my Sight; and the Maiden you defended
Is my Daughter.
Tiberino
Ella m’infiamma.
Tiberino
She inflames me.
Manto
Io son d’Amore accesa.
Manto
I am burning with love.
Tiresia
Piacciati à nostri Alberghi
Volger le Piante, & ivi
Nelle cose future
La serie ascolterai di tue venture.
Amor t’attese al Varco,
Per saettart’il Cor.
Gli diè la sorte l’Arco,
E il Dardo feritor,
Amor t’attese, &c.
Tiresia
If it please you, turn your Steps
To our Home, and there
You shall hear the story
Of your future exploits.
Love attended you on your Journey
To shoot your Heart.
Fate gave him his Bow,
And the fatal Arrow.
Love attended you, etc.
Scena IX.
Scene IX
Tiberino, Manto.
Tiberino, Manto.
Tiberino
Svelò fatal la piaga.
Tiberino
I revealed my mortal wound!
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Tiresia
Pur ti ritrovo
Manto
Ahi quanto io più lo miro, ei più m’impiaga.
Manto
Alas, the more I look, the more he wounds me!
Tiberino
Dimmi o bella: sei sposa?
Tiberino
Tell me, oh lovely one: are you married?
Manto
Ho intatto il fiore
Del Virginal candore.
Manto
The flower of my Virginity
Is intact.
Tiberino
Tua Patria?
Tiberino
Your Country?
Manto
Tebe.
Manto
Thebes.
Tiberino
Tiberino
Your name?
Il nome?
Manto
M’appello Manto.
Manto
I am called Manto.
Tiberino
È à qual uffici eletta?
Tiberino
And to what service are you dedicated?
Manto
A Latona io ministro
Col Genitor suo sacerdote.
Manto
I minister to Latona†
With my Father, her priest.
Tiberino
E al Nume,
Che prevale à gli Dei,
Tù quali incensi offrisci?
Tiberino
And to the God
Who rules over the gods,
What incense do you offer?
Manto
Che mai dirò? tuoi detti
Io non intendo.
Manto
(Whatever shall I say?) I do not understand
Your words.
Tiberino
Al Dio fanciul bendato?
Tiberino
To the blindfolded child-God.
Manto
Nè meno.
Manto
I understand less.
Tiberino
Al Dio Cupido?
Tiberino
To the God Cupid?†
Manto
M’è ignoto.
Manto
He is unknown to me.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Tiberino
Oh, foolish Heart,
You don’t know Love?
You don’t know what delight is,
You don’t know what comfort is.
Without Love, a Heart is dead,
Without a Heart, a Breast does not live.
You don’t know what comfort is,
You don’t know what delight is.
Scena X.
Scene X
Manto
Oh d’Amor troppo ignaro; e cosi tosto
Vuoi, che pudico seno
A favellar d’Amore
Scioglia la Lingua? e non ti disser gl’Occhi,
Ahi quest’occhi dolenti,
L’Autor de miei tormenti?
Poco in Amor sagace:
Lingua d’amante Core
Meglio parla d’Amore all’hor che tace.
Vuoi ch’io parli, parlerò.
Mà se chiedo poi Mercè
Mio Tesor che fia di mè,
Se mercè poi non havrò?
Vuoi, &c.
Manto
Oh, you don’t understand Love; thus so soon
You want my pure heart
To speak of Love
With a loose Tongue? and do my Eyes not tell you,
Alas, these sad eyes,
The Perpetrator of my sorrows?
You are ignorant about Love:
The tongue of a lover’s Heart
Speaks more eloquently about Love when it is silent.
You want me to speak? I shall speak.
But if I ask for Mercy,
My Treasure, what will become of me,
If I don't have that mercy?
You want me to speak?
Scena XI.
Scene XI
Di lontano all’improviso apparisce smisurato Mostro,
che portandosi al Proscenio, ad un tratto si risolve in
molti Guerrieri, lasciando in una Nuvoletta à Terra.
Creonte in atto di dormire, e destro Poliferno.
From a distance an enormous Monster appears, which
as it is carried to the Proscenium, suddenly turns into
many Warriors, released to the Ground in a little Cloud.
Creonte asleep, and to his right, Poliferno.
Poliferno
Dormi Creonte, e in tanto
Sogna ò Prole guerriera
Del Tessalo Monarca
L’alta Beltà, dicui con forza ignota,
Io t’impressi l’Immago in mezzo al Core.
Fia de tuoi sogni autore
Di Megera il flagello, acciò che spinto
Da infuriati sensi,
Rechi al Regno Tebano incendi immensi.
Poliferno
Sleep, Creonte, and meanwhile
Dream, O warrior Offspring
Of the Thessalian Monarch,
Of the great Beauty whose image I engrave
In your Heart with my occult powers.
May the author of your dreams be the
The scourge of Megaera,†
So that impelled by raging senses you
Will feel great passion for the Theban Queen.
Creonte
Che vago sen.
Creonte
What a delightful bosom!
Poliferno
Con i Fantasmi homai,
Opre di Magic’arte
A’ vaneggiar comincia
Poliferno
Now through these Fantasies
And enchantments,
May delight begin.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Tiberino
Oh stolto Core,
Tu non conosci Amore?
Tu non sai che sia diletto,
Non sai dir che sia conforto.
Senza Amor un Cor è morto,
Senza Cor non vive un Petto
Non sai dir che sia conforto,
Tu non sai che sia diletto.
Creonte
È Donna, ò Dea?
Ahi, ch’un Guardo mi bea.
Creonte
Is it a Woman, or Goddess?
Alas, that one Glance might bless me!
Poliferno
Scosso da interna face
Ecco si desta.
Poliferno
Shaken by inward fire,
Behold, he awakens.
Creonte
Ferma
Ferma o Nume adorato,
Mia delizia, mio Ben, Anima mia,
Dove fuggi? Mà dove,
Dove mi trovo? & à qual aure io spiego
Gl’immoderati affetti?
Creonte
Stop!
Stop! O adored Goddess,
My delight, my Beloved, my Soul!
Where do you flee? But where,
Where do I find myself? And to what breeze do I express
These reckless feelings?
Poliferno
Son Forier d’empie stragi i suoi diletti.
Poliferno
His delights are Forerunners of bitter slaughters.
Creonte
Dove sciolti à volo i vanni
Diva mia da me fuggisti?
Se del sonno infrà gl’inganni
À bearmi tu venisti.
Dove sciolti, &c.
Creonte
Where have you fled, my Goddess,
With your wings spread in flight,
If you came to make me happy,
Deceiving me as I slept?
Where have you fled, etc.
Poliferno
Creonte e che ti pare
Di Niobe, che sognando,
Già conoscer ti fei?
Poliferno
Creonte, what do you make
Of Niobe, whose acquaintance
You’ve just made in a dream?
Creonte
Ahi ch’in Beltà non cede
A gl’Astri, à Delia, al Sole,
S’hà del Sol le Pupille
Della Luna i candori,
De gl’Astri le faville.
Creonte
Ah, she would not cede in Beauty
To the Stars, to Delia,† or to the Sun,
Even if she had the Eyes of the Sun,
The whiteness of the Moon
And the glitter of the Stars.
Poliferno
Sù, per goder ben tosto
Di cotanta Beltà, senza dimore
Tebe si assaglia, e cada
Anfione svenato;
Sia Lico vendicato,
Il tuo gran zio, cui tolse
Con essecrando scempio
E’ la vita, & il Regno,
Anfione l’indegno.
Nuovo soglio, e nuova Bella
À goder ti guida il Fato,
À tuo prò la sua facella
Poliferno
Come, in order that soon you may enjoy
Such Beauty, let Thebes be attacked
Without delay, and
Anfione fall bleeding.
Your great uncle, Lycus,†
Will be avenged: he from whom
Unworthy Anfione took
Life and Kingdom
With accursed torture.
Fate guides you to enjoy
A new throne, and a new Beauty.
In your cause Love waves his torch
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
With the well-armed Mars.†
Fate guides you, etc.
Scuote Amor con Marte armato.
Nuovo soglio, &c.
Scena XII.
Scene XII
Creonte
Creonte
À voi di Tracia, e Gnido
Onnipotenti Numi,
Se non sarete à miei desiri avarí,
Ergerò nuovi Altari
Accesi ogn’hor di Nabatei Profumi.
Sia di Nemesi il ferro
Debellator dell’usurpato soglio;
E sia da Citerea,
Come à Paride in Sparta, à me concesso
Dell’Helena Tebana hoggi il possesso.
Troppo caro è quel bel Volto,
Che dal seno il Cor m’hà tolto,
Ne saprei che più bramar.
Goderò del Ciel le faci,
Se quei Lumi si vivaci
Potrò giunger à baciar.
Troppo caro è quel, &c.
To you all-powerful Gods
Of Thrace† and Knidos,†
If you will not be miserly with my desires,
I shall erect new Altars
Always burning with Nabatene† Perfumes.
May my sword be like that of Nemesis,†
The conqueror of the usurper’s throne,
And may Venus,
Like Paris† in Sparta,† cede to me,
That I might possess this Theban Helen† today.
All too precious is that beautiful Face,
That has taken my Heart from my breast,
It knows not what further to yearn for.
I shall enjoy the lights of that Heaven,
If I can succeed in kissing
Those lively Eyes.
All too precious is that, etc.
So delightful is that face
That this Soul has surrendered, a lover,
To which every beauty cedes.
My Heart shall be blessed,
If friendly Fate will clasp
That yearned-for Breast to my breast.
So delightful is that face, etc.
Cosi vago è quel sembiante,
Che quest’Alma ha’ resa amante,
Che à lui cede ogni beltà.
Il mio Cor sarà beato,
S’al mio sen quel Sen bramato
Sorte amica stringerà.
Cosi vago è quel, &c.
Scena XIII.
Scene XIII
Regio Museo, che ostenta la Reggia dell’Armonia.
Royal Study, which vaunts the Seat of Harmony.
Anfione
Anfione
Dell’Alma stanca à raddolcir le tempre.
Cari Asili di Pace à voi ritorno:
Fuggite pur fuggite
Da questo seno o de Regali fasti
Cure troppo moleste, egri pensieri;
Che val più de gl’Imperi
In solitaria soglia, & humil Manto
Scioglier dal Cor non agitato il Canto,
Sfere amiche hor date al Labro
L’Armonia de vostri giri.
E’ posando il Fianco lasso,
Habbi moto il Tronco, il sasso
Da miei placidi respiri,
Sfere, &c.
To refresh my tired Soul
I return to you, dear sanctuaries of Peace.
Flee, flee then
From this breast, oh cares of Royal pomp,
Troubling, sick thoughts;
For it is better to release the Song
From an easy Heart, in solitary habitation
And humble Clothing, than from the Throne.
Friendly spheres, now give my Lips
The Harmony of your rotation.
And resting my weary Limbs
May the Tree, the Stone, have motion
From my peaceful breathing.
Friendly spheres, etc.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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2011 boston early music festival
Scena XIV.
Scene XIV
Niobe, & Anfione.
Niobe, and Anfione.
Niobe
Anfion mio Desio,
Mio Tesoro, Cor mio:
Niobe
Anfion, my Desire,
My Treasure, my Heart:
Anfione
Mia Luce, mia pupilla.
Anfione
My light, my eyes.
Niobe
Ecco à te vola
Tronco, e Sasso animato
Il Cor innamorato.
Vorrei sempre vagheggiarti,
Vorrei sempre star con tè.
Non hà pace, non hà bene,
Vive ogni hora frà le pene
Da tè lungi la mia fè
Vorrei sempre, &c.
Niobe
Behold, the Tree and Stone,
Come to life, fly to you,
The Heart in love.
I want to delight you always,
I want to be with you always.
My heart has no peace, no well-being,
It lives in constant pain
When it is far from you, my faith.
I want to, etc.
Scena XV.
Scene XV
Clearte, Nerea, Anfione, & li Sudetti.
Clearte, Nerea, Anfione, and the Aforementioned.
Nerea
Eccola.
Nerea
There she is!
Clearte
Ahi Cor resisti.
Clearte
Alas, my Heart, resist.
Niobe
A che vieni?
Niobe
Why do you come here?
Clearte
Di Tessali Oricalchi
Rimbomba il suol Tebano audace stuolo
D’armate schiere innonda,
Qual Torrente improviso,
Le Beotie Campagne: à me non resta
Che con pronte Falangi
Espor la vita alla difesa; e i cenni
Ad inchinare, ad ubbidire io venni.
Clearte
The Theban lands resound
With Thessalian trumpets,
And like a wild Torrent,
A daring troop of armed men floods
The Boethian† Countryside: no other way was left me
But with ready Infantry
To offer my life to the defense; and I have come
To submit and obey orders.
Anfione
Che sento?
Anfione
What am I hearing?
Niobe
E non rammenta
Il Tessalo superbo
Niobe
And does he not remember,
This haughty Thessalian,
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Just what our weapons are? Let the madman come,
And to the cold ashes
Of the vanquished Lycus,
He will add new ashes.
Anfione
E pur ritorna
L’Alma à i Tumulti: ahi ch’è in un Regio seno
Breve luce di Lampo ogni sereno.
Anfione
And so my Soul returns
To the tumult. Ah, in a Royal breast
Each moment of serenity is but a flash of Lightning.
Niobe
Non ti turbar Idolo mio.
Niobe
Do not be disturbed, my Idol.
Anfione
Discioglie
Ogni nube di duolo
De tuoi celesti sguardi un Raggio solo.
À premunire intanto
Gl’animi de Vassalli
Di costanza, e di fede,
Mi parto o cara.
Anfione
A single Ray
Of your heavenly glances
Dissipates every cloud of sorrow,
Meanwhile, to rouse
The souls of my Vassals
To constancy and faithfulness
I go now, my dear one.
Niobe
E in breve
Io seguirò il tuo piede.
Niobe
And shortly
I will follow in your steps.
Anfione
E’ di sasso chi non t’ama,
E’ di gel chi non t’adora.
Provo io ben ch’un Cor è poco
À capir l’immenso foco,
Che per tè mi strugge ogn’hora.
E di sasso chi non, &c.
Anfione
He is made of stone who does not love you,
And of ice who does not adore you,
I know too well that one Heart is not sufficient
To understand the immense fire
Which constantly consumes me with love for you.
He is made of stone who does not, etc.
Scena XVI.
Scene XVI
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea.
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea.
Nerea
E tu qual gelo, ò sasso,
Muto ancor te ne stai?
Nerea
And you, like ice or stone,
You still remain mute?
Clearte
Son morto ahi lasso
Clearte
I’m dead, alas!
Niobe
Clearte hoggi frà l’Armi
Qual Divisa destini?
Niobe
Clearte, what side will you take today
Amongst the Armed?
Nerea
Animo.
Nerea
Courage!
Clearte (à parte
Scopri
Mio Cor la chiusa fiamma:
Scolpito havrà lo scudo
Clearte (aside)
Reveal,
My Heart, the hidden flame:
Your shield shall have the protection of
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Quali sian le nostr’Armi? insano venga,
E al cenere gelato
Di Lico debellato,
Giunga ceneri nove.
D’Encelado il gran Monte,
Che ogn’hor da Nevi oppresso,
D’interno incendio avvampa.
The great Mountain of Enceladus†
Which is always covered with Snow,
But contains within a fiery volcano.
Niobe
E il motto?
Niobe
And your motto?
Clearte
Fia.
Perche al Ciel aspirai
Clearte
May it be:
“Because I aspired to Heaven.”
Nerea
Di ben capirlo affè
Ella s’intenderà meglio di mè.
Nerea
To really conceive of this, in truth,
She’ll understand better than I.
Niobe
Non intendo il concetto; hor via lo spiega.
Niobe
I don’t understand the meaning; now go on, explain it!
Clearte
Hor m’assisti o Cupido.
Clearte
Now help me, O Cupid!
Nerea
Ardir ci vuole.
Nerea
We must be daring.
Clearte
D’un Cor la sorte esprimo,
Che ad un Ciel di Beltade
Sollevando il Desio
Da duo bei Lumi alteri
Fulminato sen giace
Sorto monte di duolo; e non osando
Scoprir l’incendio interno,
Gela al di fuori, e chiude in sen l’Inferno.
Clearte
It expresses the fate of a heart
Which Raises its Desire
To a Heavenly Beauty;
From two beautiful, proud Eyes,
Laying thunderstruck
Under a mountain of sorrow, and not daring
To reveal the fire within,
Freezes outwardly, and hides an Inferno within its breast.
Niobe
E di qual Core intendi’.
Niobe
And which heart do you mean?
Clearte
Nerea perduto io sono.
Clearte
Nerea, I am lost.
Nerea
Sù viene adesso il buono.
Nerea
Come on, now comes the good part!
Clearte
O mio Cor sventurato.
Clearte
Oh, my unfortunate Heart.
Niobe
E qual sen l’hà piagato?
Niobe
And which breast has wounded it?
Clearte
Gelar mi sento.
Clearte
I feel frozen.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Nerea
Quick,
You have to say the rest!
Niobe
Segui: non parla.
Niobe
Go on. He’s not speaking.
Clearte
Oh Numi.
Clearte
Oh Gods!
Niobe
Io pur son certa
A gran Tempo, ch’ei vive
Di me tacito amante.
Niobe
And yet, I’m certain
That for a long Time he has been
My silent adorer.
Clearte
Svenami pure o Cielo.
Clearte
Kill me, O heaven!
Nerea
È delirante.
Nerea
He’s delirious.
Clearte
Perdona o mia…
Clearte
Forgive me, O my…
Niobe
Nò ferma:
Del tuo Cor il martire
Io più non voglio udire.
Segui ad amar così
Ne mai parlar di più.
Per chi t’alletta, e piace,
All’hor che più si tace,
Bella e’la servitù.
Segui ad, &c.
Niobe
No, stop:
I no longer wish to hear
The sufferings of your Heart.
Go on loving me thus,
But never speak of it again.
For the one who delights and pleases you,
The more you are silent,
The more beautiful the service.
Go on, etc.
Scena XVII.
Scene XVII
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte
E voi, che mi struggete,
Voracissime fiamme,
Dal sen che rispondete?
Clearte
And you, who consume me,
Most voracious flames,
What do you respond from my heart?
Nerea
Oh sciocca frenesia; tu non intendi
Di Cupido i precetti:
Con le Donne ei non vuol tanti rispetti.
Nerea
O, blind frenzy; you don’t understand
Cupid’s precepts:
With Women, he doesn’t want so much respect.
Clearte
C’hò da morir tacendo
Il Cor l’indovinò.
C’hò da tacer morendo
Lo stral, che m’impiagò
C’hò da, &c.
Clearte
My heart understood
That I must die silent.
And dying, I must be silent about
The arrow that wounded me.
My heart understood, etc.
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Nerea
Presto
Bisogna dire il resto.
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Scena XVIII.
Scene XVIII
Nerea.
Nerea.
Forsennato vaneggia, e non conosce
L’arti sagaci usate
Dalle Donne, che accorte
Sono d’esser amate.
Io giurarei, che Niobe
Del suo Amor avveduta,
Se ne sia compiaciuta;
E mostrandosi sorda,
Voglia per qualche di dargli la Corda.
Che agli assalti degli amanti
Sian le femmine costanti,
Io giàmmai nol crederò.
Sempre à prova
E vedo e sento,
Che ne brama
Ogn’una cento,
E a nessun può dir di nò.
Che agli assalti, &c.
Raving madman, does he not know
The wise arts used
By women who are wily
About being loved?
I would swear that Niobe,
Aware of his Love,
Is pleased about it,
And while appearing deaf to him
Wants to somehow dangle him a Rope.
That women stand strong
Against the assaults of lovers—
I’ll never believe it.
I’ve always known,
And seen and felt,
That every one of them longs
For hundreds
And cannot say no to any of them.
That against the assaults, etc.
Scena XIX.
Scene XIX
Campagna spatiosa con vista di Tebe sfornita di Muraglie.
An open countryside with a view of Thebes without walls.
Creonte, Poliferno.
Creonte, Poliferno.
Poliferno
Ecco Tebe.
Poliferno
Behold Thebes!
Creonte
O adorata
Sfera del mio bel Nume; il Piè divoto,
Come il Cor riverente, à tè già volgo;
Deh pietosa m’accoglia,
E fà che nel tuo seno
Spinto da impatiente, alto desio
Possa celato almeno
Porger taciti voti all’Idol mio.
Creonte
O adored
Sphere of my beautiful Goddess, my devoted Feet,
Reverent, like my Heart, now turn to you;
Ah, receive me mercifully,
And may it be that in your bosom,
Spurred by impatient, noble desire
I may, concealed, at least
Offer silent vows to my Idol.
Qui smisurato Fantasma apparirà di sotterra.
Here an immense Ghost shall appear from underground.
Poliferno
Per condurci ove brami
Occulti, e inosservati,
Ecco dell’opre mie Ministro eletto.
Poliferno
To conduct you to that which you crave,
Hidden and unobserved,
Behold the chosen Deputy of my works.
Creonte
Oh Portento.
Creonte
Oh, Monstrous!
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Poliferno
Shortly
You shall be able, with open eyes,
To enjoy unseen
The beloved face
Of the beautiful Queen.
Qui dalla bocca del Fantasma si forma gran Voragine in
Aria.
Here from the mouth of the Ghost a great Abyss forms
in the Air.
Creonte
Che veggio?
Creonte
What do I see?
Poliferno
À noi s’appresta
Frà quelle fauci incognita la via:
Movi sicuro il passo, e là t’invia.
Poliferno
The secret way
Is ready for us between these jaws:
Go with confidence, and there you shall be led.
Creonte
Anderei fin nell’Inferno,
Per mirar Volto si vago.
Se più grande il Foco interno
Desta in me la bella immago
Anderei, &c.
Creonte
I would go even to Hell
To gaze on a Face so charming.
For her lovely image
Has awakened greater inner Fires in me.
I would go, etc.
Entra nella Voragine.
He enters the Abyss.
Scena XX.
Scene XX
Poliferno.
Poliferno.
Oh di Lico infelice
Infelice Consorte, à me Germana,
Dirce, Dirce deh sorgi;
E in Ombra almeno scorgi,
Che se Vittima altera
Col tuo sposo Regnante al Piè cadesti
Del superbo Anfione;
A vendicar d’entrambi
L’ingiurioso Fato,
Provoca Poliferno
Tessaglia all’Armi, & à battaglia Averno.
Fiera Aletto
Del mio Petto
Non cessar di mover guerra.
Holocausti più devoti
T’offrirò, s’hoggi a’ miei voti,
Rè tiran da tè s’atterra
Fiera, &c.
O, my Sister, unhappy Lycus’s
Unhappy Consort,
Dirke,† Dirke, ah, arise,
And although a shade, take note
That though you fell a proud Victim
With your Royal spouse at the Foot
Of haughty Anfione,
To avenge your
Unjust Fates,
Poliferno Provokes
Thebes to arms, and Hell to battle.
Proud Alecto,†
In my breast
Do not cease to make war.
I shall offer you devout sacrifices
If today, as I pray,
The tyrant king falls to you.
Proud Alecto, etc.
Entra nella Voragine, la quale si chiude profondandosi.
He enters the abyss, which encloses him in the deep.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Poliferno
In brev’hora
Potrai à luci aperte
Vagheggiar non veduto,
L’adorato sembiante
Della bella Regnante
Scena XXI.
Scene XXI
Anfione seguito da numeroso Popolo.
Anfione followed by numerous people.
Anfione
Popoli o voi, ch’un Tempo
Da inospite Foreste
I passi rivolgeste
Tratti al suon de miei Carmi,
A i Cittadini Marmi:
Voi, che à me dati in cura
Da Giove il mio gran Padre
Sudditi sol di Nome,
Ma più cari de Figli,
Mi vedeste ad ogn’hora
In dolce Impero à vostro Bene eletto,
Di Scettro in vece, essercitar l’affetto.
Voi chiamo, e da voi spero
Di Tebe la difesa, i vostri Cori,
Che in paragon di fede
Seppero di Diamante esser più volte,
Ben sapranno all’assalto,
Che Tessaglia hor ci muove, esser di smalto.
Sù, sù destisi in voi
Desio di nuove glorie; un Rè che v’ama,
Si segua frà perigli;
E à temerari insulti
Il corso si prescriva.
Anfione
People, O you who Once
Turned your steps
From the inhospitable Forests,
Drawn by the sound of my Verses
To the marble Walls of the City:
You, who were given unto my care
By Jove, my great Father,
Subjects only in Name,
But dearer than Sons,
You have seen me now
Elected to gently Reign for your Benefit,
In place of the Scepter, exercising affection.
I call you, and from you I hope
For the defense of Thebes; your Hearts
Which as paragons of loyalty
I have known to be of Diamond time and time again,
Against the attack Thessaly now mounts
You know well that they will be hard as enamel.
Come, come, waken in yourselves
The desire for new glories; follow the King who loves you
Into the danger;
And to audacious insults
The course is prescribed.
Voci di Popolo
Viva Anfione Viva.
Voices of the People
Long live Anfione!
Anfione
Voci d’alta costanza: Alme fedeli
Degni premi attendete;
Che mal vive un Regnante,
Se in premiar non hà Destra abbondante.
Come Padre, e come Dio,
Sommo Giove hor mi proteggi
E l’Ardir d’un empio, e rio,
Col tuo Fulmine correggi.
Come Padre, &c.
Anfione
Most loyal voices: faithful Souls,
Wait for your well-deserved rewards;
For unhappy is a Ruler
Who does not have abundant Right above all.
As a Father, and as God,
Great Jove, now protect me,
And with your Thunderbolts, punish
The Daring of a wicked and evil one.
As a father, etc.
Qui si vedona à poco à poco andar sorgendo intorno di
Tebe le mura.
Here we see the walls of Thebes rising little by little.
Mà che miro? che scorgo? i marmi, i sassi
Animati al mio Canto,
Forman di Tebe i Muri: oh del gran Nume
Onnipotente forza,
Se un moto sol del tuo voler prefisso
Anima i sassi, e volve in Ciel l’Abisso.
But what do I see? What do I perceive? The marble, the stones,
Animated by my Song
Form the Walls of Thebes: oh Omnipotent strength
Of the great God,
If a movement of your will appoints
A soul to stones, Hell has turned into Heaven.
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Scene XXII
Nerea fuggendo atterrita poi Niobe con numeroso
Corteggio, & Anfione rapito da Meraviglia.
Nerea fleeing terrified, then Niobe with numerous of the
Court and Anfione rapt with Marvel.
Nerea
Assistetemi,
Soccorretemi,
Numi del Cielo.
Frà quei sassi,
Che s’aggirano intorno à i Passi,
Io divengo di pietra, io son di gelo.
Assistetemi, &c.
Nerea
Assist me,
Help me,
Gods of Heaven.
Amidst these rocks
Swirling around my Feet,
I become stone, I am ice.
Assist me, etc.
Qui termina l’erettione delle Mura sudetti.
Here the erection of the aforementioned Walls is done.
Niobe
Niobe ove giungi, e che mirate o luci?
Niobe
Niobe, where are you, and what do you see, O eyes?
Anfione
Sospirata Reina
Ecco per virtù ignota,
Di Tebe le Muraglie
Inalzate à Momenti
Del mio labro à i Concenti.
Anfione
Sighed-for Queen,
Behold, by unknown strength
The Walls of Thebes
Raised in a Moment
From the Harmony of my lips.
Nerea
Oh Meraviglie!
Nerea
Oh, Marvels!
Niobe
E qual profano ardire
Hor può negarti, o caro,
Degno vanto di Nume?
S’hor di Portenti è fabro
Il tuo canoro Labro.
Sù sù di sacri Altari
S’ingombri il Suolo; e al nuovo Dio Tebano
Ardan le Mirre elette; il Ciel discopre
I Numi in Terra alle mirabil opre.
Con il tuo strale Amore
Trafiggi questo Core
Più rigido, e più fier.
Che l’Alma innamorata
All’Idol mio svenata
Vuò Vittima cader.
Con il tuo, &c.
Niobe
And what earthly audacity
Can now deny, O darling,
That you can boast of Divinity?
For now Your resounding Voice
Is endowed with great power.
Come, come, fill the earth with sacred Altars
And to the new Theban God
Burn the choice Myrrh; Heaven reveals
Gods on Earth in miraculous works.
With your arrow, Cupid,
Pierce this Heart,
More severe and more fierce.
I wish my enamored Soul
To fall to my idol,
A sacrificial Victim.
With your, etc.
Scena XXIII.
Scene XXIII
Tiresia, e Sudetti.
Tiresia and the Aforementioned.
Tiresia
O d’insano ardimento
Sensi troppo superbi: io parlo à voi
O Mortali Regnanti,
Tiresia
O too-haughty feelings
Of mad boldness: I speak to you,
O Mortal Kings,
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Scena XXII.
Che con voglie arroganti
Usurpar pretendete à i Numi eterni
Gli honor dovuti in Terra; alla Vendetta.
L’irato Cielo alti castighi affretta.
Who with arrogant will
Intend to usurp from the eternal Gods
The honor they are due on Earth; to War!
Angry Heaven hastens to inflict great punishment.
Anfione
À quai Detti proruppe?
Anfione
With what words does he burst forth?
Nerea
Come ardito parlò?
Nerea
How can he speak so boldly?
Niobe
Tanto presumi
Vil rifiuto del Tempo, Huom senza senno,
Come privo di Lumi?
Niobe
You dare presume so much,
Contemptible cast-off of Time, witless Man,
Sightless one?
Tiresia
Senza tema di pena
Cosi parla chi vive,
Per servir à gli Dei.
Tiresia
With no fear of suffering,
Thus speaks one who lives
To serve the Gods.
Niobe
Ti defendan dal Cielo,
S’io nel suol ti calpesto; (Gettandolo à terra.
E’ da ciò apprendi o temerario il resto.
Niobe
May Heaven defend you,
If I throw you to the ground; (Throwing him to the ground.)
And from that learn the rest, oh rash one.
Tiresia
Ah sacrilega, ah empia.
Tiresia
Ah, sacrilegious, oh, wicked one!
Nerea
Oh pocco saggio.
Nerea
Oh, unwise!
Anfione
Serena o mio bel Sole
De vaghi lumi il Raggio.
Anfione
Oh, my beautiful serene Sun,
Ray of lovely light from delightful eyes.
Niobe
Ritornandoti in Braccio,
Torno à godere, e ogni rancor discaccio
Niobe
Returning to your Arms
I turn to pleasure, and every rancor disappears.
Anfione
Mia Fiamma,
Anfione
My Flame,
Niobe
Mio Ardore
Niobe
My Passion,
à 2.
à 2.
Andianne à gioir.
Let us go to rejoice.
Anfione
Per te dolce pena,
Anfione
For you sweet pain,
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festival opera
Niobe
My precious Chain,
à 2.
à 2.
M’è grato il morir.
Mia, &c.
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Niobe
Mia cara Catena,
Death is pleasing to me.
My precious, etc.
Nerea
Tu con Lingua si sciolta
Resta, e impara à parlare un’altra volta.
Nerea
You with the loose Tongue,
Stay, and learn to speak one more time.
Scena XXIV.
Scene XXIV
Tiresia, e poi Manto, e Tiberino.
Tiresia, then Manto, and Tiberino.
Tiresia
Numi datemi aita, alla mia fede
Spero da voi mercede.
Tiresia
Gods, help me; by my faith
I hope for mercy from you.
Manto (Non vedendo ancora Tiresia per terra.
Signor vedi, & stupisci
Ciò, che testè la Fama
A noi recò: di Tebe alzò le Mura
Anfione col Canto.
Manto (Not yet seeing Tiresia on the ground.)
Sir, see and be astonished by
That which attested by Fame
Is borne to us: Anfione has raised
The Walls of Thebes with his song.
Tiberino
Oh gran virtude, oh incanto.
Tiberino
Oh great virtue; oh, enchantment!
Tiresia
Chi mi sovviene, ahi lasso?
Tiresia
Who comes to my aid, alas?
Manto
Che fia? Padre?
Manto
What has happened? Father?
Tiberino
Tiresia?
Tiberino
Tiresia?
Tiresia
Calpestato,
Lacerato,
Qui dolente,
E languente,
Arresto il passo.
Chi mi sovviene, ahi lasso?
Tiresia
Trampled,
Wounded,
Here, sorrowing
And languishing,
I have halted.
Who comes to my aid, alas?
Manto
E’ chi fù si crudel?
Manto
And who was so cruel?
Tiberino
Chi fù si rio?
Tiberino
Who was so wicked?
Tiresia
Un Mostro di perfidia,
Una Furia Regnante,
De gli Dei sprezzatrice: ahi doglia acerba,
Fù Niobe, la superba.
Tiresia
A Monster of treachery,
A Reigning Fury,
A scorner of the Gods: alas, bitter sorrow,
It was the proud Niobe.
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Manto
Oh Tiranna.
Manto
Oh, Tyrant!
Tiberino
Oh spietata.
Tiberino
Oh, pitiless one!
Manto
E’ qual cagion l’indusse
À sì nefando eccesso?
Manto
And what reason induced her
To such unspeakable excess?
Tiresia
Il vano fasto
Di far Nume lo sposo; onde il Prodigio
Delle mura, che vedi in giro affisse,
Tolse al vanto de Numi, e à lui l’ascrisse.
Quinci, mentre mia lingua
Di Zelo armata il grande ardir detesta,
L’Altera infuriata
M’atterra, e mi calpesta.
Tiresia
The proud vanity
Of making her husband a God; whence the Miracle
Of the walls, which you see built all around,
Was ascribed to him and credit taken away from the gods.
Therefore, while my tongue, armed with Zeal
Deplored the audacity,
The furious haughty one
Cast me down, and threw me to the earth.
Manto
Oh indegna.
Manto
Oh, unworthy!
Tiberino
Oh Cor di fera.
Tiberino
Oh, Heart of a savage!
Manto
Il fianco oppresso
Mio Genitor solleva;
L’oltraggio puniran gli Dei dal Cielo:
Non torpe mai di lor Giustizia il Telo.
Manto
My Father, may your abused body
Be comforted;
From Heaven, the Gods will punish the outrage:
They never fail to wield the sword of their Justice.
Tiberino
S’oppoggi, olà, l’huom saggio: (à suoi seguaci
Tiberino
Lean on them, there, wise man: (to his followers
Tiresia
Il Piè cadente
Deh guidate pietosi
Di Latona nel Tempio.
Tiresia
Ah, mercifully guide
My failing Step
To the Temple of Latona.
Tiberino
Havrai scorte fedeli.
Tiberino
You shall have faithful escorts.
Tiresia
Horrende stragi hor apprestate o Cieli:
Di strali, e Fulmini
O stelle armatevi;
E’ dell’ingiurie
Con giuste furie
Sù vendicatevi.
Di, &c.
Tiresia
Now prepare Horrific slaughters, O Heavens:
With arrows and Thunderbolts,
O stars, arm yourselves,
And for these injustices,
With righteous fury
Come, avenge yourselves.
With arrows, etc.
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festival opera
Scene XXV
Tiberino, e Manto in atto di piangere.
Tiberino, and Manto weeping.
Tiberino
Discaccia il duolo o di ben degno Padre
Pietosa Figlia; i Numi
Havran di luì la cura:
Mà se pure col pianto
Vuoi mostrar gentil Core.
Piangi; ma per Amore.
Tiberino
Dismiss sorrow, oh Compassionate Daughter
Of such a worthy Father: the Gods
Have care of him.
But if you wish also with tears
To show your gentle Heart,
Weep, but for Love.
Manto (à parte
Cagion de miei martiri
Se à me scoprir non lice
Amorosi desiri.
Manto (aside)
The cause of my sorrows
Is that I may not reveal my
Amorous desires.
Tiberino
Ancor taci o vezzosa?
Tiberino
Still you keep silent, oh lovely one?
Manto
O modestia penosa.
Manto
Oh, painful modesty!
Tiberino
D’Amor che mi rispondi?
Tiberino
What did you say to me about love?
Manto
Ti dissi, che l’ignoro:
Ma perch’io più non sia
D’ignoranza ripresa,
Tù meglio hor mel palesa.
Manto
I told you, I am ignorant of it.
But so that I am no longer
In the grip of ignorance,
You had better reveal it to me now.
Tiberino
Semplicità mai più veduta in Donna.
Tiberino
I've never seen such naiveté in a Woman before!
Manto
Folle sel crede.
Manto
He’s mad if he believes it.
Tiberino
Dimmi:
Huomo mirasti mai?
Tiberino
Tell me:
Have you ever looked at a man?
Manto
Che richiesta?
Manto
What are you asking?
Tiberino
Favella.
Tiberino
Speak.
Manto
Si.
Manto
Yes.
Tiberino
Fosti ancora, io credo,
Tu da lui rimirata.
Tiberino
And then, I believe,
He looked back at you?
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Scena XXV.
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Manto
Si.
Manto
Yes.
Tiberino
E gli sguardi all’hora
S’incontraron frà lor?
Tiberino
And then, those glances,
You met them?
Manto
Si.
Manto
Yes.
Tiberino
Tiberino
In quell’istante
(Non mel celar) sentisti.
Nulla nel Core?
At that moment
(Don’t hide it from me) did you feel
Something in your Heart?
Manto
Si.
Manto
Yes.
Tiberino
Tiberino
Ti parve un certo
Quasi piacer?
Did it seem a certain
Sort of pleasure?
Manto
È vero.
Manto
It’s true.
Tiberino
Un raggio di diletto,
Come suole frà l’Ombre,
Scintillar breve Lampo?
Tiberino
A ray of delight,
Like a brief sparkle of Light
Amongst the Shadows?
Manto
Giusto cosi (che faciltà)
Manto
Just so. (How easy!)
Tiberino
Crescea,
Riguardando guardata,
La fiamma al Cor più grata?
Tiberino
Looking,
And looking again,
It grew ever more pleasing to your Heart?
Manto
Appunto.
Manto
Exactly.
Tiberino
Hor, se nol sai,
Amore è questi o Bella semplicetta,
Ch’entra per gl’Occhi, e dentro il Cor ricetta.
Tiberino
Now, if you will know it,
This is Love, oh Beautiful simpleton,
Which enters via the Eyes, and is received in the Heart.
Manto
Gran Maestro ne sei; & è Cupido
Questi ancora?
Manto
You are a great Teacher of it; and is Cupid
This one, then?
Tiberino
Si questi.
Tiberino
Yes, the one.
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Manto
Oh, unfaithful God!
Tiberino
Perche?
Tiberino
Why?
Manto (à parte.
Tempo è ch’in parte.
Scopra miei sensi amanti.
Manto (aside)
It is time that I reveal
My loving feelings somewhat.
Tiberino
Svela quanto t’avvenne.
Tiberino
Reveal how it happened to you.
Manto
Offre il gioir, poi sforza l’Alma à i pianti.
Nel mio seno à poco à poco
Questo Amor con il suo gioco
Mi rubò la Libertà.
Onde il Cor frà lacci involto
Spera in van, ch’un dí sia sciolto,
Ch’egli è un Dio senza pietà.
Nel mio, &c.
Manto
He offers joy, then forces my Soul to weep.
In my bosom, little by little,
This Cupid with his joke
Has stolen my Liberty.
Thus my Heart, bound and tied,
Hopes in vain that one day it will be set free,
For he is a merciless God.
In my heart, etc.
Scena XXVI.
Scene XXVI
Tiberino.
Tiberino.
Oh stravaganza: in Petto
Nutre la fiamma, e della Face è ignara;
Così la Talpa al Sole,
Per innato costume,
Sente l’Ardor; ma non conosce il Lume.
Quanto sospirerai
Alma per quei bei Rai
Si semplici in Amor.
Con pianti, è con lamenti
Far noti i tuoi tormenti
Ti converrà mio Cor.
Quanto, &c.
Oh, extraordinary thing; in my Breast
The flame is nourished, and she is unaware of this Torch:
Thus the Mole by his nature
Senses the Sun,
But does not know the Light.
How much you shall sigh,
Soul, for those beautiful Eyes,
So innocent in Love.
With tears and with laments
To make known your torments
It behooves you, my Heart.
How much, etc.
Segue il ballo dei cacciatori.
The dance of the hunters follows.
Fine dell’Atto Primo.
End of Act One.
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Manto
Oh Nume infido.
ATTO II.
ACT II
Scena I.
Scene I
Anfiteatro con grande Globo nel mezzo, e picciol seggio
Regale da parte.
Amphitheater with a large Globe in the middle and a
small Throne on the side.
Creonte, e Poliferno, che di sotto terra sono portati à
Cavallo à due mostri.
Creonte, and Poliferno, who are carried from
underground Astride two monsters.
Poliferno
Ritornate à gli Abissi
Spirti fedeli, il nostro piè già calca
L’orme prescritte: à queste soglie in grembo
Non guari andrà che giunto
Vedrai Tessalo Prence il tuo bel Sole;
E questa fia de fasti suoi la Mole.
Poliferno
Return to the Abysses,
Faithful Spirits, our foot now treads
The prescribed path: to the heart of this place
Will soon arrive to see,
Thessalian Prince, your beautiful Sun;
And this is the Monument to her glory.
Creonte
Oh come qui l’ingegno
Con arte pellegrina
Costrusse il Cielo à sua beltà Divina.
Creonte
Oh, here ingenuity and art
Work hand in hand;
Heaven has created this for her Divine beauty.
Poliferno
Perche ci chiuda, & celi,
Ecco manda Cocito
Invisibile Nube à gl’occhi altrui.
Poliferno
So that we are hidden and secret,
Behold how Cocitus† sends
Clouds that render us invisible to the eyes of others.
Si vede sorgere una Nube da un lato della Scena.
Here a Cloud is seen to rise from a side of the Scene.
Creonte
M’apprestano, oh stupori,
Il sereno del Cor gli stigi horrori.
Del mio Ben occhi adorati
Deh venite à consolarmi.
Vaghi lumi di quest’Alma
Vostri sguardi havran la Palma
Di feririmi, è di sanarmi.
Del mio Ben, &c.
Creonte
These Stygian† horrors create for me,
Oh wonder, a calmness of Heart.
Adored eyes of my Beloved,
Ah, come to console me.
Charming lights of this Soul,
Your glances have the Prize
Of wounding me, and of healing me.
Adored eyes, etc.
Scena II.
Scene II
Clearte con molti Nobili Tebani, Popolo, e li Sudetti
dentro la Nube.
Clearte with many Noble Thebans, People, and the
Aforementioned within the Cloud.
Clearte
Il gran portento Amici
Vedeste già dell’inalzate Mura;
Scorgeste aspri macigni
Correr per l’aria à volo; e in brevi istanti
All’armoniche note
Del nostro Rè gir pronti
Clearte
You now see the great marvel, Friends,
Of risen walls;
You saw the great boulders
Run flying through the air; and in a brief instant,
At the harmonious song
Of our King, turn with sweeping movement
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
In lungo giro à collocarsi i Monti.
Placing themselves in great piles.
Creonte
Udisti?
Creonte
Do you hear?
Poliferno
Ò Ciel ingiusto,
Se l’empietà proteggi.
Poliferno
O unjust heaven,
If you protect the wicked.
Clearte
Oh noi beati,
Se di mirare, & adorar c’è dato
Hoggi i Numi su’l soglio; & in lor nome
Potrà ciascun sicuro
Stringer contro de Tessali Tifei
L’acciaro avezzo à vendicar gli Dei.
Clearte
O blessed we,
If today we be allowed to see and adore
The Gods on earth, and in their names
Everyone certainly can
Inflict against the Thessalian Typhons†
Our customary slaughter to avenge the Gods.
Creonte
Che sento?
Creonte
What do I hear?
Clearte
In Campo armati
Già sù Destrier volanti i Regi Figli,
Precorrendo le stragi,
Calpestano i perigli.
Clearte
Into the fields of battle
The Royal Sons now fly on Steeds,
Anticipating the massacre,
Trampling danger underfoot.
Creonte
E’ ancor la sofferenza
Qui mi trattien?
Creonte
And yet suffering
Holds me back here?
Poliferno
Pacienza.
Poliferno
Patience!
Clearte
E’ tu mio Core intanto
D’Amor l’aspro martire
Soffri costante; è gloria anco il soffrire.
Voglio servir fedel,
E peni quanto sà
Quest’Alma amando.
Sia quanto vuol crudel,
Io vincer la Beltà
Vuò sospirando.
Voglio servir, &c.
Clearte
And you, my Heart, meanwhile
You suffer steadfastly
The bitter torment of Love; yet suffering is also glory.
I want to serve faithfully,
And I suffer as much as
This loving Soul knows how.
Let her be cruel as she likes,
I wish to vanquish that Beauty
With sighing.
I want to serve etc.
Scena III.
Scene III
Niobe con sèguito di Dame, Nerea, è li Sudetti.
Niobe with a train of Ladies, Nerea, and the Aforementioned.
Poliferno
Vien al fine la bella.
Poliferno
At last, here comes the beauty.
Creonte
À si gran foco
Per resistere, ahi lasso, un Core è poco.
Creonte
One Heart is too little
To resist, alas, such great passion.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Niobe
Che si tarda Clearte?
Meco al Trono si ascenda.
Niobe
What delays you, Clearte?
You shall ascend the Throne with me.
Clearte
Che fia? suddito humile
Con guardo adoratore
Quell’Altezze sol mira,
Clearte
How can I? A humble subject
Can only gaze adoringly
At such Loftiness.
Niobe
Sei nel soglio compagno,
Niobe
You are my companion on the throne.
Clearte
Mà prostrato à tuoi piedi.
Clearte
But prostrate at your feet.
Niobe
Il mio cenno ciò impone,
Niobe
This is my order.
Clearte
Lo condanna Anfione.
Clearte
Anfione condemns it.
Niobe
Ei del Regno spogliossi; e sol s’inchina
In Clearte il Regnante.
Niobe
He divested himself of the Reign, and people only bow
To Clearte the Ruler.
Creonte
Che Impero.
Creonte
What a Command!
Clearte
Oh Ciel che pena.
Clearte
Oh heaven, what sorrow!
Nerea
Oh sciocco Amante.
Nerea
Oh foolish Lover!
Niobe
Sù non s’indugi; al soglio:
Cosi risolvo, e voglio
Niobe
Come, don’t delay. To the throne!
Thus I am resolved, and this I desire.
Prendendolo per mano, lo conduce sù’l Trono, mentre
suona il Rittornello della seguente Aria.
Taking him by the hand she conducts him to the throne,
while the ritornello of the following aria is played.
Here the blind, flying Goddess†
Halts the course of the faltering Orb.
She bows Her incomparable golden Hair
To pay tribute at the royal throne.
Here the blind Goddess, etc.
Qui la Dea cieca volante
Ferma il corso all’Orbe instabile.
E’ tributa à Regie piante
L’aureo Crine incontrastabile.
Qui la Dea, &c.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Scene IV
Anfione con seguito di Cavalieri, e li Sudetti.
Anfione with a train of Knights and the Aforementioned.
Clearte
Giunge il Rè.
Clearte
The King arrives.
Niobe
Ferma.
Niobe
Stay!
Poliferno
Poliferno
Hor mira
L’empio Anfion.
Now behold
The wicked Anfion.
Creonte
Altero
In gran fasto s’aggira:
Creonte
Haughty one,
He struts around in great pomp:
Anfione
Qual novità sù’l Trono
Fassi oggetto à miei sguardi?
Anfione
What is this new thing on the Throne
Displayed before my eyes?
Nerea (à parte.
Egli in mal punto
A incomodarli è giunto.
Nerea (aside)
He has come to make trouble
At a bad time.
Anfione
Niobe.
Anfione
Niobe!
Niobe (à parte.
Che dirà mai?
Niobe (aside)
What is he going to say?
Anfione
Qual sù la Regia sfera
Novella impressione
Avventizia riluce?
Anfione
What new thing
Appears to shine
In the sphere of the Kingdom?
Niobe
Il riflesso Divin della tua luce.
Niobe
The Divine reflection of your light.
Anfione
Dunque dovrà sublime
Sovrastare al suo Sole
L’apparenza del raggio?
Anfione
So, the appearance
Of a Ray
Should outshine its Sun?
Niobe
Sì, qual hor fà dal suolo
Febo in humane spoglie al Ciel passaggio.
Niobe
Yes, sometimes Phoebus† does the same
In human form, in his crossing of the Heavens.
Clearte
Me infelice.
Clearte
Unhappy me!
Anfione
Si serba
Al Rege il Trono.
Anfione
The throne
Is reserved for the King.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Scena IV.
Niobe
E tù più Rè non sei.
Niobe
And you are no longer King.
Anfione
Come?
Anfione
What?
Niobe
Qui più non s’erge
Base à tue glorie.
Niobe
Statues are no longer erected
To your glory here.
Anfione
E tanto ardisci?
Anfione
And you dare go so far?
Niobe
Niobe
Insano
Chì sù base volgare
Di terrena sembianza
Autorizzar vuò i Numi: à tè, cui cede
De Tebani Penati ogg’il maggiore,
Si deè seggio di stelle:
He is a fool,
Who thinks he can rule like a God
On a common,
Earthly pedestal:
Today the greatest of the Theban Gods,
Merits a seat of stars:
Si apre il Globo, e comparisce una Celeste.
The Globe opens and a Starry Vault appears.
Olà: già si disserra,
Per accoglierti un Cielo,
In cui sotto human velo
Di Giove il Figlio adorar deè la Terra.
Behold, a Heaven
Now open to receive you,
In which the earth shall adore
The son of Jove in human form.
Clearte
Alto pensier:
Clearte
Lofty thought!
Nerea
Gran mezzo
Di placar le giust’ire.
Nerea
Great way
To placate his righteous anger!
Creonte
Oh ingegno, oh vezzo?
Creonte
Oh ingenuity, oh delight!
Anfione
Confuso io resto: o delle Regie Glorie
Gloria, e splendor: qual fia,
Per celebrarti al Mondo
Raro esempio d’Amore,
Labro à pieno facondo?
Homai ratto à gl’Imperi
Dell’eccelsa tua mente,
Ascendo un Ciel, che à cenni tuoi formato,
È da raggi animato
Del doppio Sol, c’hai sù la fronte ardente.
Ascendo alle stelle,
Mà gl’Astri, ch’adoro,
Hà il Ciel d’un bel sen.
Anfione
I am confused. O Glory and splendor
Greater than Royal Glories! What eloquent voice
Could suffice
To celebrate you to the World,
O rare example of Love?
Now at last, I hasten to the commands
Of your exalted mind,
I ascend to a Heaven, which, formed at your command,
Is animated by rays
Of the double suns which shine in your face.
I ascend to the stars,
But the Stars I adore
Heaven places in that beautiful face.
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Mie care Facelle
Mi struggo, mi moro
Al vostro balen.
Ascendo, &c.
My dear Lights,
I am consumed, I die
From your lightning.
I ascend, etc.
Niobe
Con fronti humiliate
Ciascuno il Nume inchini.
Niobe
Everyone bow humble heads
To the God.
Tutto il Corteggio s’inchina ad Anfione.
All of the court bows to Anfione.
Creonte
Se non mi porgi aita,
Celar più la mia fiamma
Non posso alla mia vita.
Creonte
If you do not help me,
I cannot hide My flame
Any longer from the one I love.
Poliferno
Il Rapitor della Beltà Sicana,
Pluto invoco; e già pronte
Son, per rapir chi brami,
L’Ombre di Flegetonte.
Poliferno
I invoke Pluto,† the kidnapper
Of the Beauty Sicana;†
And the Shades of Phlegethon† are ready
To take him who wishes to go.
Creonte
Felice sorte.
Creonte
Happy fate!
Niobe
Armonici intervalli
Sveglin hor lieti Balli.
Niobe
Harmonious music
Shall now inspire happy Dances.
Segue il Ballo, è poi terminato.
The Dance follows, and then ends.
Poliferno
Alle prescritte Mete
Sorgete, homai sorgete
Dalle stigie Caverne
Spaventose Ombre Inferne,
Poliferno
To the prescribed heights
Rise, rise at last
From the Stygian Caves,
Fearsome infernal Shades.
Qui sorge infernale, che ingombra tutto il vacuo della
scena.
Here arises a hell, which fills the whole vacant space of
the scene.
Creonte
Che miro?
Creonte
What do I see?
Poliferno
Hora ubbidisci:
Fra nuove illusioni
Teco verrà l’Idolo tuo: sparisci.
Poliferno
Now obey me:
Among these new illusions
You shall see your idol with you. Go!
E portato via dalla Nube.
He is carried into the Cloud.
Poliferno
Numi Tartarei
Con vostri sibili
Tremendi, horribili
Turbate il Ciel.
Poliferno
Gods of Tartarus,†
With your tremendous,
Horrid hisses,
Roil the sky.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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And from the starry Throne,
With thunderbolts strike down
This new Salmoneus.†
Gods, etc.
E dal sidereo Trono
Atterri il vostro Tuono
Un Salmonèo novel.
Numi, &c.
Ad un terribile rimbombo si profonda con tutta
l’Infernale, tornando à comparire la prima scena
oscurata senza persone.
At a terrible boom, all Hell sinks down, reverting to the
first set, darkened, without people.
Scena V.
Scene V
Anfione in atto di spavento.
Anfione frightened.
Anfione
Ove son? chi m’aita? in mezzo all’Ombre
Solo m’aggiro, e abbandonato, ahi lasso,
In abisso di horror confondo il Passo.
Misero chi mi cela? à i lumi intorno
L’immago ancor del minacciante Cielo
M’agita, mi spaventa: ahi che miraste
Sventurati occhi miei! voi pur aperte
Mie pupille funeste
Scorrer dell’Etra i Campi à Marte in seno,
Quasi lampo, e baleno,
L’Idolo mio, l’Anima mia vedeste.
Niobe: ahi doglia infinita!
Perduta hò l’Alma, e ancor rimango in vita.
Non fù già in riva al Xanto
Così degna di pianto
Del Troiano Garzone
La rapina fatale,
Quanto hor la pena mia, quanto il mio male.
Oh spettacolo atroce!
Oh mio fiero Destin, perversa sorte!
Sparì mia vita, e non mi date à morte.
Dal mio Petto o pianti uscite
In tributo al mio dolor.
E in virtù de miei tormenti,
Disciogliendovi in torrenti,
In voi naufraghi’l mio Cor.
Dal mio petto, &c.
Anfione
Where am I? Who will help me? In the midst of the shadows
I turn, alone and abandoned, alas,
In an abyss of horror my Footsteps stray.
Wretched me, who hides me here? Still before my eyes
The image of a menacing Heaven
Agitates me, frightens me. Alas, what did you see,
My unfortunate eyes! Wide open, You,
My sad eyes,
Saw my Idol, my Soul,
Like a flash, a twinkle, run in the fields of Ether†
To the bosom of Mars.
Niobe, alas, infinite sorrow!
I have lost my soul, and yet remain alive.
Not even the fatal kidnapping
Of the Trojan Boy
By the banks of the river Xanthos† was
So worthy of tears
As is now my sorrow, as is my pain.
Oh atrocious sight!
Oh my proud Destiny, perverse fate!
To destroy my life, but not give me to death.
From my Breast, O tears, flow,
In tribute to my sorrow.
By virtue of my torments,
Dissolve yourself in torrents,
In you my Heart will be drowned.
From my Breast, etc.
Scena VI.
Scene VI
Colline con Fonte.
Little Hills with Springs.
Tiresia, poi Tiberino.
Tiresia, then Tiberino.
Confused Powers,
Rouse yourselves.
My mind, once deceived
Confuse Potenze
Destatevi sù.
La mente ingannata,
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Da false Apparenze
Hor vinta, e legata
Non rendasi più
Confuse, &c.
By false Appearances,
May you now no longer be
Fettered and Overcome.
Confused, etc.
Tiberino
Ove quasi furente
Movi l’incerto piè?
Tiberino
Where are you stumbling
As if in a rage?
Tiresia
Di eventi oscuri
Ingombrata la mente,
Mal discerne gl’auguri.
À Pastorali alberghi
Nuovamente m’involo,
Et alle sacre soglie
Già ritorno, già volo.
Tiresia
My mind, cluttered
With mysterious events,
Cannot well discern the omens.
To the Shepherds’ habitation
Again I turn,
And to the sacred ground
Now I return, now I fly.
Tiberino
E ancor senza svelarmi
Gl’arcani di mia sorte, alle promesse
Procrastini gli effetti?
Tiberino
Yet you put off keeping your promise
Without revealing to me
The mystery of my fate?
Tiresia
Hanno Legge dal Ciel sempre i miei detti
Tiresia
My words always express the Laws of Heaven.
Tiberino
Dimmi almen: deggio in Tebe
Sperar vittorie?
Tiberino
At least tell me: am I to hope for victory
In Thebes?
Tiresia
È van desio.
Tiresia
It is a vain hope.
Tiberino
Fia dunque,
Hor che infuria Bellona,
Pigra in mezzo dell’Armi
Di Tiberin la destra?
Tiberino
So now
Raging Bellona†
Will make Tiberino’s right arm lazy
In the midst of the Armed crowd?
Tiresia
E’ tal hora la sorte
Dè gl’Ozii anco Maestra.
Tiresia
And sometimes fate is also
The Mistress of Laziness.
Scena VII.
Scene VII
Tiberino, e poi Manto in compagnia di Ninfe con varii
stromenti da suono.
Tiberino and then Manto in the company of Nymphs
with various musical instruments.
Tiberino
Fuggirò questo Cielo,
Che contrari à mie brame
Così nutre gl’influssi:
Mà dove, oh Dei, se imprigionata, e presa,
À un biondo Crin l’Anima mia s’è resa.
Tiberino
I will flee this Heaven,
Which contrary to my longings
Thus feeds these influences.
But where, O Gods, if my Soul, caught and imprisoned,
Has surrendered to a blonde Head?
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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2011 boston early music festival
Manto
Quà mie fide Compagne, ove ridente
Mormora l’onda, ad accordar venite
Dell’incerate Avene il suon giolivo:
Mà che veggio? mia fede
Fatta già Calamita à due bei Rai,
Il Polo del suo Amor non perde mai.
Manto
Here, my faithful Companions, where the waters
Murmur laughing, come to tune
The merry sound of the oaten Pipes.
But what do I see? My faith,
Already Ruined by two beautiful eyes,
Never loses the Pole of his Love.
Tiberino
Ecco il seno adorato: oh poco avvezza
All’amorose Gioie
Semplicetta bellezza.
Tiberino
Here is that beloved bosom! Oh Simple beauty
Unaccustomed
To amorous Joys.
Manto
Ridir, vuò le mie pene.
Manto
My sorrows wish to smile.
Tiberino
Voglio scoprir l’Oggetto,
Ch’il Cor le accese in Petto.
Tiberino
I want to discover the Object
For which your heart burns in your Bosom.
Manto
La man benefattrice
À venerar mi guida
Nuova sorte felice.
Manto
A beneficent hand
Leads me to venerate
A new, happy fate.
Tiberino
M’incatena ogn’hor più: grata à mè giungi;
Et à punto o Vezzosa,
Replicava il mio Core
Gli eventi del tuo Amore.
Tiberino
She enchains me all the more: she becomes more pleasing to me;
And precisely, O Charming one,
Relate to my Heart
The events of your Love.
Manto
M’è benigna Fortuna
Manto
Fortune is kind to me.
Tiberino
Hor dimmi o Bella
Di qual vago sembiante
Col rincontro de sguardi,
Come, già m’affermasti,
Amore t’invaghi?
Tiberino
Now tell me, O Beauty,
With what handsome face,
As you told me before,
With what exchange of glances,
Did Love delight you?
Manto
Io tè mirai.
Manto
I looked at yours.
Tiberino
Non altri?
Tiberino
Not another’s?
Manto
Altri non mai cosi.
Manto
Not like this.
Tiberino
Alma innocente?
Tiberino
Innocent soul!
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Manto
And tell me, in your heart,
Sir, did my look
Produce anything?
Tiberino
Che dir saprò? m’e forza
Dir, che m’accese: nò, tempo migliore
Si attenda à palesar l’ardor del Core.
Il tuo sguardo o Bella mia
Nel mio sen fiamme avventò.
Mà ch’Amor poi quello sia,
Dir nol posso, e non lo sò.
Il tuo sguardo &c.
Tiberino
How shall I know what to say? Am I compelled
To say what inflames me? No, a better time
Awaits to reveal the fire in my heart.
Your glance, O my Beauty,
Has kindled a fire in my breast.
But that it is Love
I cannot say, and I don’t know.
Your glance, etc.
Scena VIII.
Scene VIII
Manto.
Manto.
Odi come diverso
Da ciò, che insegna altrui,
Il Maestro d’Amor, d’Amor favella.
Oh sventurata Manto! un stranier crudo,
Per lui meglio gioire,
Serbò tua vita à più crudel morire.
Tu ci pensasti poco
Mio Cor à dir di si
T’inceneristi al foco
Si tosto che apparì.
Listen how different is it
When he who teaches others,
The Master of Love, speaks of Love.
Oh unfortunate Manto! A raw foreigner,
To have more sport for himself,
Saved your life for a more cruel death.
You thought too little of us,
My Heart, to say yes,
You were scorched in the fire
The moment it appeared.
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Manto
Et al tuo sen, mi svela
Signor, nulla produsse
Lo sguardo mio?
You trusted much,
My heart, in the cruel archer,
Too much you believed in the beams
From an alluring face.
Tu ti fidasti assai
Mio cor del crudo arcier.
Troppo credesti à i rai
D’un volto lusinghier.
Scena IX.
Scene IX
Niobe, e Poliferno in apparenza di Mercurio.
Niobe, and Poliferno in the guise of Mercury.
Niobe
Chi sei, dove mi guidi?
Niobe
Who are you? Where do you lead me?
Poliferno
Io Mercurio m’appello, e de gli Dei
Son Messaggier; l’incarco
Hebbi di quà condurti:
Poliferno
I am called Mercury,† and I am the messenger
Of the Gods. It was my task
To lead you here.
Niobe
E cosí tosto
Sparì da gl’occhi miei Marte il mio Nume?
Niobe
And so soon
You vanished from my eyes, Mars, my God?
Poliferno
Per trasportarti alla Magion Celeste,
Farà presto ritorno: à quanto giunse
Donna immortal la tua Beltà Divina:
Poliferno
He will soon return to transport you
To the Celestial Mansion:
So great is your Divine Beauty, immortal Lady:
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Marte dall’alte Sfere
Di trar hebbe possanza;
Et è vil paragone hor al tuo merto
La gran Madre d’Amor; del Dio Tonante
Fù meno degna preda
Europa, Danae, e Leda.
It had the power
To draw Mars from the spheres;
And the great Mother of Love (Venus)
Is contemptible in comparison to your merits;
Europa,† Danae,† and Leda† are less worthy prey
Of the Thundering God.
Niobe
Tebe, Figli, Anfion, Regno, Vassali.
Niobe
And Thebes, Children, Anfion, Kingdom, Subjects?
Poliferno
Hor ch’il gran Dio de l’Armi
Sposa ti elesse, il nutrir più non lice
Nel sen terreni affetti.
Poliferno
Now that the great God of Arms
Has chosen you as wife, you are no longer allowed to nourish
Earthly affections in your bosom.
Niobe
Deh cedete hor mie pene à miei diletti,
Stringo al seno un Nume amante,
Fatto eterno è il mio gioir,
S’à bei Rai del suo sembiante
Divien gioia ogni martir.
Stringo al seno, &c.
Niobe
Ah, cede now, my sorrows, to my delights.
I press a God to my bosom,
My joy is made eternal.
In the beautiful Rays of your face
Every sorrow becomes joy.
I press a God to my bosom, etc.
Scena X.
Scene X
Sopra gran Nuvola dall’alto della scena Creonte in
Apparenza di Marte, e li sudetti.
Upon a large Cloud above the scene, Creonte in the
Form of Mars, and the aforementioned.
Poliferno
Mira: già il Dio guerriero
A tè scende dall’Etra.
Poliferno
Behold, now the warrior God
Descends to you from the Ether.
Niobe
L’Abisso di sua Luce
Non v’abbagli occhi miei: Mà ben discerno,
Che un Raggio sol de suoi Divin splendori
Può rischiarar l’Inferno.
Niobe
Don’t be blinded, my eyes,
By vastness of his light. But I see well
That a single ray of his Divine radiance
Can illuminate all Hell.
Creonte (Scendendo la Machina.
Lascio l’armi, e cedo il Campo
Già mi rendo à un vago Lampo
D’altra Venere in beltà.
Guerre, e stragi andate in bando,
Baci, e vezzi io vò cercando
Nel bel sen, che vinto m’hà.
Lascio l’armi, &c.
Creonte (Descending from the Machine)
I lay down my arms and cede the Battle,
I now surrender myself to the delightful Light
Of another Venus in beauty.
Wars and battles shall be banned,
I shall seek Kisses and caresses
On the fair bosom that has conquered me.
I lay down my arms, etc.
Poliferno (à parte, essendo la machina à Terra.
Agevolò l’Impresa
L’ordita illusion, da cui ingannata
Divota Amante ella al tuo Amor s’è resa.
Poliferno (aside, the machine being on Earth)
The plotted Illusion will
Assist the enterprise, she who was deceived
Has yielded, a Devoted Lover to your Love.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Creonte (aside)
Your magic skill gladdens my Soul.
T’accosta o Dea Terrena; han gl’human pregi
Possanza ancor sovra gli Dei; sovente
Le delizie de Numi
Son frà Mortali; hor il timor disgombra;
Sembra ogni Nume à te vicino un Ombra.
Approach, O Earthly Goddess; human qualities still have
Power over the Gods; often
The delights of the Gods
Are among Mortals; now rid yourself of fear:
Next to you, every God seems a mere Shadow.
Niobe
Alle grazie Celesti
Il Core humiliato,
Al sembiante adorato
Sacra i desir dell’adorante salma;
Son incensi i sospir, vittima è l’Alma.
Niobe
My Heart is humbled
By these Heavenly favors,
To that adored face
I dedicate the desires of an adoring body,
My sighs are the incense, and my Soul is the sacrificial victim.
Creonte
Vieni mia cara, vieni
Frà le mie braccia; havrai
Sopra del Sole il Trono;
Ti cingerà de gl’Astri
Il risplendente velo;
E’ se lasci la Terra, acquisti un Cielo.
Creonte
Come, my darling, come
Into my arms; you shall have
A Throne above that of the Sun.
You will be girded by the
Shining veil of the stars;
And though you leave Earth, you acquire Heaven.
Niobe
All’Impero Divino
Divota, ubbidiente,
Corro veloce, e de terreni Fasti
Son le memorie spente.
Niobe
To the Divine Command
Devoted, obedient,
I quickly run, and earthly Pomps
Are but spent memories.
Creonte
T’abbraccio mi Diva,
Creonte
I embrace you, my Goddess.
Niobe
Ti stringo mio Nume,
Niobe
I clasp you, my God,
à 2.
a 2.
Ti lego al mio Cor.
I bind you to my Heart.
Niobe
Tua luce m’avviva,
Niobe
Your light gives me life,
Creonte
Mia Vita è il tuo lume,
Creonte
My Life is your light,
à 2.
a 2.
Mia gioia è il tuo ardor.
T’abbraccio, &c.
My joy is your passion.
I embrace you, etc.
Seguendo il Rittornello della seguente Aria, comincia ascender la machina, in cui siede anche Poliferno.
Following the ritornello of the following aria, the
machine begins to ascend, in which sits also Poliferno.
Poliferno
Gioite, godete
In grembo al piacer,
De Numi i diletti
Poliferno
Rejoice, enjoy,
In the lap of pleasure.
The only delights of the Gods
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Creonte (à parte.
Il tuo saper fà l’Alma mia beata
Are the passions
Of the little Archer.
Rejoice, etc.
Son solo gli affetti
Del picciolo Arcier,
Gioite, &c.
Scena XI.
Scene XI
Camare Regie.
Royal chambers.
Anfione, Tiresia.
Anfione, Tiresia.
Anfione
Tù mi laceri il Core.
Anfione
You cut me to the Heart.
Tiresia
Ch’a tè venga imponesti,
Perche il ver ti riveli.
Tiresia
You have commanded me to come to you
In order to reveal the truth.
Anfione
Creonte dunque?
Anfione
Creonte then?
Tiresia
Sì.
Tiresia
Yes.
Anfione
Il Tessalo nemico?
Anfione
The enemy of Thebes?
Tiresia
Egli.
Tiresia
Him.
Anfione
Con Magich’opre?
Anfione
With works of Magic?
Tiresia
Arti di Poliferno.
Tiresia
Poliferno’s arts.
Anfione
M’abbagliò?
Anfione
He blinded…
Tiresia
Le Pupille.
Tiresia
Your Eyes.
Anfione
Mi confuse?
Anfione
He confused…
Tiresia
La mente.
Tiresia
Your mind.
Anfione
Et in mezzo à Fantasmi?
Anfione
And in the midst of Apparitions?
Tiresia
Di strane illusioni.
Tiresia
Of strange illusions.
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Anfione
He stole…
Tiresia
La Consorte.
Tiresia
Your Wife.
Anfione
Empio ardir.
Anfione
Wicked audacity!
Tiresia
Grave inganno.
Tiresia
Grave deception!
Anfione
E resisto all’affanno?
Anfione
And I must suffer this pain?
Tiresia
In mezzo à mille incanti
Il piè raggiri; i Numi
Così de lor disprezzi
Vendican l’onte.
Tiresia
In the midst of a thousand enchantments
You wandered; thus the Gods
Avenged the shame
Of their scorn.
Anfione
O de superni Regni
Deità, che reggete
De i Rè la sorte; io prego,
Deh temprate clementi
Il rigido tenor de miei tormenti.
Anfione
O Deity of supernal Kingdoms,
Who determines
The fate of Kings; I pray,
Ah, mercifully temper
The harsh state of my sufferings.
Tiresia
All’humili preghiere
De divoti Mortali
Si mostrano sovente
Gli Dei placati; & io ritorno al Tempio,
Per impetrar propizie à tue difese
Le Onnipotenti destre.
Poscia de lor Decreti
Rivelerò i secreti.
De Numi la legge
È scorta à chi regge,
Ogn’hora fedel.
Di vana grandezza
Si vanta chi sprezza
I Dogmi del Ciel.
De Numi, &c.
Tiresia
By the humble prayers
Of devout Mortals
The Gods often are
Placated…and I will return to the Temple
To entreat for favors in your defense
From their Omnipotent right hands.
After their Decrees
I will reveal these secrets.
The law of the Gods
Is an always-faithful guide
To him who reigns.
He can only boast of vain grandeur
Who disdains
The dogmas of Heaven.
The law of the Gods, etc.
Scena XII.
Scene XII
Anfione.
Anfione
Et ancor neghittosi
Ve ne state à tant’huopo
Spirti del Regio sdegno?
Del tradimento indegno
Sù sù cadan gl’Autori in mar di sangue;
Sù alla strage de gl’Empi,
And still you remain
Senseless of this disdain,
Spirits of the Realm?
Come, come, may the Authors
Of this disgraceful betrayal fall in a sea of blood;
Come, to the slaughter of the Wicked,
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Anfione
Mi rapí?
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Per far miei di felici,
Corran le Furie mie vendicatrici.
Trà Bellici carmi
Risvegliati all’armi
Invitto mio Cor.
Quest’Alma dolente
À guerra furente
Già desta il valor.
Trà, &c.
To make my days happy,
The Furies† run, my avengers.
With warlike rhymes,
Reawaken my invincible Heart
To arms.
This sorrowful Soul
Now dedicates its valor
To raging war.
With warlike etc.
Scena XIII.
Scene XIII
Pianura ingombrata da Capanne di Pastori.
A plain filled with Shepherds’ Huts.
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte, Nerea.
Clearte
De Tebani Pastori, io pur non erro,
Son questi gl’Abituri.
Clearte
If I’m not mistaken, those are
The huts of Theban Shepherds.
Nerea
E che rimiro?
Nerea
And what do I see?
Clearte
Mà come d’improviso
Quì spazia il piè? frà sconosciute genti
Pur noi sin’hor vagammo.
Clearte
But how did we get here
So unexpectedly? We now roam
Among strangers.
Nerea
In ver mi sembra
Cosa da farmi intirrizzir le membra.
Nerea
In truth, it feels to me
Like something is numbing my limbs.
Clearte
E di qual forza ignota
Fur cosí strani eventi?
Clearte
And by what unknown power
Have such strange things occurred?
Nerea
Ahi non vedesti
Nel Regio Anfiteatro
Tutti gl’Inferni spirti
Contro noi congiurati? e il Dio Gradivo
Cinto d’aeree schiere
Involar la Regina? in quell’istante,
(Io penetro nel fondo)
Ei, perche non si sappia,
Ci pose fuor del Mondo.
Nerea
Ah, did you not see
In the Royal Amphitheater
All the Infernal spirits
Gathered against us? And how the God,
Surrounded by the aerial throng, stealthily
Kidnapped the Queen? At that very moment,
(I’m getting to the end of this)
So that no one would know of it,
We are put out of the World!
Clearte
Con memoria si cruda
Ahi mi sveni: e fia ver, che l’Idol mio
Sia sparito? alla Reggia
Clearte
With such a bitter memory,
Ah, you kill me: and is it true that my Idol
Has vanished? To the Royal palace
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Men corro impatiente:
Amor con nuova pena
Non tormentar l’Anima mia dolente.
I will eagerly haste:
Love, do not torment my sorrowful soul
With new pains.
Do not make me weep forever,
My Tyrant Fate.
One day change the temperament
Of the cruel child-God.
Do not make me weep etc.
Non mi far pianger sempre
Tiranno mio Destin.
Un giorno cangia tempre
Al crudo Dio bambin.
Non mi far, &c.
Scena XIV.
Scene XIV
Nerea, Manto, e poi Tiberino.
Nerea, Manto, then Tiberino
Nerea
Ratto sen và: frà questi alberghi intanto
Io cercar vuò breve riposo; e appunto
Quì gentil Pastorella
Prende dolce quiete.
Nerea
Swiftly he leaves. Amongst these huts,
I would like to seek a short rest; now, here
Is a lovely shepherdess
Taking sweet repose.
Manto
Ahi crudel.
Manto
Alas, cruel one!
Nerea
Si risveglia.
Nerea
She is awake.
Manto
Manto
Infido Core
Cosi paghi il mio Amore?
Unfaithful Heart,
Thus you repay my Love?
Nerea
Manto è costei, e d’amorosa doglia
Mesta si lagna
Nerea
This girl is Manto, and she sadly complains
Of amorous suffering.
Manto
In grembo al suolo Hircano
T’allattaron le Tigri Alban superbo,
Empia cagion del mio tormento acerbo.
Manto
In the bosom of the Hyrcanian† land
You were suckled by Tigers, haughty Alban,
Wicked cause of my bitter suffering.
Nerea
Oh poverina!
Nerea
Oh, poor girl!
Tiberino
Piange
Il mio Ben? che t’opprime
Vergin leggiadra! dimmi
Che t’affligge? ahi col guardo
Par che tenti mia morte.
Tiberino
My Love weeps?
What oppresses you,
Lovely virgin? Tell me,
What afflicts you? Ah, it seems
You are trying to kill me with a glance.
Nerea
Ardon per tutto
Di Cupido le faci.
Nerea
Cupid’s torches
Burn everywhere.
Tiberino
Parla o bella, ancor taci?
Tiberino
Speak, beauty, still you keep silent?
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Manto
Hò troppo parlato,
Ti basti così.
Il Cor ingannato
Già troppo languì.
Hò troppo, &c.
Manto
I’ve said too much,
That’s enough for you.
The betrayed Heart
Has already suffered too much.
I’ve said too much, etc.
Scena XV.
Scene XV
Nerea, Tiberino.
Nerea, Tiberino.
Nerea
Mi commove à pietade: oh che bel vanto
Tradir le Giovinette.
Nerea
She moves me to pity. Oh, what a fine boast,
To betray young Maidens!
Tiberino
Io qui son fatto
Di rimproveri scopo
Tiberino
I am being subjected
To harsh criticisms here.
Nerea
È troppo folle
Chi d’huomini si fida.
Nerea
Those who trust men
Are all too crazy.
Tiberino
À violenza
Fermo qui più le piante:
Sia pur forza d’Amor, d’Astri, ò di Fato,
Un sol momento parmi
Lungi dal caro bene
Un secolo di pene
Ci sei colto mio Cor, non v’è più scampo.
Segui ad amar penando
Quel sen, che saettando
Ti và d’Amor col Lampo.
Ci sei colto &c.
Tiberino
Against my will
I remain here still.
Whether by the force of Love, of the Stars, or of Fate,
It seems to me that a single moment,
Far from my dear beloved,
Is a century of pain.
We are captives, my Heart, there is no more escape.
Suffering, you must continue to love
That bosom, which keeps shooting you
With the lightning bolt of Love.
We are captives, etc.
Scena XVI.
Scene XVI
Nerea.
Nerea.
Oh che dolci concetti,
Che parole melate han sempre in bocca
Questi falsi Zerbini; ogn’hora estinti
Si mostrano in Amor, ma i Cori han finti
Questi Giovani moderni
Giocan sempre ad ingannar.
I lor vezzi sono scherni,
Che fan l’Alme sospirar.
Questi, &c.
Oh, what sweet fancies,
What honeyed words they always have in their mouths,
These false Dandies; always showing themselves
Dying of Love, but their Hearts are feigning.
These modern Boys
Make a sport of deception.
Their endearments are mockeries
Which make Souls sigh.
These, etc.
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Segue il Ballo de’ Pastori.
Here follows the Ballet of the Shepherds.
Fine dell’Atto Secondo.
End of Act Two.
ATTO III.
Act III
Scena I.
Scene I
Sfera di Marte.
The Globe of Mars.
Niobe in apparenza di Dea, Creonte, e Corteggio di
Deità apparenti.
Niobe in the costume of a Goddess, Creonte and a
Retinue of Men posing as Gods.
Creonte
Delle Celesti soglie
Già calpesti i zaffiri; à te s’inchina
Del quinto Giro il Coro,
Ove io divoto i tuoi bei Lumi adoro.
Creonte
Now you tread the sapphires
Of the Celestial chambers; to you bows
The choir of the fifth Planet,†
Where I, ever devoted, adore your lovely Eyes.
Niobe
In sen d’eterna gioia
Vivon miei sensi, e immortalmente unita
Al tuo Fianco Divin vive mia Vita.
Niobe
My senses live in the bosom of eternal joy;
Joined in immortality
To your divine side, I live my Life.
Creonte
In dolci Nodi avvinti
Posiam mia Dea, e del tuo Amor mi rendi
Segni più lieti:
Creonte
Clasped in sweet Knots
Let us rest, my Goddess, and give me
Happier signs of your love:
Niobe
Ahi ch’ogn’hor più m’accendi.
Amami, e vederai,
Che Amor non hà più stral,
Vibrolli tutti al seno mio per tè.
In quei tuoi vaghi Rai
E l’Ardor mio fatal,
Ne’ Fede v’è, che sia pari à mia Fè.
Amami, &c.
Mà da qual Nube interna
Sento opprimermi’l Cor? lassa, già langue
In sen lo spirto esangue.
Niobe
Ah, how every hour I burn even more!
Love me, and you shall see
That Love has no more arrows:
They all quiver in my heart for you.
My fatal Passion
Is your beautiful eyes,
There is no Constancy like my Constancy.
Love me, etc.
But what by what internal cloud
Do I feel my heart oppressed? Alas, now my bloodless
Spirit languishes in my breast.
Sviene.
She faints.
Creonte
Che fia mio Ben? Idolo mio? mio Nume?
Creonte
What is it, my Beloved? my Idol? my Goddess?
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
They are like so many Endymions†
Flattering the Lasses.
But it ends up that they give their Hearts to them:
It’s just howling at the Moon.
These, etc.
Paion tanti Endimioni
Le Zitelle in lusingar.
Mà se v’è, ch’il Cor li doni,
E’ una Luna al vaneggiar.
Questi, &c.
Scena II.
Scene II
Poliferno, e li Sudetti.
Poliferno and the Aforementioned.
Poliferno
Fuggi Creonte, fuggi; àrmasi’l Cielo
Contro di noi, già freme
Di Tiresia alle preci
Adirata Latona; e à nostri danni
Per possanza maggiore
Volgonsi i nostri inganni.
Poliferno
Flee, Creonte, flee! Heaven arms itself
Against us; Latona is furious,
Enraged now by Tiresia’s supplications,
And to our damnation,
Our deceits turn against us
With greater power.
Creonte
Misero me che ascolto: e semiviva
Lascierò la mia Vita?
Creonte
Wretched me, what do I hear! And shall I leave
Her half-alive, she who is my Life?
Poliferno
Huop’è che ceda
Il tuo Amor al Destino; il Campo tutto
Teme, se più vai lungi, esser distrutto.
Poliferno
It is necessary to cede
Your Love to Destiny; if you keep on, the whole Camp
Fears it will be destroyed.
Creonte
Ahi Ciel!
Creonte
Alas, Heaven!
Poliferno
Più non s’indugi.
Poliferno
Delay no longer!
Creonte
Oh stelle infide:
Il dolore m’uccide.
Luci belle, che languite,
Io vi lascio, è vado à morte.
Cosí voglion mie ferite,
Vuol così l’iniqua sorte.
Luci belle, &c.
Creonte
Oh, unfaithful stars,
Sorrow kills me.
Beautiful, languishing eyes,
I leave you and go to my death.
So my wounds desire,
So desires wicked Fate.
Beautiful eyes, etc.
(parte con Poliferno.
He leaves with Poliferno.
Scena III.
Scene III
Sparisce l’apparenza della sfera di Marte, e si vedono
Solitudini con Grotte.
The appearance of the globe of Mars disappears, and a
Lonely Place with Grottos is seen.
Anfione, e Niobe svenuta sovra un pezzo di Rupe.
Anfione, and Niobe unconscious on a Rock.
Anfione
Qui, dove muto, e solo
Il Silenzio passeggia,
Dall’abborrita Reggia
Vengo Rè sfortunato
In compagnia del duolo,
À esacerbar mio Fato:
Anfione
Here, where Silence passes,
Mute and alone,
From the horrid Realm
I come, unfortunate King,
In the company of sorrow,
To bewail my Fate:
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Dear Solitude embraces my tears,
My Sorrows—friendly horrors.
But here is a girl,
Sleeping on a Pillow of stone.
Niobe
Ahi respiro.
Niobe
Ah, I breathe.
Anfione
Si desta.
Anfione
She awakens.
Niobe
Niobe
À i dolci Amplessi
Torna l’Alma smarrita.
To sweet Embraces
My lost Soul returns.
Anfione
È di Niobe la voce.
Ahi, se non erran gl’occhi,
Niobe è costei.
Anfione
The voice is Niobe’s.
Alas, if my eyes are not mistaken,
She is Niobe.
Niobe
Mà dove son; che veggio?
Niobe
But where am I, what do I see?
Anfione
Benche in diverse spoglie,
E dessa: io non traveggio
Anfione
Although she is in different clothing,
It is she: I am not mistaken.
Niobe
Dov’è il Ciel, dov’è Marte?
Niobe
Where is Heaven, where is Mars?
Anfione
I suoi vaneggiamenti.
Ascoltar vuò in disparte.
Anfione
I would prefer to listen to
Her ravings while hidden.
Niobe
Dive ancelle ove siete?
Mio Nume ove sparisti? e chi dal soglio
De canori Adamanti,
In queste mute arene
Hà Niobe condannata?
Niobe
Goddess handmaids, where are you?
My God, where have you disappeared? And who
Has condemned Niobe
From that place of Adamantine† enchantments
To this silent shore?
Anfione
Mente contaminata.
Anfione
Polluted mind!
Niobe
Dimmi: (vede Anfione.
ahi, che miro? sposo.
Niobe
Tell me… (she sees Anfione)
alas, what do I see? Husband!
Anfione
Ahi schernita Regina,
Tradita fè, tiranneggiato Amore,
Costanza offesa, & ingannato Core.
Anfione
Alas, scorned Queen,
Betrayed faith, tyrannized Love,
Offended Constancy, and deceived Heart.
Niobe
E che dirò?
Niobe
And what shall I say?
†
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Accogliete i miei pianti, i miei Martori
Solitudini care, amici horrori.
Mà sù Guancial di sasso
Ninfa qui appar, che dorme.
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Anfione
Quanto à me fè palese
Tiresia l’Indovino,
Ascolta Alma confusa
Di Regnante delusa:
Per gran forza d’Incanto,
Sotto Velo di Nume al sen stringesti
Il nemico Creonte,
C’hora Tebe assalisce:
Così permette il Ciel, quando punisce.
Anfione
Much has been revealed to me
By Tiresia, the Seer;
Now hear, confused Soul,
Of deluded Royalty:
By great power of enchantment,
In the Body of the God whom you clasped to your bosom
Was the enemy Creonte,
Who now attacks Thebes;
So Heaven permits, when it punishes.
Niobe
Niobe che ascolti? e di cotanto oltraggio
Vilipesa, e negletta,
Tardi ancor la Vendetta?
Contro il Ciel, che m’hà schernita,
Corro, volo à guerreggiar.
E dal soglio inferocita
Voglio i Numi fulminar.
Contro il Ciel, &c.
Niobe
Niobe, what do you hear? And against such outrage,
Despised and mistreated,
Do you still delay War?
Against Heaven, which has scorned me,
I run, I fly to make war.
And from the enraged throne
I want to strike the Gods with lightning bolts.
Against Heaven, etc.
Scena IV.
Scene IV
Anfione.
Anfione.
Nell’Egeo tempestoso
Nave non scosser mai
Con impeto più insan gl’Austri frementi,
Qual hor nel mar turbato
Di tante passioni
Abbattuta è al mio sen l’Anima mia,
Colpa di stelle, e di fortuna ria.
Hò perduta la speranza
Alma mia di più gioir.
Il Destin cangiò sembianza,
Sol per farmi ogn’hor languir.
Hò perduta, &c.
In the stormy Aegean,
The roaring South Winds never tossed a boat
With an impetus more mad;
Sometimes in the troubled sea
Of such passions
My soul is beaten in my breast.
The fault is that of the stars, and the guilt is fortune’s.
I have lost hope,
My soul, of ever being happy again.
Destiny changes its appearance
Only to make me languish hourly.
I have lost, etc.
I hope no longer for contentment,
I live only as a trophy of sorrow,
And a target of torments,
In the end my fate wants me to be so.
I hope no longer, etc.
Più non spero haver contenti,
Vivo sol trofeo del duol,
E bersaglio di tormenti
La mia sorte alfin mi vuol.
Più non spero, &c.
Scena V.
Scene V
Tempio di Latona.
Temple of Latona.
Tiresia, Manto, Tiberino, e Popolo.
Tiresia, Manto, and Tiberino and People.
Tiresia
Con eterni Legami
Tiresia
With eternal Bonds
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Clasping your right Hands,
Bind together your Souls and Hearts: Heaven no longer
Wishes your bodies to be apart,
That heaven which has commissioned me
To cause you to enjoy the serenity of Chaste love.
(Si dan le Destre.
They give their right hands.
Tiberino
Son felice.
Tiberino
I am happy.
Manto
Io contenta
Manto
I am content!
Tiberino
Sparì mia doglia.
Tiberino
My sorrow has vanished.
Manto
Ogni mia pena è spenta,
Manto
All my anguish is spent.
Tiresia
Hor meco o Tiberino
Le piante affretta; e tu mia figlia intanto
Nel Culto della Dea
Il Popolo accompagna; e richiamando
Le disviate menti
A i Voti riverenti,
Con suppliche divote, e preci humili,
Di Tebe ne i perigli
Dal Ciel prendi i consigli.
Tiresia
Now come with me, O Tiberino,
And hasten; and you, my daughter, meantime
Accompany the People
In the Worship of the Goddess, and recalling
Their distracted minds
To reverent Vows,
With devout supplications and humble prayers,
May Heaven advise
Thebes of the danger.
(parte.
He leaves.
Tiberino
Hor ch’è mio quel vago labro,
Saprai tosto Amor cos’è.
Proverai, ch’egli è sol Fabro
Di dolcissima mercè.
Hor ch’è mio, &c.
Tiberino
Now that these lovely lips are mine,
You soon shall know what Love is.
You shall understand that he is the only Giver
Of sweetest rewards.
Now that, etc.
Scena VI.
Scene VI
Manto, e Popolo, poi Niobe con numeroso Corteggio,
Clearte, e Nerea.
Manto and the People, then Niobe with a Great Retinue,
Clearte and Nerea.
Manto
Foste al fine pietosi
Numi del mio cordoglio: à nostri Dei
Offriamo Amici in sacrificio i Cori,
E la gran madre eterna,
Con la Prole Divina ogn’uno adori.
Manto
You were at last merciful,
Gods, to my sorrow. To our Gods
Let us offer, Friends, our Hearts in sacrifice,
And everyone adore the great eternal Mother,
With her Divine Children.
Niobe
Che si fa? che si tenta? empi Tebani
Da quai furori insani
Follemente agitati, i falsi Dogmi
Niobe
What are you doing? What are you attempting? Wicked Thebans,
With what insane frenzy
Do you tremble madly, following the false Dogmas
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Stringendovi le Destre,
L’Alme, e i Cori annodate: hoggi divise
Non vuol più vostre salme
Quel Ciel, che à me commise
Farvi goder di casto Amor le Calme.
D’una stolta eseguite?
Così anteporre ardite
Immagin vane, e insussistenti Oggetti,
C’han sol di Numi il Nome,
Di Tantalo alla Prole? Io quella sono,
Che da Numi non finti
Vanto la discendenza, Atlante, e Giove
Sono di Niobe gli Avi; olà miei fidi
Tosto in più Schiegge infrante
Cadan gl’Idoli indegni alle mie Piante.
Of a fool?
Thus you dare set
Vain images and insubstantial Objects,
Which have only the Name of Gods,
Above the progeny of Tantalus?† I am the one
Who does not feign
To boast of descent from Gods: Atlas† and Jove
Are Niobe’s Ancestors; there, my faithful ones,
Soon the unworthy idols
Shall be cast at my feet and broken into shards.
Li seguaci di Niobe atterrano gl’idoli di Latona, di
Apollo, e di Diana.
The followers of Niobe cast the images of Latona,
Apollo, and Diana to ground.
Manto
Chiudetevi miei Lumi,
E non v’aprite più;
Se pria non fanno i Numi
Vendetta di là sù.
Chiudetevi, &c.
Manto
Close, my Eyes,
And open no more,
Unless first the Gods take
Vengeance on this.
Close, etc.
Niobe
Mi si toglia da gli Occhi.
Niobe
Get them out of my Sight.
Manto
E ancora o Cielo i Fulmini non scocchi?
Manto
And still, O Heaven, you do not throw your Thunderbolts?
(parte.
She leaves.
Scena VII.
Scene VII
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea, & Corteggio.
Niobe, Clearte, Nerea, and the Court.
Niobe
Senza indugio Clearte
Vanne, e di tanta impresa
Godan tosto il Trionfo i miei gran Figli;
E frà publici Applausi
De Popoli adoranti
Habbian di Numi i commun Voti e i Vanti.
Niobe
Without delay, Clearte,
Go, and soon my great Children will enjoy the Triumph
Of this great enterprise;
And together with the public Applause
Of an adoring People,
They will have the common Prayers and Exaltation of Gods.
Clearte
Giuste son le tue Glorie
O dell’Ismenia Gente,
E frà i Numi del Ciel Diva possente.
Clearte
Your glories are just,
O you, Goddess of the Ismenian People,
And powerful Goddess among the Gods of Heaven.
(parte.
He leaves.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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Scena VIII
Niobe, Nerea, Corteggio.
Niobe, Nerea, Court.
Niobe
Vinti sono i Celesti; hor del mio Petto
Precipiti lo sdegno
Contro il Tessalo infido, e dal profondo
M’inchini Averno, e con Averno il mondo.
In mezzo al Armi
Vuò vendicarmi
D’un infedel.
Cangiossi in Face
D’odio vorace
D’Amor il Tel.
In mezzo, &c.
Niobe
The Gods are vanquished; now from my Breast
Disdain is thrown headlong
Against the unfaithful Thessalian, and from the depths
Avernus† bows to me, and with Avernus, the world.
In the midst of battle
I wish to avenge myself
On an infidel.
Love’s Snare
Changes in the Face
Of greedy hatred.
In the midst, etc.
Scena IX.
Scene IX
Nerea.
Nerea.
Affè ch’è un brutto intrico, & è delitto
Farne motto, ò parola: il Ciel mi guardi
Da si arrabbiati Amanti,
Che goder vonno à forza ancor d’Incanti.
Povere Giovinette
À quanti inganni ogn’hor siete soggette.
Ma poi, che nella Rete
V’hanno fatto cader, v’è speme alcuna
Di trovarne in Amore alcun costante?
Ohibò; questa speranza
Non è più dell’usanza.
Che alla fè di Donne amanti
Siano gl’Huomini costanti
Io giamai nol crederò.
Io per prova e vedo e sento,
Che ne brama ogn’uno cento
Se ben giura ogn’un di nò.
Che alla, &c.
Indeed, this is a messy intrigue, and it is offensive
To speak of it at all. Heaven protect me
From such incensed lovers,
Who want to enjoy themselves by dint of Enchantments.
Poor Youngsters,
They are subject now to so many deceptions.
But yet, of those who have
Fallen into the Snare, is there any hope
Of finding someone who is faithful?
Phooey, this hope
Is no longer any use.
I’ll never believe
That Men are faithful
To the constancy of Women in love.
I know through experience, seeing, and hearing,
That every one yearns for a hundred,
But yet every one of them swears they don’t.
I’ll never, etc.
Scena X.
Scene X
Gran Piazza di Tebe, concorso di Popolo, Clearte, che
sovra gran Machina conduce in Trionfo i Figli di Niobe.
Great Square of Thebes. Crowd of People, Clearte, who upon a
great Machine leads the Children of Niobe in Triumph.
Clearte
Tutta gioia, e tutta riso
Tebe essulti in questo dì
Se di Numi hor fatta Reggia,
Con il Ciel lieta gareggia,
Poiche i pregi al Ciel rapi.
Tutta gioia, &c.
Clearte
All joy and all smiles,
Thebes exults in this day,
For now the Kingdom is made the Gods’,
Happily contend with Heaven,
Because we have stolen some of their treasure.
All joy, etc.
†
See glossary of terms, pages 210–211
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Scena VIII.
Ad un subitaneo Terremoto si vedono cader tutti
gl’Edifici & ingombrata da improvise nubi la Scena
frà Lampi, tuoni, e saette appariscono dall’alto Latona,
Diana, & Apolline, con loro Deità Compagne, in atto
difulminar li Trionfanti, e poi spariscono.
At a sudden Earthquake, all the Buildings are seen to fall
and the Scene is filled with sudden clouds among Lightning, thunder, and arrows. Latona, Diana, and Apollo, with
their Company of Gods, appear from on high, in the act of
shooting the Triumphant, and then they disappear.
Ma lasso, insin dal centro
Par, che si scuota il Mondo?
Scaglia fulmini il Cielo;
Trà il vivere, e il morire, io mi confondo.
But alas, it seems that the world shakes
From its very core!
Heaven flings lightning bolts;
I feel myself suspended between life and death.
Scena XI.
Scene XI
Anfione con spada alla mano, e li Sudetti atterrati da i
fulmini.
Anfione with a sword in his hand, and the Aforementioned
subjects thrown to the ground by bolts of lightning.
Fin dove m’inseguite
Furie fulminatrici? i dardi ardenti
Si sì crude avventate, io serbo ancora
Contro delle vostr’Ire il Cor costante,
Ma che scorgo? ahi spavento.
E che miro? ahi tormento.
Incenerita al suolo
L’amata Prole? ahi Duolo.
Chi mi sostiene? io perdo i sensi. ahi Figli,
Figli miei spenti: o Cieli
Troppo ver me crudeli.
Mà s’ogn’hor nuovi scempi
Inventate à miei danni,
Non mai stanchi Tiranni,
Per saziarvi un di Numi spietati,
Sgorghin dal proprio seno
Vasti rivi di sangue; à un disperato
Vita è l’ultimo fato.
At last where do you follow me,
Bolt-throwing furies? Yes, yes, hurl
The burning darts; against your anger
My faithful heart is still bent.
But, what do I make out? Alas, I fear!
And what do I see? Alas, anguish!
My beloved Children
Scorched on the ground? Alas, Sorrow!
Who shall sustain me? I’ve lost my senses. Alas, Children,
My dead Children! O Heavens,
Too cruel to me!
Ah, if you always invent
New havoc for my punishments,
Never tire, you tyrants;
To satiate you one day, spiteful Gods,
From this very breast gushes
Vast rivers of blood; for one who is desperate,
Life is the final fate.
Si uccide.
He kills himself.
Scena XII.
Scene XII
Niobe, e li Sudetti.
Niobe and the Aforementioned.
Niobe
Fermati.
Niobe
Stop!
Anfione
Niobe.
Anfione
Niobe!
Niobe
Egli svenossi.
Niobe
He has stabbed himself!
Anfione
Io moro.
Spira già nel propio sangue
Anfione
I am dying.
Now my Soul, Pale and trembling,
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NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
L’Alma pallida, e tremante.
Numi rei Trofeo già esangue
Di vostr’Ire ecco un Regnante.
Spira già nel propio sangue.
L’Alma palli…
Exhales its own blood.
Wicked gods, behold a King,
Now a bloodless Trophy of your Anger.
Now my soul exhales its own blood,
Pale and…
Niobe
Crudo Ciel.
Niobe
Cruel Heaven!
Anfione
Treman…
Anfione
Trembli…
Niobe
Empio Fato.
Niobe
Wicked Fate!
Anfione
An…
Anfione
Trem…
Niobe
Fierissimo cordoglio.
Niobe
Most savage anguish!
Anfione
An…
Anfione
Trem…
Niobe
Inopportuno Arrivo.
Egli muor, & io vivo?
Oh dell’Ismenio soglio
Glorie precipitate; alteri Figli
Estinto è il nostro Nume.
Mà che veggio? e non sono
Questi i Figli anco uccisi?
Non è questa la prole, e non son queste
D’atro pallor dipinte
Delle Viscere mie, Viscere estinte?
Vista crudel: accorri, accorri, vieni
Teban Regnante, e le Regali Salme
Togli all’indegna Parca: ahi che trafitto
Privo d’Alma, e di Vita in terra stassi
Chi diè vita alle Pietre, anima à i sassi.
Sposo chi mi ti ruba?
Figli chi à me vi toglie. e à chi di voi
Offrirò pria da inessiccabil Vena
Lacrimoso Tributo? afflitti Lumi,
Se pur pianger potete,
Solo il mio duol piangete:
Giacciono al suol recise
Tutte le mie speranze.
Mà negandomi i Pianti immenso affanno.
Cinta l’Alma di Nube horrida, e tetra,
Già mi rende di Pietra.
Funeste Imagini
Già mi tormentano;
Stigie Voragini
Già mi spaventano:
Vinta al fin dall’empia sorte
Figli, sposo, io son di morte.
Niobe
Unhappy Ending.
He dies and I live?
O glories cast from the
Ismenian throne! Proud children,
Our God is dead.
But what do I see? are not
These Children also dead?
Are these not my offspring? and are these not,
Painted with a grisly pallor,
These of my womb, dead Bodies?
Cruel sight! Hasten, hasten, come,
Theban Ruler, and the Royal bodies
Snatch from unworthy Fate. Alas, how pierced through,
Deprived of soul and of Life, on earth you lie,
Who gave life to the Stones, soul to the rocks.
Husband, who stole you from me?
Children, who took you from me? and to which of you
Shall I offer first the inexhaustible Vein
Of Tearful Tribute? Sorrowing Eyes,
If you can weep,
Weep only of my grief:
All my hopes
Lie cut off on the ground.
But my immense sorrow denies me Tears,
My Soul is surrounded by horrid bleak Clouds,
Now I am turned to Stone.
Funereal images
Torment me now,
Stygian Abysses
Frighten me now.
Vanquished in the end by bitter fate,
Children, husband, I am of the dead.
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Scena XIII.
Scene XIII
À lieto suono di Trombe, e Timpani, Creonte, Poliferno,
Tiresia, Manto, Tiberino, Soldati, e Popolo.
At the happy sound of Trumpets and Tympani, Creonte,
Poliferno, Tiresia, Manto, Tiberino, Soldiers, and People.
Creonte
Doma è già Tebe, e le superbe mura,
Già fulminate dal Celeste Trono,
Se col canto s’alzar, cadder col Tuono.
Creonte
Now Thebes is subdued, and these lofty walls,
Once shining with a Celestial Throne,
Though they rose to a song, fell to Thunder.
Poliferno
Ecco Anfione estinto.
Poliferno
Behold Anfione, dead.
Tiberino
Ecco i Figli atterati.
Tiberino
Behold the children, cast dead to the ground.
Manto
Ecco Niobe impietrita.
Manto
Behold Niobe turned to stone.
Creonte
Sventurato Regnante.
Giovanetti infelici.
Miserabil Regina.
Creonte
Unfortunate king,
Unhappy Youths,
Miserable Queen.
Tiresia
Così contro de gli Empi il Ciel destina.
Tiresia
Thus Heaven addresses itself against the Wicked.
Creonte
Mi si togliano al guardo; à violenza
Rattengo il pianto, ahi Niobe,
Creonte
They hold my gaze; with great effort
I hold back my tears; alas, Niobe!
Tiresia
Hor che gli Dei
Del gran soglio Tebano
Ti concesser l’Impero,
Lasciar convien Creonte
Gl’amorosi deliri.
Tiresia
Now that the Gods
Of the great Theban throne
Have ceded you the Reign,
You must leave off, Creonte,
Your amorous delirium.
Creonte
Pur d’uopo è ch’io sospiri:
Mà con più saggio Core
Vuò che de miei delitti
Porti tosto la pena
Chi ne fù autor: in Bando
Vadane Poliferno.
Creonte
It is from great need that I sigh,
But with a wiser Heart
I wish that the author
Of my crimes
Soon carry this sorrow:
Go into Exile, Poliferno.
Poliferno
Io?
Poliferno
Me?
Creonte
Si.
Creonte
Yes.
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Poliferno
Fia dunque
Questo alla fede mia premio dovuto?
So is
This, by my faith, the reward I deserve?
Creonte
Mercè condegna ad Huom soggetto à Pluto.
Creonte
Reward worthy of a Man who serves Pluto.
Poliferno
Come?
Poliferno
What?
Creonte
Fuggi, sparisci, ancor persisti?
Creonte
Flee, vanish, still you persist?
Poliferno
Empio Ciel mi tradisti.
Poliferno
Wicked Heaven, you have betrayed me!
Scena XIV.
Scene XIV
Creonte, Tiresia, Manto, Tiberino, e poi Nerea.
Creonte, Tiresia, Manto, Tiberino, then Nerea.
Creonte
Hor voi felici amanti
Lieti godete.
Creonte
Now you, happy lovers,
Rejoice.
Tiberino
Alle Latine sponde
Meco verrai mia spene.
Tiberino
To the Latin shores
Come with me, my hope!
Manto
Ti seguirò dove tu vuoi mio bene.
Manto
I will follow you where you wish, my beloved!
Nerea
Pietà signor pietade
Di Nerea l’infelice.
Nerea
Pity, sir; have pity
On unhappy Nerea.
Creonte
Chi sei tù?
Creonte
Who are you?
Nerea
Son di Niobe io la Nutrice.
Nerea
I am Niobe’s; I am the Nurse.
Creonte
Vivrai lieta, e sicura.
Creonte
You shall live happy and secure.
Nerea
Affè son mezza morta di paura.
Nerea
In faith, I am half dead of fear.
Creonte
Di Palme, e d’Allori
Si cinga’l mio Crin.
E Applausi canori
Si dian al Destin.
Di Palme, &c.
Creonte
With Palms and Laurels
My Brow is wreathed,
And Songs of praise
Are given to Destiny.
With Palms, etc.
Segue il Ballo di Soldati Festeggianti.
The Dance of Celebrating Soldiers follows.
FINE. !
End.
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Poliferno
!
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Glossary
Niobe, Regina di Tebe is dense with references to places,
persons, and objects from the mythology of ancient Greece
and works classical literature such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, and Virgil’s The Aeneid.
For Steffani’s and Orlandi’s audience, schooled in the classics,
these references served to deepen the context of the story,
adding detail to the dramatic characters and to the moral
Act I
Alba: an ancient city of Latium founded by Ascanius, the
son of the Trojan hero Aeneas
Alecto: one of the three Furies, creatures charged with
avenging wrongdoing
Argos: a powerful city in ancient Greece, and a rival of
Sparta
Boeotia (Boethian countryside): a region in ancient
Greece; its largest city was Thebes
Corinth: city in ancient Greece
Cupid: God of Love, son of Venus
Delia (Diana): Goddess of the moon, and of the hunt (also
known as Artemis)
Dirke: wife of Lycus, a former ruler of Thebes; killed by
Anfione.
Enceladus: a giant, and a son of Gaia (Earth); he was buried
under Mt. Etna, whose eruptions are said to be his
breath
Helen: Daughter of Jove and Leda, whose abduction by
Paris from Sparta started the Trojan War
Ismenians (deaf Ismenians): serpents; Cadmus, along with
his wife, after their children had been killed, were
turned by Mars into snakes in revenge for Cadmus
having slain the dragon that guarded the sacred spring
of Ismenos near Thebes.
Janus: the God of beginnings and endings, with two faces
looking simultaneously in two directions, toward the
past and the future
Jove (Zeus): king of the Gods, and husband of Juno
Juno (Hera): wife of Jove
Knidos: ancient Greek city in Cyprus
Latium: region on the ancient Italian peninsula in which
Rome was founded
Latona (Leto): mother of Apollo and Diana (their father is
Jove)
Lycus: former ruler of the city of Thebes; killed by Anfione
themes of the dramaturgy. To help our modern audience enjoy
some of the same context, we offer this glossary of place names
and persons cited in the libretto of the opera. Although the
story takes place in ancient Greece, Orlandi uses the Roman
terms natural to his native tongue. We have retained the
English equivalent of these Roman names in our translations
for ease of reference. !
—Ellen Hargis
Mars: God of war
Megaera: one of the three Furies, and sister of Alecto
Mycenae: a city in ancient Greece, and a military stronghold
Nabateans (Nabatene perfumes): people of an ancient
mideast culture who traded in spices and perfumes
from the Orient.
Nemesis: Goddess or spirit of revenge
Paris: son of the king of Troy, and abductor of Helen
Sparta: city-state in ancient Greece and a dominant military
power
Thebes: a Boeotian city-state, and a rival of Athens and
Sparta
Thessaly: a region in ancient Greece and a major military
power
Thrace: a region north of Thessaly in ancient Greek
mythology, mentioned by Homer and Ovid, among
others
Venus: the Goddess of Beauty and mother of Cupid
Act II
Bellona: Goddess of war, known as the sister, wife, or
daughter of Mars
Blind flying Goddess (Themis): Goddess of justice and
divine law
Cocitus: a river in Hell
Danae: mother of Perseus (his father is Jove)
Endymion: a shepherd in ancient Greek mythology,
unrequitedly in love with the moon Goddess
Ether: the pure atmosphere breathed and lived in by the
Gods in Greek mythology
Europa: a noblewoman abducted and raped by Jove in
ancient Greek mythology
Furies: female deities (usually three); personifications of
anger charged with avenging wrongdoing
Hyrcania: part of an ancient Persian empire, in old Persian
“country of wolves”
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metamorphoses – change and transformation
glossary
defeated the creature.
Xanthos: a river created by the birth pangs of Latona. In the
Iliad, the River God Xanthos attempts to drown
Achilles (the Trojan Boy) in the river.
Act III
Adamantine: an herb used in enchantments
Atlas: Titan or giant who supports the heavens
Avernus: in Greek mythology, the entrance to the
underworld, or the underworld itself
Fifth Planet: Mars
Tantalus: father of Niobe and ruler of Tantalus !
211
2011 boston early music festival
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
Leda: mother of Helen of Troy (her father is Jove)
Mercury: messenger of the Gods, and God of trade
Phlegethon: a river in Hell
Phoebus (Apollo): God of light and sun, brother of Diana
(Goddess of the moon), patron of shepherds, music and
poetry, and the arts; his parents are Jove and Latona
Pluto: God of Hell and ruler of the Underworld
Salmoneus: king of Elis, who ordered his subjects to worship
him as Jove; for this, Jove struck him with a
thunderbolt, and destroyed his city
Sicana: Wife of Pluto, also known as Proserpina
Styx (Stygian horrors): a river in Hell
Tartarus: a region of the Underworld; a deep place below
Hades where things dangerous to the Gods are
condemned to stay
Typhon: dreadful monster who battled against Jove, who
imprisoned him under Mt. Etna when he finally