CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 709Niccolô (or Nicola) Piccinni (1728-1800), a rival of Gluck (they were both
commissioned by the French Opéra to write an Orfeo), composed more than one
hundred operas, many of them on classical subjects.
There are many other important composers of the eighteenth century who
were classically inspired. Antonio Sacchini (1730-1786) wrote a Dardanus and a
popular masterwork, Oedipe à Colorie.
Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) deserves special mention for his excellent Médée,
an opera on occasion revived for a prima donna of the caliber of Magda Olivero
or Maria Callas who can meet the technical and histrionic demands of the title
role.
The renowned Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) composed an Orpheus and
Euridice (L'Anima del Filosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice), which is considered by many
to be the finest of his many operas. The orchestral introduction of his Oratorio,
The Creation, is a Representation of Chaos.
Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
had an inspired interest in mythological and legendary themes. When only
eleven years old, he wrote a short opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus (1767). The Latin
text by Father Rufinus Widl transforms this famous tale of homosexual passion
into a romantic, heterosexual triangle: Zephyrus (West Wind) falls in love with
Hyacinthus' sister, who also happens to be the beloved of Apollo. Other youth-
ful works by Mozart deal with Roman history as legend: Mitridate, Re di Ponto
(1770), based upon Racine's play about King Mithridates, a "theater serenade,"
Ascanio in Alba (1771), and II Sogno di Scipione (1772). The latter, a serenata, has
a text by Metastasio, derived from Cicero's Somnium Scipionis (Dream of Scipio),
wherein Scipio Aemilianus experiences a vision of an Elysium that is Platonic
to be sure but also, in its chauvinism and substance, very much like the Elysium
of Vergil. In 1775, Mozart completed II Re Pastore, a charming addition to the
mythology of Alexander the Great; Alexander has liberated Sidon from its tyrant
and appoints a Shepherd King in his place. Mozart's Idomeneo, Rè di Creta (1781)
is a fascinating opera, well worth investigation. Mozart's much-loved and ad-
mired opera The Magic Flute (1791) is significant for the mythographer because
of its Masonic symbolism and motifs. The matriarchal Queen of the Night, the
ritual worship of Isis and Osiris, and the ordeals that the hero Tamino must en-
dure for the revelation of the Mysteries all represent universal, thematic pat-
terns. Mozart's last opera, La Clemenza di Tito (1791), is based on Roman history.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) found some direct influence from Greece
and Rome. His Coriolanus Overture, inspired by the legendary Roman hero,
might be mentioned; more to the point is his ballet music The Creatures of
Prometheus. The thematic material of this work seems in a special way to epito-
mize the indomitable spirit of the composer. He arranged it as a set of variations
for piano; and it appears again in the final movement of his great Third Sym-
phony (the Eroica). The whole aura of defiance conjured up by the romantic im-