Classical Mythology

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND FILM 711

ertheless rash to generalize. Out of the countless number of works on ancient
themes, we list only a few by some major composers as representative.
Charles Gounod (1818-1893), most famous for his Faust and Romeo and Juliet,
wrote a significant opera Philemon et Baucis.
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) created a monumental work with Les Troy ens,
one of the most important masterpieces ever created on an ancient mythologi-
cal subject. The work, which draws heavily upon Vergil, consists of two parts:
La Prise de Troie (based upon Book 2 of the Aeneid) and Troyens à Carthage (the
Dido and Aeneas episode from Book 4). Berlioz also wrote an affecting cantata,
La Mort d'Orphée, for voice and orchestra.
Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) wrote both the music and the libretto of his opera
Mefistofele, after Goethe's Faust, in which Helen of Troy plays such a pivotal and
symbolic role.
Jules Massenet (1842-1912), especially beloved for his Manon and Werther,
composed the opera Bacchus and Ariane.
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), admired for his songs and chamber music, also
wrote two mythological operas, Prométhée and Pénélope.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Russian composer Sergei
Ivanovich Taneiev (1856-1915), a pupil of Tchaikovsky, completed his impres-
sive Oresteia, based on Aeschylus.
Zdenêk Fibich (1850-1899), a Czech romantic composer, created a monu-
mental melodrama for the stage, the trilogy Hippodamia in three parts, The
Courtship ofPelops, The Atonement of Tantalus, and Hippodamia s Death.
Verismo opera, which became the rage at the turn of the century because of
the genius of composers like Giacomo Puccini, turned away from classical
themes in favor of the realistic and shocking or the Oriental and exotic; yet the
realistic Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1858-1919), famous for his Pagliacci, also wrote
an Edipo Rè (posthumously produced). This was in keeping with the trend in the
twentieth century of returning to classical subjects.
Thus, Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973) used the Orpheus theme for a
trilogy, L'Orfeide, and his Ecuba (1941) is modeled on Euripides.
Max Bruch (1836-1920) has given us Odysseus, a vocal and choral master-
piece popular in Bruch's lifetime, which treats episodes from Homer.
Among the operas of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) are L'Orestie d'Eschyle, a tril-
ogy comprising Agamemnon, Les Choéphores, and Les Euménides, composed to a trans-
lation by Paul Claudel; Les Malheurs d'Orphée; Médée; and three short operas (each
only about ten minutes long): L'Enlèvement d'Europe, L'Abandon d'Ariane, and La
Délivrance de Thésée. He also wrote an orchestral work, La Muse Ménagère, which
also became a piano suite. He composed incidental music for Paul Claudel's satiric
drama Protée, which told of the sad and hopeless love of the aged prophet Proteus
for a young girl. The work was rescored as an orchestral symphonic suite, Protée.
The Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) wrote an impressive
opera, Antigone, set to a libretto by Jean Cocteau based upon Sophocles.