Ai Horton, “Laments for a Modern World”

Chapter 3: Tales and tropes

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3.1 Lament-triggering events

3.11 Lamenting the results of another's actions

3.12 Lamenting the results of one's own actions

3.13 Lamenting an unknown event

3.2 Selling the story

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Appendix A: English translations of 17^th-century Lament texts

Appendix B: Texts of Laments for a Modern World

Bibliography

In the late 1500s, a group of intellectuals known as the Camerata de’ Bardi was formed in Florence under the patronage of Count Giovanni de’ Bardi. This camerata is credited with the revival of musical drama and monodic style borrowed from the Ancient Greeks and Romans,¹ for while Greco-Roman ideas and aesthetics had already enjoyed a period of revival during the Renaissance, music was still engaged in complex polyphonic presentations and the ars perfecta. The rediscovery of Aristotle’s Poetics in the mid-1500s also brought with it a newly revitalised structuring of tragedy through its suggested dramatic techniques that could “by means of pity and fear, [accomplish] the catharsis of […] emotions”.² When opera was first developed at the turn of the 17^th century, many of the librettos used stories from Greco-Roman Classics, and other forms of musical composition followed themes of humanism similar to those suggested by Aristotle.

While the musical Lament is best known to us in its 17^th-century form, this concept of a sung monodic melody to express grief was also borrowed from the traditions of Greco-Roman tragedies.³ The works of Athenian tragedian Euripides (c. 480 BC–c. 406 BC) contain many such examples, such as Helen’s Lament for her woes in Helen, Electra’s expression of grief over the destruction of her home in Orestes, and even a mad-song sung by Cassandra in The Trojan Women.⁴ Although the melodies of these ancient Laments were lost, the distinct astrophic poetry and use of metrical shifts between recitative and song was studied by members of the camerata for their ability to emotionally move an audience and “therefore to accomplish tragedy’s cathartic function”.⁵ While they were not trying to achieve historically accurate reconstructions per se, the librettists and composers of the 17^th century were inspired by these ancient texts⁶ and utilized many of the same dramatic structures in their representation of emotional events. The use of these structures will be further explored in Chapter 7: Painting the picture.

3.1 Lament-triggering events

As previously noted, the 17^th-century Lament was a highly personal expression of grief and was therefore usually presented using a first-person perspective that focused on a specific event, as opposed to a generalized representation of grief within society. Nearly all these events are triggered by some facet of romantic love, whether it be betrayal, abandonment, obstacles hindering a romantic partnership, or the death of a lover. In order to examine the patterns existing within the drama of 17^th-century Laments, I have divided these Lament-triggering events into three categories: lamenting the results of another’s actions; lamenting the results of one’s own actions; and lamenting an unknown event.

3.11 Lamenting the results of another’s actions

The majority of the Laments are triggered by an action outside of the lamenting character’s control. Examples in which these characters lament events that regard death are less common than in the following category, yet still include Orfeo (L’Orfeo) when he learns that his wife Euridice has died from a fatal snakebite in the opera’s second act; Maria Stuarda (“Ferma, lascia, ch’io parli”), who has been condemned to death; and Filia (Historia di Jepthe), whose father Jepthe has sworn an oath to God that has unintentionally resulted in the sacrificing of her life. More usual are situations in which the subject has been scorned by their respective lovers, such as Arianna (“Lamento d’Arianna”), who is abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos; Ninfa (“Lamento della Ninfa”), whose lover has left her for another woman; Idraspe, (“Uscitemi dal cor”), who has been rejected by his former lover Aldimira; Eraclito (“L’Eraclito Amoroso”), a Greek philosopher whose lover has been unfaithful; and the singer of “Lagrime Mie”, who is prevented from being with his love Lidia by her father.

3.12 Lamenting the results of one’s own actions

Francesco Allegrini, “The Departure of Aeneas Announced to Dido", 1624-63 – Pen and brown ink, brush, and brown wash, over black chalk. Framing lines in red chalk (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

While death-related Laments are less common when the speaker has had no control over the situation, death is usually the Lament-triggering event when the speaker is at fault. Examples include Jephte (Jepthe), who has promised God that he will sacrifice whatever first greets him when he returns home and must now offer his daughter as a burnt offering; Apollo (Gli amori di Apollo e Dafne), who chased the nymph Dafne so relentlessly that Peneo has turned her into a laurel so that she might escape Apollo and preserve her virtue; Cephale (Cephale et Procris), who accidentally and fatally wounds his lover Procris; and Orfeo (L’Orfeo). Whereas Orfeo’s first Lament was due to an event outside of his control, his second Lament in Act V occurs after he goes against the instructions of the god Plutone when attempting to bring Euridice back from the underworld. Orfeo, who has been ordered to not look at his wife, turns back to watch her follow him out of the Underworld and therefore dooms her to remain there forever. Although Dido’s situation from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas has elements that fall between these two categories, I have designated “Dido’s Lament” a result of Dido’s own actions, as she chose to commit suicide after dismissing Aeneas’ offer to stay with her in Carthage on the grounds that he should have never even considered leaving her. Furthermore, “Dido’s Lament” serves less as an expression of grief towards Aeneas’ departure, but rather for the pain she will cause others by taking her own life.

3.13 Lamenting an unknown event

Two of the works in this survey do not have a clear framework regarding the cause of the lamentation in question. Purcell’s “The Plaint” is often included in his semi-opera The Fairy Queen and is sung by an un-named woman. Despite being one of the most well-known songs within the entire show, it is often extracted as a stand-alone piece as it does not figure into the narrative of the work as a whole. The only reference to the lament-triggering event is the line “He’s gone his loss deplore, and I shall never see him more”, which does not define the means by which the subject has disappeared, nor if he is living or dead. The second is Francesca Caccini’s “Lasciatemi qui solo”, where the speaker is pleading for all the beautiful things to leave them so they may suffer and die alone. The beginning of the fourth stanza, “Felicissimi amanti tornate al bel diletto” (Happiest lovers return to your beautiful delights) suggests that it may be a regarding a romantic attachment as opposed to a familial or platonic one, but there is not enough evidence available to cement this theory.

3.2 Selling the story

As the majority of operas were produced at the behest of a wealthy patron, composers and librettists were tasked with creating works that would appeal to their employers. Whether the work fell under the umbrella of opera, oratorio, or song, the presentation of the chosen subject matter generally followed “the favorite baroque formulation of instinct and duty, emotion and reason, love and honour”.⁷ The two earliest works in this study, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and L’Arianna, were both sponsored by the Duke of Mantua, the first for presentation as a part of the 1607 Carnival⁸ and the second for the celebrations following the marriage of the Duke’s eldest son.⁹ Both of these operas utilised librettos adapted from Greek Mythology and capitalized on this formulation at their emotional peaks. According to Federico Follino, the court chroniclerwho was present at the opening performance, actress Virginia Ramponi-Andreini (who stepped in after the original Arianna, Caterina Martinelli, died of smallpox a few months before the performance was to take place) gave such a moving performance of the “Lamento d’Arianna” that “there was not one lady [in the audience] who failed to shed a tear”.¹⁰ An extraordinary compositional success, the emotionally heightened “Lamento d’Arianna” is also considered the first operatic scena¹¹ and acted as a basis for all subsequent Laments and arias. Monteverdi’s subsequent lamento-scena, the stand-alone madrigal “Lamento della Ninfa”, also became an important compositional point of reference with its distinctive use of a ground bass, acting as a direct source of inspiration for many of Cavalli’s operatic Laments.¹²

As the popularity of opera grew, the audiences gradually began to include people from the middle and lower classes, although the majority of the spectators (and nearly all of the monies needed to produce the show) still came from the ruling classes. According to information compiled by Lorenzo Bianconi, “there [was], in the composition of the public, a stable ‘column’ of greatest weight, that of the ruling class, and an additional, accessory one, not economically decisive, that can vary.”¹³

Table 1: Composition of operatic audiences in 17^th century Italy¹⁴

Despite the changes in audience composition, the chosen subject matter of operas remained largely the same throughout the 17^th century as composers and librettists continued to promote their “baroque” sensibilities capitalized on what proved most successful.

1. Richard A. Carlton, “Florentine Humanism and the Birth of Opera: The Roots of Operatic ‘Conventions’,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 31, no. 1 (2000): 67–78, accessed June 19, 2022, https://doi.org/10.2307/3108425.

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