Dall''effeminato' al 'virtuoso': modelli d'identità di genere nel 'Telemaco' (1718) di Alessandro Scarlatti

Abstract

Few books can claim both the popularity and controversiality of Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), a novel translated into several languages and repeatedly praised for containing «delightful images of practical philosophy» (Muratori, 1706). But Télémaque had more to offer than just reading matter. The dramatic episodes punctuating its epic framework have invited numerous theatrical adaptations. Fénelon's recasting of Telemachus's adventures on Calypso's isle (Books I, IV and VII) bore such conspicuously 'operatic' qualities that it became a favorite opera scenario. 

Clues as to the reception of this particular episode in settecento opera can be found in Muratori's widely-read Della perfetta poesia italiana(1706). In fact, the story of a young prince experiencing difficulties in abandoning « the charms of an idle and effeminate life » chimes with Muratori's rationalist stance on opera and gender. The seducing 'siren songs' of Calypso and her nymphs can be seen as representing the debasing effects of music on contemporary audiences, and the discursive persuasion of Telemachus's counselor Mentor (Minerva in male disguise) as the voice of rationality. As a result, Telemachus's rejection of effeminacy and sensuality must have provided reformist poets with a powerful tool to redefine operatic virtue. Alessandro Scarlatti's Telemaco (Rome, 1718), the first full-scale Italian opera to elaborate on Fénelon's novel, confirms such reading. Intertextual analysis indicates that Carlo Sigismondo Capeci drew his libretto from a hereto-unknown source, Pellegrin's Télémaque (Paris, 1714). Yet, while copying Pellegrin's scenic lay-out, Capeci at the same time restored elements from the novel that were absent from the French opera, most notably the character of Mentor and the semantic devices with which Fénelon had stressed the 'poisoning' effect of feminine eros on masculine eloquence. A closer look at Scarlatti's score reveals how the restoration of Fénelon's gender ideology has helped to differentiate characters exclusively performed by male singers.