Marinismo y Arcadia en el melodrama italiano. Dido abandonada de Metastasio

Abstract

Following Tasso and in view of Marini’s baroque, the Academy of Arcadia –in its attempt to restore the classic balance–, puts forward the most original dramatic expressions in the first half of the 18th century. One of its greatest exponents, Pietro Trapassi –or Metastasio- (1698-1782), adds Tasso and Marini’s influence to the horizon of acquired classicism. That is, he sets the basis for his creations or configurations against a background in which both harmony and conflict coexist in dialectics amidst classical and baroque Marianist motivations. Based on the tensions of that hypotext play, in 1723 Metastasio composes the melodrama Dido Abandoned. Our study is focused on certain peculiar aspects of this original melodrama. Therefore, account is taken of the semantic conjunction that blends Ovid’s passionate vein (Dido’s Letter, The Heroides, 7) into the Virgilian configuration of heroes (Dido and Aeneas, Book IV, TheAeneid), and our quest delves into –and focuses on- formal achievements. The Metastasian articulation puts forward the reformulation of Aristotle’s poetics and the involvement of a musical form: the aria. In the Metastasian melodrama, the aria is neither a mere ornament nor an enhancing addition. In terms of its hermeneutic dimension and function, the Metastasian aria portrays the conceptual nodes of the underlying philosophy in the textual framework.