Dante's Heart
Re-tellings of the Orpheus Myth
since the ancient Greeks. He has also greatly interested painters like the
Symbolists, who believe that painting can have musical qualities and that color,
line, and form can convey rhythm and harmony. As a result, Orpheus represents
metaphorically the visual artist as well as the poet and musician, a fact which
makes his story a natural for film. Authors since the first century have followed
Virgil and Ovid, who describe Eurydice’s second death, rather than the original
story, which, Lee says, was undoubtedly “one of triumph over death, tragicomic
along the lines of Alcestis.”(9) Among all the many retellings of the tale since
the first century, there are three which, like the pre-Virgilian story, do not end
with the climactic second death of Eurydice and the slightly anti-climactic death
of Orpheus at the hands of enraged women. The versions are the Middle
English Sir Orfeo, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed Euridice”
(10) (with its libretto by Ranien de’ Calzabigi), and Jean Cocteau's surreal film
Orphée. Sir Orfeo includes what has been called the “double abduction”(11)
of Heurodis, Gluck’s Euridice dies when Orfeo looks at her but is brought
back to life by Amore, and Cocteau includes the deaths of Eurydice and
Orphée in the middle of the film but then has them both come back to life.
The sub-text of both “Sir Orfeo” and Orphée is artistic inspiration. Cocteau
begins Orphée in a way similar to “Pan the Piper,” narrating the story of
Orpheus himself, speaking in French with the translation of the text in English
on the screen:
The legend of Orpheus is well-known.
In the mythology of Greece, Orpheus was a troubadour from Thrace.
Back Page 4 Endnotes
since the ancient Greeks. He has also greatly interested painters like the
Symbolists, who believe that painting can have musical qualities and that color,
line, and form can convey rhythm and harmony. As a result, Orpheus represents
metaphorically the visual artist as well as the poet and musician, a fact which
makes his story a natural for film. Authors since the first century have followed
Virgil and Ovid, who describe Eurydice’s second death, rather than the original
story, which, Lee says, was undoubtedly “one of triumph over death, tragicomic
along the lines of Alcestis.”(9) Among all the many retellings of the tale since
the first century, there are three which, like the pre-Virgilian story, do not end
with the climactic second death of Eurydice and the slightly anti-climactic death
of Orpheus at the hands of enraged women. The versions are the Middle
English Sir Orfeo, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed Euridice”
(10) (with its libretto by Ranien de’ Calzabigi), and Jean Cocteau's surreal film
Orphée. Sir Orfeo includes what has been called the “double abduction”(11)
of Heurodis, Gluck’s Euridice dies when Orfeo looks at her but is brought
back to life by Amore, and Cocteau includes the deaths of Eurydice and
Orphée in the middle of the film but then has them both come back to life.
The sub-text of both “Sir Orfeo” and Orphée is artistic inspiration. Cocteau
begins Orphée in a way similar to “Pan the Piper,” narrating the story of
Orpheus himself, speaking in French with the translation of the text in English
on the screen:
The legend of Orpheus is well-known.
In the mythology of Greece, Orpheus was a troubadour from Thrace.
Back Page 4 Endnotes
 |
 |
 |
 |
