American Musicological Society

"Imitar col canto chi parla": Monteverdi and the Creation of a Language for Musical Theater Author(s): Mauro Calcagno Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 383-431 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831883 Accessed: 21/09/2010 14:12
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"Imitar col canto chi parla": Monteverdi and the Creation of a Language for Musical Theater
MAURO CALCAGNO

n his 1581 Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music, Vincenzo on stage, urges composersto go to the theaterand listen to the characters Galilei

particularly
whenone quietgentleman with another, whatmanner speaks in he ... speaks whenone of themspeaks one of hisservants, one of thesewithanother; with or ... with and when ... [when]theprince [converses] one of hissubjects vassals; with the petitioner who is entreating favor; his how the maninfuriated exor citedspeaks; married the the woman,the girl,the merechild,the clever harlot, loverspeaking hismistress he seeksto persuade to grant wishes, to as her his the manwho laments, one who criesout, the timidman,andthe manexultant the

with joy.' to who set textsto musicshouldnot onlyimiAccording Galilei, composers tate affects but context abstractly, shouldalsotakeinto accountthe concrete in which words are uttered,as characters do in communicating naturally witheachotheron stage.2 in Musicians, Galilei's view,should"[consider] very
versionsof this paperwere presentedat the InternationalConferenceon EarlyOpera Preliminary and Monody "In Armonia Favellare," held at the Universityof Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,in October 2000, and at the Sixty-sixthAnnual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Toronto, November 2000. I am very gratefulto Ellen Rosand for her comments. 1. The passageis translatedin Oliver Strunk, SourceReadings in Music History,rev. ed., ed. Leo Treitler(New York:W. W. Norton, 1998), 465-66. The originalItalianreads:"Quando [i musici] per lor diporto vanno alle Tragedie e Comedie ... osservino di gratiain qual maniera parla ... l'uno con l'altro quieto gentilhuomo ... quando uno di essi parlacon un suo servo, overo l'uno con l'altro di questi; considerino quando ci6 accade al Principediscorrendocon un suo suddito e vassallo;quando al supplicantenel raccomandarsi; come ci6 faccia l'infuriato,o come la fanciulla; come il sempliceputto; come l'astutamereconcitato; come la donna maritata; trice;come l'innamoratonel parlarecon la sua amatamentre cerca disporlaalle sue voglie; come quelli che si lamenta;come quelli che grida;come il timoroso; e come quelli che esulta d'allegrezza" (Vincenzo Galilei,Dialogo ... della musicaantica et della moderna[Florence:Marescotti, 1581], 89, section "Da chi possano i moderni pratticiimparare l'imitazionedelle parole"["From whom the modern practitioners learnthe imitationof words"]). can 2. Galilei'ssuggestion is part of his critique of contemporarymadrigals.The watershed between his innovativeview of a broadlyintended realisticimitazionedelleparoleand the approach,
[JournaloftheAmerican 2002, vol. 55, no. 3] Society Musicological C 2002 by the American All Musicological 0003-0139/02/5503-0001$2.00 Society. rightsreserved.

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of diligentlythe character the person speaking:his age, his sex, with whom he [is] speaking,and the effect he [seeks] to produce by this means."3Probably dell'arte, inspiredby watching actorsimprovisein comicallyrealisticcommedie Galilei in his vivid description of the variety of speech on stage blurs the distinctionbetween ordinaryand dramaticlanguage. In L'Orfeo (1607) and, to a greater extent, I1 ritorno d'Ulisse in patria di (1640) and L'incoronazione Poppea(1643), Claudio Monteverdi met the realisticgoals suggested by Galileiby musicallyimitating featuresof ordinary language, thereby creating a language suited to theater.4In filfilling the humanisticideal of "imitatingin song a person speaking"("imitarcol canto chi parla"),however,he did more than just develop the musicalvocabularyinherited from his sixteenth-centurypredecessors-a sophisticated and powerful expressivelanguage capableof imitating human affections,one for which the madrigalwas (and still is) so renowned.5True, Monteverdi'smusicalcharacfor their power to portrayaffectionsand move audiences.6But if the novelty of the composer's approachto text/music relationshipshad consisted merely in perfectingthe humanistictraditionof imitatingthe affections,his contribution in creating a language for musical theater would not have been so remarkable.Especiallyin recitatives,Monteverdi conveyed other meanings in addition to affections,meanings dependent on the new situationin which his music resonated-the stage. And these meanings were embodied in textsthe librettos-that were no longer destined in primis to readers(as most of those set as madrigals were) but to audiences.

terizations Arianna Orfeodeserved of and evenin his own time, highpraise,

based exclusivelyon abstractly typicalof madrigalists, imitatingaffectionsis illustratedby Gioseffo Zarlino'sharshcriticismof the passagejust quoted: "O beldiscorso, trulyworthy of the great man he [Galilei]imagines himself to be! ... what he actuallywishes is to reduce music greatlyin dignity and reputation,when, to learn imitation, he bids us go to hear the zanies in tragediesand comedies.... What has the musician to do with those who recite tragedies and comedies?" musicali [Venice, 1588], as quoted in Strunk, SourceReadings,466 n. 7). (Zarlino, Sopplimenti 3. Strunk,Source Readings,466; Galilei,Dialogo,90. 4. On Galilei and Monteverdi, especiallyregardingthe treatment of dissonance,see Claude A Palisca,"Vincenzo Galilei'sCounterpointTreatise: Code for the seconda pratica,"in his Studies in theHistoryof Italian Musicand Music Theory (Oxford and New York:ClarendonPress, 1994), 32-33. The importanceof Galileiin establishinga new realisticstandardfor the musicalimitation of speech is highlighted in Claudio Marazzini, II secondoCinquecentoe il Seicento(Bologna: II Mulino, 1993), 129-31. 5. The expression"imitarcol canto chi parla"appearsin Jacopo Pern's prefaceto his Le musiche... sopral'Euridice(Florence:Marescotti, 1600), iii (and in the English translationby Tim Carterin Strunk, SourceReadings, 659). In a 1634 letter to Giovanni BattistaDoni, Pietro de' Bardirecallsthat Peri had "found a way of imitatingfamiliar speech" ("trovatomodo ... d'imitar il parlar famigliare") (includedin Strunk, Source Readings,524). 6. See the contemporary reactions reported in Paolo Fabbri, Monteverdi(Cambridge and New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1994), 64 and 97-98. Marco da Gagliano,for example, wrote in the prefaceof his Dafine(1608) that Monteverdi'sArianna "moved the whole theatreto tears"(ibid., 98).

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 385 The novelty of Monteverdi's text-setting techniques emerges when we considerthe aspectof languageregardedby the composer as that which music should imitate:oratione,a term referringto spoken texts.7Intended in such a literalway (from orare,meaning to recite a ritual,to plead, to pray,to speak), orationeindicates the peculiarliterarystatus of an operatic libretto, a status that it shareswith a spoken play.Neither the libretto nor the play is intended to be read silently as if it were a long poem or a prose text; rather,they are meant to be performedon stage.8In this respect the language of playsand librettos, intended as performancetexts, shows a remarkablekinship to ordinary language and can be associated(although not equated) with the scripts for commediadell'arte,bare scenariosdesigned to prompt spoken improvisation. A century afterthe birth of musicaldrama,this colloquialaspectwas still one of the featuresmost heavilycriticizedby the intellectualswho wanted to reform opera, the letteratibelonging to the Arcadianacademy.One of them, Giovanni Maria Crescimbeni,not finding in Cicognini's Giasone(the 1649 libretto for Cavalli)the refinedPetrarchan lexicon typicalof Italianpoetic language, dismissedit as "full of vulgarwords," deploring that, in seventeenthcentury librettos, "words increasingly restricted themselves within the boundariesof ordinarylanguage."9
7. The composer's most cited aesthetic statement-that music should be the servant of oratione-is reported by his brotherGiulio Cesarein his prefaceto the 1607 Scherzimusicali;see Strunk, Source Readings,540. Definitions of orationeas referringto speech are found in Gioseffo Zarlino, Istitutioni harmoniche... (Venice: Francesco de i FranceschiSenese, 1573), 84: "la Oratione:cio' ii Parlare, quale esprimecostumi col mezzo della narrationedi alcuna historia,o il favola"("Oration, that is, speaking,which expressesattitudesvia the narrationof some story, or tale"); Giovanni Maria Artusi, Discorsosecondomusicaledi Antonio Braccino da Todi [pseud.] (Venice: G. Vincenti, 1608), 3: "l'Oratione, che e la perfezione e la bellezza del parlare" ("Oration, which is the perfection and beauty of speaking");and finally,the Vocabolario degli Accademicidella Crusca... (Venice:Iacopo Turrini,1680), 562: "Oratione:per lo favellare semmine. A similarconcept informsPeri'stheplicemente"("Oration:simplyspeaking");translations oretical statements about recitative as being based on favella (speech) and parlare ordinario (ordinaryspeaking). See the preface of his Le musiche... sopral'Euridice,iii (in Strunk, Source Readings,660). 8. LibrettistBernardoMorando, introducingthe readerto his "fantastic and musicaldrama" Le vicendedel tempo(Parma:E. Viotti, 1652), refersto the performancestatus of his libretto by saying:"[it seems more] to have spilled from my pen than maturedfrom my imagination.Barely born, the verseswere kidnappedfrom my hands by the music:under the groansof the press,I had to add, to leave out, and to vary many things, to accommodate myself to the scenes, to the machines, to the necessities. So that the opera was first, one may say, sung rather than written; printedratherthan finished"("primauscita dallapenna che maturatadall'ingegno. Nati appenai versi, mi sono stati dallamusica di mano in mano rapiti:e sotto gli stessi gemiti della stampami e convenuto aggiungere,diminuire,e variar molte cose, per accomodarmialle scene, alle macchine, alle occasioni. Si che l'opera 6 stata prima, si pu6 dir, cantata che scritta;stampatache finita") (Morando, Le vicendedel tempo[Bari:Palomar,1997], 28; translation mine). 9. "[La locuzione] ... si riempid'idiotismi.... L'orationesi restrinseentro il parlar proprioe (GiovanniMariaCrescimbeni,La bellezzadella volgarpoesia [Rome, 1700]; quoted in famigliare" Renato di Benedetto, "Poetiche e polemiche," in Teorie tecniche, e immagini efantasmi, vol. 6 of Storiadell'opera italiana, ed. Lorenzo Bianconiand Giorgio Pestelli(Turin:EDT, 1988), 20.

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But that was, in a sense, the point. Seventeenth-centuryItalianlibrettists were awarethat they were not writing highbrow poetry. Some of those active in the Venice of Monteverdiwere lawyersby professionand poets only in their sparetime. But they knew how to createhighly communicativeand successful theatricaltexts which, by bridging prose and poetry, could cater to different types of audiences, from the more to the less cultivated.The extraordinary commercialsuccessof opera, as it was spreadingfrom Venicethroughout all of Italy,also depended on this wide appealof its librettos, written more for the common earthan for the sophisticatedeye.'0 As both linguistsstudying ordinarylanguage and literaryscholarsfocusing on oraltraditionsexplainin contrastingthe semanticstatusof writtenand spoken texts, very differentmeanings emerge when we declaim a text-when we treat it as oratione,to use Monteverdi'sterm." Representingand communicating these meanings through music was the challenge faced by operatic composers. For the first time in the Western art tradition, musicianswrote music for singerswho were acting on a stage for an extensiveand continuous stretch of time-Venetian operas were of quasi-Wagnerian length-in plots
compete.12 The Venetianpublic of the 1630s and 1640s, in the habit of at-

akinto thoseof spokentheater, stageartwithwhichopera the had initially to

tending pastoralplays,comedies, and tragedies,must have perceivedmusic as a strikinglynew feature,indeed no longer a simple addition or temporarydiversion, but a constitutive element of the performances.In this competitive and phase, theatricalmusic was forced to appropriate imitate some of the lin-

of that guisticcharacteristics spokenplaysby developing techniques lateron,

10. For a comprehensivestudy of the genre, including the relationshipsbetween composers and librettists,see Ellen Rosand, Opera in Sevenentnth-Century The Creation of a Genre Venice: (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof California Press, 1991). A thorough investigationof the Italianlibretto in the seventeenthcentury is Paolo Fabbri,II secolo cantante:Per una storiadel libretto d'operanel Seicento (Bologna: II Mulino, 1990). 11. A partiallist of studies dealing with the distinctions between oral and written texts includes WalterJ. Ong, Orality and Literacy:The Technologizing the Word(London and New of York:Methuen, 1982); MichaelA. K. Halliday,Spoken and Written Language (Oxford and New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1989); Deborah Tannen, TalkingVoices: Repetition,Dialogue,and Discourse(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, Imagery in Conversational An 1989); Paul Zumthor, Oral Poetry: Introduction,trans. KathrynMurphy-Judy(Minneapolis: and Universityof Minnesota Press, 1990); and AndreaBernardelli Roberto Pellerey,Ilparlato e lo scritto(Milan:Bompiani, 1999). 12. The importance of the shared elements between RenaissanceItalian theater and early opera has been known to scholars since the pioneering studies of Nino Pirrotta,especiallyhis Music and Theatrefrom Poliziano to Monteverdi, with Elena Povoledo, trans. Karen Eales (Cambridgeand New York:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1982). Some of the first opera singers were also professionalactors, such as the protagonist in the first performanceof Monteverdi's Arianna (1608), VirginiaAndreini Ramponi. Her stage name, "la Florinda,"was derived from the title of a playwritten by her husband, GiovanBattista,who was an actor, dramatist,and poet, besides being the son of two famous commediadell'arteplayers.The firstopera theatersin Venice were previously used for commediedell'arte, as Lorenzo Bianconi observes in Music in the SeventeenthCentury, trans. David Bryant (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 183.

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 387 when opera established itself as a genre, became less prominent but that nonetheless remainedpresent to varyingdegrees. On the phonetic level, early theatricalmusic strove to replicate the sound patterns of spoken language On mainlythrough the new style of recitative.'3 the syntacticlevel, composers followed strategiesalreadydeveloped in quasi-monodic madrigalistic settings in which a large-scale musicalrhetoricmirroredthat of the verbaltext through repetitions, tonal parallelisms,and careful handling of melodic contour.'4 Finally,on the semanticlevel-that with which we are most concerned heretheatricalmusic aimed at representingthose meanings of verballanguage that can be defined as discourse meanings. Discourse meaningsare studied today in linguisticpragmatics, field that the deals with the concrete use of language ratherthan its abstractstructure,with language as communicationand as transformedby context: in sum, with language as discourse.'5In this respect, it is today consideredthe counterpartof ancient rhetoric. Given drama'snaturalemphasis,as a staged art, on context
13. But much more than this, as John Walter Hill explains in his "Beyond Isomorphism: Toward a Better Theory of Recitative"(forthcoming in Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 8, no. 1 [2003], at <http://sscm-jscm.org>; this volume includesthe proceedingsof the conference on early opera and monody held in October 2000 at the University of Illinois, Urbanaof Champaign, to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary the Italian music dramas of 1600). Through an analysisof passagesfrom Peri'sEuridice,Hill shows the potential of considering intonationalphonology in creatingtools with which we can interpretthe meaning communicated by speech intonation, tools that allow us to interpretmusical settings of text that are not merely isomorphicwith speech but that representthe key elements of speech intonation by various means. I see Hill's researchas complementaryto mine, since, by using contemporarylinguistic theories,both aim at understandingthe discoursemeaningsconveyed by texted music. 14. See especiallyGiaches de Wert's and Monteverdi'ssettings of Tasso and Ariosto as discussed in GaryTomlinson, Monteverdi and theEnd of theRenaissance(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Press, 1987), chaps.2, 3, and 5. Universityof California 15. The standardtextbook in pragmaticsis Stephen C. Levinson'sPragmatics,in which the disciplineis divided into four main areas:speech-acts,deixis, presuppositions,and conversational implicatures(Cambridge and New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1983). According to the definition given in Hadumod Bussmann's Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, pragmatics"dealswith the function of linguisticutterancesand the propositionsthat are expressed by them, depending upon their use in specific situations"(trans. Gregory Trauth and Kerstin Kazzazi [London and New York:Routledge, 1996], s.v. "pragmatics"). Useful and comprehensive surveys of the field are Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Ostman, and Jan Blommaert, eds., Handbookof Pragmatics:Manual (Amsterdamand Philadelphia:John Benjamins, 1995); and Jacob L. Mey, ed., Concise Encyclopedia ofPragmatics(Amsterdamand Lausanne: Elsevier,1998). In the Handbook,pragmaticsis defined as "the cognitive, social, and culturalstudy of language and communication"(p. ix). "Discourse,"in Emile Benveniste'sdefinition,is "in its widest sense every utteranceassuming a speakerand a hearer,and, in the speaker,the intention of influencingthe other in some way.... It is everyvarietyof oral discourseof every nature from trivialconversationto the most elaborate oration ... but it is also the mass of writing that reproducesoral discourse or that borrows its mannerof expressionand its purposes:correspondence,memoirs, plays,didacticworks, in short, all genres in which someone addresseshimself as the speaker,and organizeswhat he saysin the in category of person." See his Problems GeneralLinguistics,trans.Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables,Fla.:Universityof Miami Press, 1971), 110, 208. See also the entrieson discoursein both the Handbookof Pragmaticsand the Concise Encyclopedia ofPragmatics.

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a has also that studies, affecting area pragmatics become natural of theater ally

andcommunication, is no surprise in theselastdecades discipline it that the of

of the humanities whichhashistorically the mostdependent linguistics been on and studieshavefruitfilly inter--semiotics.16 semiotics, theater Pragmatics, actedto produceseveral of interpretations, especially earlymodernplays.'7 The interaction theseareas inquiry-as I showin thisessay-can benefit of of to of operastudies contributing a betterunderstanding how anoperacomby discourse imitatposersuchasMonteverdi emphasizes meanings musically by in ing speech allof its multifarious aspects.'8

16. Alreadyin 1966, Roland Barthespredicted the evolution of linguisticsfrom semioticsto and form pragmatics pointed out the link of the latterwith rhetoric:"Discourse... must naturally the object of a second linguistics.For a long time indeed, such a linguisticsof discourse bore a glorious name, that of Rhetoric.As a result of a complex historicalmovement, however, in which Rhetoricwent over to belles-lettres the latterwas divorced from the study of language, it has and recently become necessary to take the problem afresh." See Barthes, "Introduction to the Structural in Analysisof Narratives," his Image,Music,Text,trans.Stephen Heath (New York:Hill and Wang, 1977), 82. For the relationshipsbetween semiotics and pragmatics,see also Umberto Eco, TheLimitsofInterpretation (Bloomington: IndianaUniversityPress, 1990), 212. I use interchangeablyterminology and methods from both pragmaticsand rhetoric, given the kinship between the two disciplines,both of which are concerned with the study of discourse, as Barthes observed. For rhetoric and pragmatics,see Levinson, Pragmatics,376; Federico Albano Leoni and Maria RosariaPigliasco, eds., Retorica e scienzedel linguaggio:Atti del X Congresso internazionale di studi. Pisa, 31 maggio-2giugno 1976 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1979); and the entries on rhetoric in both the Handbookof Pragmaticsand the ConciseEncyclopedia Pragmatics.A soof phisticatedapplicationof both pragmaticsand rhetoricto dramais AlessandroSerpieri'sOn the Languageof Drama, trans.Anna MariaCarusi(Pretoria:Universityof South Africa,1989). 17. "Pragmatics" a word derivedfrom the Greekpragma, which in turn derivesfrompratis tein, "to do," a verb that sharesits meaningwith the etymology of "drama,"dran (also "to do"). I would like to thankDavid Cohen for his suggestionsregardingthis and other matters.For pragmatic and semiotic approachesto theater, see Patrice Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre:Terms, Concepts,and Analysis, trans. Christine Shantz (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Keir Elam, The Semioticsof Theatreand Drama (London and Press, 1998), s.v. "pragmatics"; New York:Methuen, 1980); AlessandroSerpieriet al., "Towarda Segmentationof the Dramatic Dalle fonti ai Text," Poetics Today2 (1981): 163-200; idem, Nel laboratoriodi Shakespeare: Anne Ubersfeld,Reading drammi,4 vols. (Parma:Pratiche,1988), esp. vol. 1 (II quadroteorico); Theatre,trans. Frank Collins (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999); and Vimala Herman, Dramatic Discourse: Dialogue as Interactionin Plays(London and New York: Routledge, 1995). These studies all point to the relevanceof linguistic theories to the study of drama.Regardingthe seventeenthcentury,three influentialinterpretations that make use of pragmatic theories, particularly the subfield of speech-act theory, are Stanley Fish, "How to Do in Things with Austin and Searle:Speech-ActTheory and LiteraryCriticism,"in his Is Therea Text in ThisClass?TheAuthorityof InterpretiveCommunities(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, Act: Don Juan with J. L. Austin, or 1980), 197-245; Shoshana Felman, The Literary Speech Seduction in TwoLanguages, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, Acts in Hispanic Drama (Newark, Del.: 1983); and Elias Rivers, ThingsDone with Words: Speech Juande la Cuesta, 1986). 18. Two studies that approachopera from a pragmaticperspectiveare Marco Beghelli, "PerformativeMusicalActs: The VerdianAchievement,"in MusicalSignification: in Essays theSemiotic and Theory AnalysisofMusic, ed. Eero Tarasti(Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter,1995), 393-412; and

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Consideringoperaticmusic such as that by Monteverdias merelyembodying affectsand concepts-as if his operaswere staged madrigalsor cantataslimits our interpretationof it, since affects and concepts are only two of the meanings that the language of dramatictexts (whether spoken or sung) encodes.'9 If a madrigaland a cantatacan be certainlyand fiuitfully thought of as embodying the composer's "privatereading"of a poetic text--silent readings made sonorous-the same cannot be said of opera, a public genre that representsdramaticspeech through music.20At the very moment in which characters speakor sing on a stage, other meaningsare conveyed as well, those that also emerge in ordinarylanguage and are defined by linguistsas meanings
"utterance-meanings."21

In ordinarylanguage, as John Lyons writes, sentences may be considered as, on the one hand, having a propositionalcontent, or "sentence-meaning," that is, a descriptivemeaning by which they can be said, on paper,to be true or false.On the other hand, the same sentencesmay be examinedaccordingto their usein specificcontexts of communication,gaining the statusof utterance

Philip Rupprecht,Britten'sMusicalLanguage(Cambridgeand New York:CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001). For an applicationof pragmatictheories to the analysisof jazz, see Ingrid Monson, Saying Something:Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), chap. 5. 19. Analysesof Monteverdi's operas usually focus on how his settings subtly reflect affects, concepts, or allegoriespresent in the text (for example, Ellen Rosand, "Monteverdi'sMimetic Art: L'incoronazione Poppea,"CambridgeOperaJournal 1 [1989]: 113-37; and Eric Chafe, di Monteverdi's TonalLanguage [New York:Schirmer,1992]). My approachis complementaryto these. However, my assumptionis that in operaticsettings composers such as Monteverdiproject not only the referential meaningsof their texts (such as affects,concepts, and allegories),but also, and at the same time, pragmatic(or discourse)meanings. In this respectI agree with Rupprecht, who advocatesfor opera studies an "emphasis... on languageas act or performance[which] will help define a new set of questions for the role of words in music" (italics in original). His approach to Britten'smusic "as the site of a fused musicalutterance"is similarto mine in resisting the "critical practicethat would restrictan account of music's engagement with language only to the matter of 'expressing' or 'reflecting' a referentialmeaning originating in single words or phrases."See Rupprecht,Britten'sMusicalLanguage, 3 and 30. 20. The somewhat rigid distinction I hold here between the status of poetic and theatrical texts-and thus between the meanings of texts addressed to readers and those addressed to listeners-does not parallelthat between madrigaland opera, since madrigalistic settings, like operaticones, are intended for listeners.In contrastto madrigalistic settings, however, operaticones are affected by a differentperformancecontext and must convey a wider range of meanings to a largerpublic. For a carefullynuanced view of the relationshipsbetween the musicallanguage of the late sixteenth-centurymadrigal and that of opera, see James Haar's chapter "The Rise of Baroque Aesthetic," in his Essayson Italian Poetry and Music in the Renaissance,1350-1600 (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1986), 125-47. I borrow from Haar the idea of a distinctionbetween Renaissancepolyphony as private,intimatereadingof a text and Baroquemonody as "public,dramaticspeech makingin music" (p. 147). 21. Although there is no consensus among linguists on such terminologicalmatters, in the following summary"utterance-meaning" correspondsto pragmaticand discoursemeaning.

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are us in context-dependent meanings whatconcern here,since emerge they communicative situations asstaged such which those performances, resemble

and acquiring additional of These layers meaning("utterance-meanings").22

to In ogy,and,second,according thewho, when,andwhereof the utterance. the first derives fromtheparticular instance, meaning performed speech-act by

whether context a promise,threat, anapolis the a or to, ently according first, thespeaker In other contextual factors threat, (promise, apology). thesecond,

of ordinary For the language. example, meaningof the sentence"I will go therelatertoday," intended an utterance, as wouldbe understood differvery

encodedin the sentencecome into play.Wordssuch as "I," "today," and "there" havethe function situating speaker's of the in utterance a specific time andplace.Theyaresemantically wordsthataretotally on "empty" dependent the contextof the utterance; do not characterize qualify or someoneor they something,but "pointto" a person,an object,a time. SincelinguistKarl studied themextensively the 1930s,these"empty" in wordshavebeen Biihler namedin various the mostcommontermbeingdeictics, the Greek from ways, wordmeaning show," pointto."23 "to "to find deicticsto be more commonin spokenlanguagethan in Linguists withthe notableexception the typeof textsthatconcern hereof us written, dramatic texts.Following in the fieldof pragmatics, theater scholars linguists the highincidence deictics dramatic asbeingone of the main of in texts regard factors the of fromthatof narrative poetry. or distinguishing language theater Theater unlike andprose(butlikeordinary texts, poetry language), "produce to thatof the stageandthe actors meaningin relation a pragmatic context," as first it.24 inhabiting Theater, KeirElamwrote, "consists and foremostin
22. See John Lyons, Linguistic Semantics:An Introduction (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), a textbook organized according to the tripartitedivision of word-, sentence-, and utterance-meaning. See also John Saeed, Semantics (Oxford and in Cambridge:Blackwell,1997), 94; and AndreasH. Jucker'sentry "semanticsand pragmatics" the ConciseEncyclopedia Pragmatics,in which a distinction is made between semanticsas "a of term used for the study of meaning in naturallanguage (word meaning, sentence meaning)" and pragmaticsas "used for the study of meaning in interaction,which includes speakermeaning and considerationof the wider context" (p. 830). 23. KarlBiihler,Sprachtheorie: Darstellungsfunktion Sprache Die der (Jena:G. Fischer,1934), chap. 2, "Das Zeigfeld der Spracheund die Zeigwbrter,"79-148. I quote from the English translation by Donald FraserGoodwin, entitled Theory Language: TheRepresentational Functionof of Language (Amsterdam and Philadelphia:J. Benjamins, 1990). Other terms for "deictics" are "shifters" (Roman Jakobson), "indexicals" (Charles S. Pierce), and "embrayeurs" (Emile Benveniste). For a recent survey of deixis, see Alan Cruse, Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 305-27. For deicticsin the Italianlanguage, see LauraVanelli,"Ladeissi,"in Tipidifrase, deissi, ed. formazionedelleparole,vol. 3 of Grandegrammaticaitaliana di consultazione, Lorenzo Renzi et al. (Bologna: I1Mulino, 1995), 261-375. 24. See Serpieri,"Towarda Segmentation," 162. The first applicationof deictic theory to theater occurredin the context of the so-called Prague school of semiotics. See Jindfich Honzl, "The Hierarchy of Dramatic Devices," in Semioticsof Art: Prague SchoolContributions,ed.

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a It theater an arttied is this,an I addressing you hereandnow."25 is because to actor/performers subjects enunciation), stage (space),and the of the (as axisof the present(time) that deicticsmakeup the quintessential dramatic The addition music-i.e., the otherart alsotied to performers, of language. textscan only reinforce contextual the spaces,and presentness-todramatic elements commonto spokenandmusical at theater, particularly the moment in whichpersonal, and deictics--such "I," "here,"and as spatial, temporal in a compound musicandwords.26 on of "now"-resonate stage to is to My approach Monteverdi's operatic settings similar thatof drama in scholars thatI borrow frompragmatic theories showhow the composer to in elementsembodiedin language, emphasizes his librettosthe contextual in studiesthe semantics "performance" of particularly deictics.Pragmatics textsaddressed listeners to or If (discourse, pragmatic, utterance meanings). texts-that is, librettos,like theaterplays,are considered"performance" discourses-thenthe meanings in prominent thesetexts-discoursemeanings -need to be takeninto accountby operacomposers such as Monteverdi. at Monteverdi confronted problem a that Writing the dawnof opera's history, is inherent the genre,andone withwhichlatercomposers hadto deal: in also effective for devising waysto set thoselibretto passages whichmusicneedsto the level withoutfalling parlando. into These approach declamatory of speech, less occurwithinsections recitative of quasi-parlando, lyrical passages normally or recitative-like To set themeffectively, composer a mustreadthe text style. as a "performance" as a pieceof "writing reproduces discourse that oral text, andthatborrows fromits manner expression its purposes," use linof and to definition discourse. investigating comof In how guist EmileBenveniste's historical posersin different periodsfind meansto imitatespeech,and how their musicprojectsmeaning,musicalanalysis may gain from a pragmatic of reading librettos.27

Ladislav Matejkaand Irwin R. Titunik (Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press, 1976), 118-33. For deixis in Italiantheater,see Pietro Trifone, "L'italiano teatro,"in Scrittoeparlato,vol. 2 of Storiadella a lingua italiana, ed. Luca Serianniand Pietro Trifone (Turin:Einaudi, 1994), 84-86. 25. Elam, TheSemiotics Theatre, 139. of 26. In stressing,as I do, the similarities between spoken theaterand opera, one must not foris get the differences,especiallyas far as opera's emphasison "presentness" concerned. As Carl Dahlhausputs it: "The individualoperaticscene tends [in contrastto what occursin plays] to appear to us as 'pure present,' as absolute present unrelated to past and future." In this respect, in opera approachesthe status of novels. See Carl Dahlhaus, "Drammaturgia dell'operaitaliana," Storiadell'opera italiana, ed. Bianconi and Pestelli,6:82 and 118 (my translation). 27. For a short example,see note 69 below. The quote by Benvenisteis from note 15 above. The most comprehensivestudy of recitativein seventeenth-centuryItalianopera is Beth Glixon's "Recitative in Seventeenth-Century Venetian Opera: Its Dramatic Function and Musical Language"(Ph.D. diss., RutgersUniversity,1985). For a surveyof the style afterthis century,see universaledella musica e dei muElvidio Surian'sentry "recitativo"in Dizionario enciclopedico ed. sicisti:II lessico, Alberto Basso (Turin:UTET, 1983-84), 4:60-63. In my essay,the focus on

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In his operas,however,Monteverdinot only elevatesthe imitationof to and still speech(whathe calledoratione) an unprecedented, perhaps unsurlevelof sophistication, in so doing,he alsoachieves but drapassed, large-scale matic whichaffect interpretation theworksasa whole.Through our of results, his settings, composer the broadissues related the humancondito highlights and issues raised the libretin tion, suchasthe roleof subjectivity temporality, tos and, as I show towardthe end of this essay, also discussed the wider in intellectual contextof histime.

Musical-Dramatic Coordinates Establishing

The textof the prologue Orfeo of a features notable on emphasis deixis:
From my beloved Permessus I come to you, illustriousheroes, noble scions of kings, incliti eroi, sangue gentil di Regi di cui narrala Famaeccelsi pregi, whose glorious deeds Fame relates, ne giunge al ver, perch'e tropp'alto il though falling short of the truth, since the target is too high. segno. Io la Musica son, ch'ai dolci accenti so fartranquilloogni turbato core, et hor di nobil ira, et hor d'amore posso infiammarle piti gelate menti. Io su ceterad'or cantandosoglio mortal orecchio lusingartalhora, e in guisa tal de l'armoniasonora de le rote del Ciel piti l'alme invoglio. I am Music, who in sweet accents can calm each troubled heart, and now with noble anger,now with love, can kindle the most frigidminds. I, with my lyre of gold and with my singing, am used to sometimes charmingmortal ears, and in this wayinspiresoulswith a longing for the sonorous harmony of heaven's Dal mio Permesso amato a voi ne vegno,

lyre.
Quinci a dirvid'ORFEO desio mi sprona From here desire spurs me to tell you of Orpheus, d'ORFEO che trasseal suo cantarle fere, Orpheuswho drew wild beaststo him by his songs e servo fe l'Inferno a sue preghiere, and who subjugated Hades by his entreaties, the immortal glory of Pindus and gloriaimmortaldi Pindo e d'Elicona. Helicon.

deicticslimits the discussionof Monteverdi'ssettings to only one of the possible discoursemeanings that his music reflects.Speech-acttheory is the other obvious areaof researchfor-apragmaticoriented approachto opera. See the studies by Beghelli and Rupprecht mentioned in note 18 above, and my "StagingMusical Discoursesin Seventeenth-Century Venice: FrancescoCavalli's Eliogabalo (1667)" (Ph.D. diss.,YaleUniversity,2000), 235-86.

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 393 Hor mentrei cantialterno, lieti,hor Now while I alternatemy songs, now hor mesti now sad, happy, non si movaaugellin questepiante, fra let no smallbirdstiramongthesetrees, ne s'odain questeriveondasonante, no noisywave be heardon these riverbanks, et ogniAuretta suo camin in s'arresti.28 and let each little breeze halt in its course. Entering the stage alone, the characterLa Musica declares her provenance ("Dal mio Permessoamato")and addressesthe public in the presenttense ("a voi ne vegno"). A motion is implied from the river to the stage, a passage evoked by the ritornellomusic, and a space is created in which the subject ("mio Permesso")locates herself.In the second half of the firstverse, a channel of communicationis verballyestablished,that between character puband lic: addressing"you" (voi), La Musicapausesto elaborateon her praiseof the the public for the rest of the quatrain(historically, "you" is the Gonzaga family). An emphasison the audienceis typicalof theaterprologues, in which language stresseswhat linguist Roman Jakobson famously called its "conative function," that is, the orientation of the utterance toward the addressee,as found for example in vocative and imperativesentences.29 But this "you" directed to the addresseeis possible only on the condition that an "I" exists,the addresserrepresentedin this prologue by the possessive "my" (mio) at the very beginning of the opening line. with the firstpersonalpronoun ("Io la By opening the next two quatrains Musica son"; "lo su cetera d'or"), the librettist,AlessandroStriggio, adheres to a convention adopted in a varietyof prologues of Renaissance tragediesand comedies. Seven years earlier,the librettist Ottavio Rinuccini followed the same convention by opening his Euridice, set to music by Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini,with the words "lo, che d'alti sospiri ... canto." The obvious self-referential qualityof the firstpersonalpronoun is enhanced, in the Orfeo La prologue, by the fact that the character Musica introducesherselfboth by naming herselfand by singing her name. Her gesture is renderedeven more powerful by being echoed at the dramatic climax of the entire opera, in Orfeo's Possente spirto(act 3), exactly at the symmetricalcenter of the work: "Orfeo son io," the protagonist says at the outset of the fourth of six tercets (thus again in a centralposition).30Also in Possente spirto,as in the prologue's first quatrain,Jakobson's "conativefunction" of language (the emphasison
28. AlessandroStriggio, La Favolad'Orfeo... (Mantua:FrancescoOsanna, 1607), prologue. 29. See Roman Jakobson, "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics," in Style in Language,ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (New York:Wiley, 1960), 350-77. 30. See Stile Wikshgland,"Monteverdi'sVoices: The Construction of Subjectivity," paper presentedat the conference "BaroqueBridges:Music, Poetry,and the VisualArts in SeventeenthCentury Italy,"YaleUniversity,14-15 April2000.

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the addressee)predominates;although this time the addressis directed not towardthe public but toward Charon,it has the same intention:to persuade. "I," "you," and "my" are, as we have seen, deictic expressions,"pointing words." But "I" has a unique function in language, since it representsthe primitivedeictic expression,identifyingthe speakeras subject.As Benveniste wrote, the firstpersonalpronoun "refersto the act of individualdiscoursein which it is pronounced, and by this it designatesthe speaker.It is a term that cannot be identifiedexcept in ... an instanceof discoursethat only has a momentary reference.The realityto which it refers,"Benveniste concluded, "is the realityof discourse."3'The foundation of human subjectivityis itself inscribedin language, the identity of the subjectbeing inextricably tied to his or her saying"I." Furthermore,human subjectivity intimatelyconnected with is time, with the "continuous present" of discourse,and thus it manifestsitself even more prominentlywhen the firstpersonalpronoun is joined with a verb in the present tense.32In this respect, the two sentences "lo la Musica son" (sung by La Musica) and "Orfeo son io" (sung by Orfeo) are extraordinarily dense from the semanticpoint of view.They are sung by the quintessential operatic characters(La Musica and Orfeo) in order to establishon stage their own subjectivity-as well as, I would add, that of the very genre they historicallyinaugurate.33 But in OrfeoLa Musicanot only refersto, or points at, herselfand the public by adopting what linguists call the personaltype of deixis ("I," "you," and establishes,one after the other, the very coordinates "my"). She strategically of musicaldrama,the basicspatialand temporalaxes that allow her-her body and her voice-to exist, and to sing, as a characteron the stage. The fourth and fifth strophes of the prologue open with the words quinci and hora, two other types of deixisin lanmeaning "fromhere" and "now,"illustrating guage: spatial deixis ("here") and temporaldeixis ("now"). Biihler first explained the importance of these three fundamental types of deictics ("I," "here,"and "now," personal,spatial,and temporal). In a graph representing
31. Emile Benveniste,"Subjectivity Language,"in his Problems GeneralLinguistics, in in 226. See also, on these issues, Paul Ricoeur, "Utterance and the Speaking Subject: A Pragmatic Approach,"in his Oneselfas Another,trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1992), 40-55. 32. On the issue of time and subjectivity, Louis Marin,"Remarques see critiquessurl'6nunciation: La question du present dans le discours,"in his De la representation (Paris:Gallimardand Seuil, 1994), 137-48. 33. It is significant that in Orfeo la Musica, and not Tragedy (as in Peri's and Caccini's who establishesthe three main dramaticcoordinates,a fact suggesting Euridice),is the character that the newly born genre of opera has finallyreached maturity."Io la Musica son" and "Orfeo son io" aretwo sentencesrelatedby a literaland semanticchiasmus: ABC becomes B'CA in a permutation in which B and B' (la Musica and Orfeo) are semantically related.For a similarchiasmus spanning acts 1 and 3 of Ritorno d'Ulissein Patria, see Table 1 below. It is also worth noticing that in the Italianlanguage (contraryto English) personalpronouns are not needed to make up a correctsentence;thus theirpresenceis all the more relevant. grammatically

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 395 the "deicticfield"of languageas a circleintersectedby two perpendiculars (see Fig. 1), he placed the three main deictics at the very center, callingthem Egohic-nunc origoof the field; from this center, he claimed, all the other deictics radiate(e.g., you, s/he, it; there, that; then, etc.; see Fig. 2 below, on which more later).` The establishmentof the deictic field allowed Biihlerto contrasteffectively deicticswith the rest of human language, which he divided accordingto two differentfunctions:that of intuitive pointing and presenting--delimiting the "deicticfield"-and that of the abstractand conceptualgraspingof the world and its naming--identifying the "symbolicfield." Pointing (an act that we often see on the theatricalstage) is the firstand fundamentalgesture that connects body and mind to the external world, an act that for Btihler (as for Benveniste)is embodied in human voicethrough deixis. This is especiallytrue with "I," a pronoun that has a distinctiveKlangcharakter virtue of its close by relationshipto the individualvoice qualityof the speaker.35 Striggio'stext for the Orfeoprologue can be read accordingto the distinction between pointing and naming words, between the deictic and symbolic fields of language.And Monteverdi'squasi-strophic setting capitalizeson this division, createdby the five stropheswith an almost calculatedsymmetry(see Ex. 1 for the setting of the second strophe). The ostinato bass assumes the unifying function of delimiting the five distinct "blocks,"each marked by a single deictic at the start of the strophe (mio, io, io, quinci, and ora). These words are clearlyisolated and emphasizedby the long note placed on each of them, by the initial declamatorycharacterof the melody, and by the stable supportingharmonyin the firsthalfof each strophe'sfirstline. By stressingthe words that are at the center of the deictic field (to follow againBiihler'sterminology), the singer imitates an actor who would similarlyemphasize them in her declamation.Once Monteverdifirmlyestablishesthe main coordinatesof the deictic field, he then shifts gears and, by varying the melodic setting of each strophe, freely explores the symbolic meanings of the individualwords (whereasthe bass continues to have an "anchoring,"deictic function). Thus, afterthe firsthalf-line,the focus of the musicalsetting is no longer the establishmentof the theatrical-musical situationthrough the pointing words (carryof ing deictic meaning), but the musicalrepresentation the symbolic meaning
34. "My claim,"Biihlerexplains,"is that if this arrangement to representthe deictic field of is human language, three deictic words must be placed where the 0 [i.e., the origin] is, namely the deicticwords 'here,' 'now,' and 'I'" ( Theory ofLanguage, 117). 35. BUihler of explainswhat he calls the particularKlangcharakter Individualcharakter) (or the firstpersonalpronoun by giving the exampleof a person who, at the door, answersthe question "Who is there?"with the firstpersonalpronoun: "By saying 'I,' he depends on my recognizing him individually among the cohort of my closer acquaintancesby the sound of his voice" (italicsin original). On the contrary,"the characterof a proper name as a naming word is recognized by the fact that this linguisticsign can be pronounced by any speakerwhatever,its auditory materialis irrelevant its naming function" (ibid., 129 and 130). to

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Figure 1 Graph representing the "deictic field" of language. From Karl Biihler, Theoryof Language: The Representational Function of Language, trans. Donald Fraser Goodwin (Amsterdamand Philadelphia:J. Benjamins, 1990), 117. Reproduced by permission of John BenjaminsPublisher,Philadelphia.

of the namingwords (names and adjectives).In other words, what the musical setting now conveys through the melody (as opposed to the strophic bass) is no longer what words show but what they say-i.e., symbolic, not deictic, meaning. For example, in the second strophe, the quality of tranquillo ("calm") is musically contrasted with that of ira ("anger") and of gelate ("frigid"), while in the third strophe the armonia sonora ("sonorous harmony") of the third line is emphasized. Finally,the musicalrests in the fifth stropheevoke the Arcadiancontext to which the words allude.In this respect, text and music relate to each other as they do, say, in a madrigal,in which the situation need not be specified and the symbolic meanings of the words dominate the musicalsetting. By highlighting first pointing and then naming words, Monteverdi's strophicsetting of the prologue matchesthe internaldispositionof each of the five symmetrically arrangedstanzas.In this case the aims of librettistand comsensitiveto the douposer coincide.36But that the composer was particularly ble semanticnatureof the text-even more than his librettist,one may say-is shown, first, by the modifications of the libretto that Monteverdi makes in
36. In this respect,Peri'sand Caccini'sprologues to Euridice,which are strophicthroughout In (that is, the music is given only for the firstof the seven strophes),work differently. Rinuccini's text, the firsttwo strophesare not, as in Striggio's,two independentsyntacticunits, but are consequential:the subject"io" at the beginning of the firststrophehas to "wait"until the fourth line of the second strophe to be followed by its verb ("canto");the music, in the meantime, has already startedits firstrepeat. On the contrary,the syntaxesof Monteverdi'smusic and of Striggio'sfive stanzascoincide.

Monteverdiand a Languagefor MusicalTheater

397

in Favola musica Amadino, (Venice: 1609),prologue: setting Example1 Monteverdi, L'Orfeo: of thesecondstrophe (mm.15-21)
15

LAMUSICA

son S o lamu-si-ca

ch'ai ac-cen - ti dol-ci

Sofar co tur-ba-to- re tran-quil-lo o-gni

19

Et hor di no-bi-l'i-ra et hor d'a-mo-re Pos

s'in-fiam-mar

le pic ge-la - te men - ti.

" i-=-'{,

,,

.1 ..

order to stresspointing words, and, second, by the way in which he sets these words. As far as the first aspect is concerned, in the prologue the composer changes the text of line 11, "e in guisa tal de l'armonia sonora," into a smoother "e in questa guisa a l'armoniasonora," replacingthe word tal with the more effective deictic questa.Also in act 1, the line that ends Ninfa's speech, "col v6stro su6n, nostr' rmonia s'acc6rde,"becomes in Monteverdi's setting "sia il v6stro c6nto al n6stro subn conc6rde": the change of accent highlights the two deictics vostroand nostro,and in turn this modification allows Monteverdi to build a sequential passage mirroring the opposition between "our" (nostro)and "your" (vostro).37 far as musical emphasison As deictics is concerned, this occurs in Orfeoeither through sequentialpassages (such as that just mentioned, in which firstand second person are contrasted) or through melodic and rhythmic underlining.38 Word repetition--a device rarelyused by composersin recitativebut one that Monteverdi,as we shallsee, uses extensivelyin his late operasto emphasizedeictics-is limited in Orfeoto only two passages, both crucial from the dramatic point of view: Orfeo's lament "Tu se' morta mia vita, ed io respiro" and his powerful invocation
37. See my "Monteverdi's in parolesceniche," which I discussthe composer'smodificationsof Music 8, no. 1 Striggio's text intended to highlight deictics (Journal of Seventeenth-Century [forthcoming, 2003], <http://sscm-jscm.org>). 38. See, for example, Euridice'sfirstspeech in act 1, at the words "che non ho meco il core, ma teco stassi";Speranza's"lasciate ogni speranzavoi ch'entrate"in act 3; Caronte'semphasison "queste" and "mio" (his only words set on a low F2) in the same act; Proserpina's"io cosi stabilisco"in act 4; Euridice's"ed io, misera"in her last speech in the same act ("io" is sung at the same pitch as "ahi");and finallythe accentuation,reinforcedby key change, of the word "tu" (referringto Euridice)in "ma tu animamia" and "tu bella fosti"in Orfeo's lamentin act 5.

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not only of underscoringan intensifiedemotional state by conveying

symbolic/affective meaning, but also, at the same time, of emphasizing the protagonist'ssubjectivity communicatingdeictic meaning. by As I have done above, in the following textual-musical analysesof Monteverdi's Ritorno and Poppea,I maintainthe opposition between symbolic and deictic fields, naming and pointing words, again following Btihler'sterminology.40These words convey the two meaningsthat-when librettosare considered as linguistic discourses---opera composers need to take into account in setting their texts. In operatic music it is insufficientfor composers to highmusicalexpressionsof affectsmust be complemented by an emphasison those words of the text that point to the dramaticsituation-who is singing, when, and where-occurring at the moment in which the sung words areuttered on the stage. In addition to those used in Orfeo,in his late operas Monteverdi develops new musical devices, such as repetition and style shift, to highlight deictics-a strategythat contributeseven furtherto the total dramaticeffect.41

"Rendetemiil mio ben."39In both cases, word repetition achievesthe result

or light merelythe firsttype of meaning,the symbolicone. Madrigalisms

Re-centering the Self

The three main kinds of deictics-temporal, spatial,and personal-are expressions whose interpretationdepends on the circumstancesof the utterance: when it occurs, where the speakeris at the time, and who the speakerand his or her intended audience are.42I have mentioned above the markedgestural
39. For an analysis of Monteverdi's reworking of the text in "Tu se' morta," see Gary Tomlinson, "Madrigal,Monody, and Monteverdi's'via naturaleallaimmitatione,'" this Journal 34 (1981): 84-85. For Tomlinson, Monteverdi's reworking is a consequence of Striggio's "poeticinadequacy." 40. Linguist and anthropologistMichael Silversteincomments on this distinction (which he defines as one between semantic or referentialmeaning and pragmaticor indexicalmeaning) as follows: "Once we realizethat distinctpragmaticmeaningsyield distinctanalysesof utterances,we can severour dependence on referenceas the controllingfunctionalmode of speech, dictatingour traditionalsegmentations and recognitions of categories.We can then concentrateon the manifold socialpragmatics that are common to language."See his "Shifters, LinguisticCategories,and CulturalDescription,"in Meaning in Anthropology, Keith Basso and Henry Selby (Albuquered. 187. que: Universityof New Mexico Press, 1976), 20, as quoted in Monson, SayingSomething, 41. Given the lack of surviving music for his other operas (except for the Lamento d'Arianna), the chronologicalgap between the firstopera and the last two preventstracinga linear development in Monteverdi'streatmentof deixis from Orfeo(1607) to Ritorno and Poppea (1640 and 1643). But the contrastin the context of performancebetween the Mantuanfavola per musicaon the one hand and the Venetiandrammiper musicaon the other-i.e., between the court and the public opera-may be reflectedin the composer'sincreasedeffort, in his late works, to further highlight "theatrical" words such as deictics. For the subject of court versus public opera, see Bianconi,Musicin theSeventeenth Century,161-70. 42. See CharlesJ. Fillmore,"Deictic Categoriesin the Semanticsof 'Come,' " Foundationsof Language2 (1966): 220; quoted in AlessandroDuranti,LinguisticAnthropology (Cambridgeand New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1997), 209.

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 399 quality of deictics as words that associatelanguage with an act of pointing. This gesturalqualityis particularly emphasized by characters acting on a theater stage. In opera, singersoften make use of pointing gesturesin connection with deictics, complementing motions expressingaffects and emotions, and thus mirroring(in effect, acting out) the twofold divisionof languageinto deictic and symbolic fields. Figure 2 is drawnfrom a study of kinesics(the discipline investigating bodily movement as communication) and illustratesan extension of Bihler's graphin Figure 1 accordingto "proximal" and "distal" deictic movements, that is, those toward and away from the body of the speaker(or actor/singer) situatedat the centerof the deicticfield.43 In additionto providinga link between language, body, and reality,the act of pointing can occur within languagewhen a demonstrative pronoun such as "this" and "that"is used to refer not to an externalobject or person but to something that the speaker has mentioned earlier ("discourse deixis" or as "anaphora," in "Havingsaid that, I would add.. ."). Also, some verbssuch as "to come," "to leave," and "to return"have an inherent deictic qualityin that they refer to a movement to or from a person, thus making explicit the proximal or distal movement implied in a personal or spatial deictic (as in "Come here!"). Finally, even changesin verb tenses can be interpretedas a deictic shift in the axis of their "orientation,"for examplewhen in speakingwe switch from a narrationin the past tense to a descriptionin the present. (See the top of Figure 2, where past, present, and future verb tenses are relatedto deictics;an exampleis provided at the end of this section.) The presencein all languages and culturesof differentkinds of deictics have made them a fertile field of researchin many disciplines,including anthropology,literarycriticism, and, most importantfor our subject,theaterstudies.44 The title itself of Monteverdi's 1640 opera II ritorno d'Ulisse in patria evokes the protagonist'sdeictic movement toward his psychologicalcenterhis homeland. For Ulysses, identity and location are, on a basic existential level, importantand relatedfeatures.Throughout his journey the hero struggles to keep his self intact despite his geographicaldisplacements.His return home to Ithaca signals the end of this struggle-the time in which, to use
43. Figure 2 appearsin Elam, The Semioticsof Theater,74, and is taken from Ray Birdwhistell's pioneering study Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication (Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press, 1970), 123. Elam comments on the importance of deicticsfor the body language of actorsin light of Birdwhistell's divisionof proximaland distal movements: "Pronominal,or deictic, markersindicate gesturallythe object of the simultaneous verbal discourse. The point of definition is the speaker-actor's body, so that a proximity of the referentto the subjectis the crucialfactor"(p. 73). 44. A partial list of contributions follows. For anthropology, see Duranti, Linguistic For 199-213; and Silverstein,"Shifters." literature,see the entry "literary Anthropology, pragmatics" by Roger D. Sell in ConciseEncyclopedia of Pragmatics,530-31; for Italianliterature,Lino Pertile, "Qui in Inferno:Deittici e culturapopolare," Italian Quarterly37 (2000): 57-67. For s.v. theater,see Pavis,Dictionary of the Theatre, "deixis";Elam, TheSemiotics Theater; of Herman, Dramatic Discourse; Serpieri,"Towarda Segmentation";and the other works mentioned in note 24 above.

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PAST

PRESENT his,her, she, he,

it, they,them

FUTURE

his,her,he, she,
it, they, them I, me, my, mine,
our, we, us

his,her,he, she,
it, they, them

DISTANT

DISTANT

there, that,
then, yesterday

there, that,
tomorrow

of expression action past

here, this, now, today

of expression future action

..

his, her, he, she, it, they, them

of between deictics bodymovements and indicate Figure2 Diagram the relationships (arrows "distal" "proximal" and FromKinesics Context RayW. Birdwhistell. and movements). by Copyof with permission the of right ? 1970 Trusteesof the University Pennsylvania. Reprinted publisher.

the language coincide with"now." Unlikeany ofdeixis,"I"and"here" finally othertrip,in whichdeparture destination and and pointsareseparate different, in Ulysses' journeythe two pointscoincidewith eachother:as William noticesin contrasting Greek the herowithAeneas,"Ulysses's Stanford career movesin a circle described fromIthaca Ithaca."45 to of representation Biihler's the deicticfieldas a circleintersected two perpendicular (Fig. 1) may axes by thus alsosymbolize anchored In Monteverdi's self. Ulysses'firmly operathe of self emotional physical and re-centering Ulysses' into its proper spaceis signifiedthroughan emphasis the spatial on deictics"here" "this," and accomplished, as we shall see, both through their almost obsessivecontiguous
2d Hero, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), 136.
45. See William B. Stanford, The Ulysses A Theme: Studyin theAdaptabilityof a Traditional

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 401 repetition and through shifts of meter and style. Only in the last scene do become prominent.46 personaland temporaldeicticsgradually In act 1, scene 8, the shipwreckedUlysses, just awakenedon the shores of Ithaca,sees the young shepherdwho is laterrevealedto be Minerva.The first thing the hero can think of is to lie to the young shepherd, since he must be "malpraticod'inganni"("unskilledin deceit," as Ulysses assumes,speakingto himself). He asks the shepherd where he is, and the shepherd answers by mare"("This pointing at the surroundingarea:"Itacae questa,in sen di questo is Ithaca,in the bosom of this sea").47 Then (s)he invites Ulysses to rejoice at the sound of the island'sname, a name stronglytied to the hero's identity (at this point the music features a long melisma highlighting the word nome). Although Minerva knows who is speaking to her, she neverthelessasks him where he comes from and where he is going. Ulysses startshis elaboratenarrative with the words "lo Greco sono et hordi Creta io vengo"("I am a Greek and now from Crete have come"), using three deictics (lo, hor,and vengo)and continuing his pattern of deception. After the shepherd is revealed to be Minerva,and Ulysses reactswith joy and surprise,the goddess sends the hero awayto disguisehimselfas an old man. In the meantime,she sings (see Ex. 2): lo vidipervendetta [vidividipervendetta] incenerirsi hora Troja; [horahora]mi resta in Ulissericondur Patria Regno. in dea dea D'un'oltraggiata [d'un'oltraggiata d'un'oltraggiata dea] e lo sdegno [questoquestoquestoquestoe lo questo [questoquestoquesto] sdegno] (I sawforvengeance now for Troyburning; it remains me to leadto hisHomeland, his Kingdom. to Ulysses Of anoffended goddess thisis the anger.) of Particularly strikingis the warriorlike amplification the last line, in which the of the word questo("this") is set to musicalsequences (mm. 199repetition 203).48 Only the last repetitionis slightlydelayed--a rest precedes the eighth
46. As will be dear in my discussionof Ritorno and Poppea,in consideringin a positive way the language and qualityof the two librettos, I take a differentview from the one expressedby GaryTomlinson in passagessuch as the following: "But even where metaphoricalimagery is not in question the rhetoricalflatnessof Busenello'sand Badoaro'sdramasremains-a prosaicdiscursivenessthat might have been tolerablein spoken drama,given its speechlikespeed of delivery,but that weighed heavilyin a musicalsetting" (Monteverdi and theEnd ofRenaissance, 226). 47. For clarity,in the quotations from the text of Ritorno and Poppea,deictic words are henceforthin italics. 48. To facilitatethe identificationof the musicalexampleswith the score publishedas volume 12 of Tuttele opere Claudio Monteverdi di (ed. Gian FrancescoMalipiero[Asolo: n.p., 1930]), I begin each one with the measurenumber correspondingto that of the Malipieroedition. I would like to thankJen-YenChen for his assistance preparingthe musicalexamples. in

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Journal of the American Musicological Society

Example 2 Monteverdi, II ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, 18763), act 1, scene 8, mm. 184-205 [fols. 37r and 37v]
184 MINERVA

ven-det-ta Io vi - di per

det vi - di vi - diperven- - ta In-ce-ne-rirsi

188

193

Pa-triain Re

gno. D'un' ol-trag-gia - ta

de - a

d'un' ol-trag-gia - ta

197

de - a

d'un' ol-trag-gia-ta

de - a Que-sto que-sto que-sto que-sto lo sde-gno

201

que - sto que - sto que - sto

que-sto lo sde - gno

Quin-ci im-pa - ra - te voi

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 403 whose setting reaches the highest note G5 (m. 202)appearanceof questo, effectivelyimitating the way in which wrath cannot contain itself and finally explodes (as in "this,this, this ... thisI reallycannot stand!").Also, the music gives questoa differentfunction than the one we would assign to it in simply At works as a level, questo readingthe word in the libretto.49 a verbal-discursive referenceto what Minervajust said (that is, that she caused Troy's defeat and is now completing her revenge by bringing Ulysses home). At this level, the demonstrativepronoun is a "discoursedeictic," or anaphora,since it refersto the co-text (the verbaltext that precedesit) and not to the context (a physical object/subject that is either on the stage or imagined). The music, however, from a discourseinto a spatial through sequentialrepetition transformsquesto deictic (one existing in the reality outside speech): the listener understands it as expressingMinerva'swrath in that verymoment,by almost pointing at it (we may actuallyimagine Minervapointing at herselfwhile singing). Her rage (sdegno)is anticipatedin the previous bars by an equal emphasison its cause, the fact that Minervahad been offended (oltraggiata,also featuringsequential in repetition;see againEx. 2, mm. 194-99). The obsessiverepetitionof questo two progressivelyascending sequences effectively acts out Minerva'swrath, bringing out the performativeaspect of the demonstrativepronoun. The result is that the goddess almost stutters. Even more, one may say that in this passage the music makes verbal language itself stutter, generating a tension that grows from within it. It is as if song worked, for Minerva,as an alternative "foreignlanguage"within the normal "nativelanguage" of verbaldiscourse, pushing its limits until it finallyreaches the musical rest, full of tension, that precedesthe last repetitionof questo 202).50 (m. When Ulysses returns,transformed into an old man, he sings (see Ex. 3): Eccomi[eccomi] saggia Dea [eccomi HereI am,wisegoddess, eccomieccomi], thesehairs you see that questi che guardi peli sono di miavecchiaia areto myold age testimoni bugiardi [bugiardi]. lyingtestimony.
49. This fact confirms, in my view, a basic axiom of linguisticspragmatics,that is, that the meaning of a word or sentence is dependent on the context in which it is uttered (see Lyons, 265). Music functions as the context of the utterance,thereforeattributing LinguisticSemantics, meaning to the text. This meaningindeed "goes beyond what is actuallysaid:it also includeswhat is implied"(p. 266). 50. As the philosopherGilles Deleuze puts it: "It is when the language system overstrains itself that it begins to stutter,to murmur,or to mumble; then the entire languagereachesthe limit that sketches the outside and confronts silence. When the language system is so much strained, language suffersa pressurethat deliversit to silence." See his "He Stuttered,"in GillesDeleuze and the Theater ed. ofPhilosopby, ConstantinV. Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski (New Yorkand London: Routledge, 1994), 28.

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Journal of the American Musicological Society

Example 3 Monteverdi,II ritornod'Ulisseinpatria, act 1, scene 8, mm. 224-33 [fol. 38r]

224 ULISSE

Ec - co-mi ec - co-mi sag- gia De - a

ec - co-mi ec - co-mi ec

226

,t _._I "IA"
- co-mi, Que - sti pe - li che guar-di

I
So no di

230

mia

vec

chia

ia

Te - sti - mo - ni bu-giar- di bu-giar -

-p

i"

di.

II

insistence hisown appearance on the of Ulysses' through repetition the deictic eccomi I am,"mm. 224-26) onlyenhances, makes publicfully and the ("here conscious his deception. The word eccomi includes deictics,ecco two and of, thusits repetition deicticmeaning, is, the referthat mi; strongly emphasizes enceto the physical context"pointed at the verymomentof the utterance to" of the deicticword. In contrast,the repetitionof bugiardi("lying,"mm. wordcar232-33) highlights symbolic meaning, bugiardi beinga descriptive fromthe surrounding ryingits own meaning independent context.51 physical In Ritorno the action often revolvesaround the truthfulnessof the "evidence"-theidentity Ulysses-evokeddirectly of the through demonstrativepronoun"this." in Ulysses' But world(asit is depicted Homerandby by the Ritornolibrettist, Giovanni and are Badoaro), descriptions explanations often false,wordshide deception,and beliefis suspended. the Throughout the is that Odyssey protagonist characterized his metis,an astuteintelligence by this is employs deception.52 Ritorno situation reflected the factthateven In by the statusof the maindemonstrative is In pronoun("this") problematic. a
51. Following the music in Example3, MinervaanswersUlysses by startingher lines with the deictic Hor, at which point the key shiftsto D minor. 52. For this reading of the characterof Ulysses in the Odyssey, Mario Lavagetto,La cicasee tricedi Montaigne:Sulla bugia in letteratura(Turin:Einaudi, 1992), 5-33.

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 405 context pervadedby deception, the act of pointing, which in normal circumstances would confirm the validityof a piece of evidence, is no longer sufficient: the demonstrativepronoun cannot prove anything.53Penelope faces this situation whenever other characters point at Ulysses in an effort to persuadeher that he is her husband. In three instances(act 2, scene 2; act 3, scene 4; and act 3, scenes 9-10), a similardramaticsituation features three characters(or groups of characters) or having the following different communicativefunctions: an "addresser," "pointer"(x), tries to persuadean "addressee,"or "hearer"(y), that the one "pointedto" (z, which is invariably Ulysses:"this")is indeed Ulysses. Since, in Ritorno,descriptionsand explanations-i.e., words belonging to the symbolic level-do not suffice to persuadehearersof the evidence, addressers must resort to the directact of pointing, to a deictic, as the ultimaterhetoricaldevice. In act 2, scene 2, the addresser(x) is the shepherdEumaeus,the addressee (y) Telemachus, and the indicated character(z), as always, Ulysses. At this point in the opera, the hero is still in disguise and has assuredEumaeus that "Ulysses"is in Ithaca.Eumaeusneeds to persuadeTelemachusof this, and he does so by pointing at the disguisedUlysses (who until that moment has been silent on stage). Indicating that he is a reliable reporter of good news, Eumaeussaysto Telemachus(see Ex. 4): Thismanwhomyousee here, on hisweary shoulders a great and bearing weightof years poorly clad da ben laceripanniegli [egli] m'accerta in torngarments, assures he me [m'accerta] che d'Ulisse ritorno il thatthe return Ulysses of fiadi pocolontanda questo is not distant thisday. on giorno. Eumaeus's action of pointing to Ulysses is emphasized by the repetition of The deictic egli (m. 81) is insteadhighlighted not only through repetiquesto. tion, but through a change of meter and style, a shift from duple-meterrecitative to triple-meter arioso. This shift-in addition to the change of key in measure 82--signals to the audience that, unintentionally,the meaning of Eumaeus's words extends beyond the literal one: although both he and Telemachusare not yet awareof it, the old beggar is indeed Ulysses. As exemplifiedin this passage,repetition and shifts of meter and style are the two most common ways through which Monteverdi places emphasison
53. Demonstrare Latin means "to point out," "to show," but also "to prove." For an illuin minating view on the power of the demonstrativepronoun "this," see Louis Marin'scomments on the gospel's sentence "This is my body," in the chapter "The Body of the Divinity Captured by Signs" of his Foodfor Thought,trans. Mette Hjort (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1989), 3-25.

Questo [questo]che tu quimiri stanchi sopragli homeri portar granpesod'annie malinvolto

406

Journal of the American Musicological Society Monteverdi,II ritornod'Ulissein patria, act 2, scene 2, mm. 75-91 [fol. 55r]

Example 4
75

EUMETE

Que - sto que - sto che tu qui mi - ri So-pragli ho-me - ri

stan - chi Por-tar granpe - so

78

-ce-ri d'an-ni in- toDabenla emal volpan-ni e - gli

#
82

gli m'ac - cer-

ta

m'ac - cer-

ta Che d'U -lis

seil

ri - tor

87

t7-no no Fia di tan da que-sto

po-colIon-

gior-no.

'MS

deictics.As in act 1, scene 8 ("eccomi ... testimoni bugiardi. see above), .."; the composer also uses repetitionto stresswords that are symbolically loaded: m'accerta ("[he] assuresme") in measures 82-84 highlights symbolic (i.e., nondeictic) meaning in the same way that bugiardi ("lying") did in act 1, scene 8 (notice, however, that m'accertaincludes the deictic mi). Monteverdi chooses to repeatwords such as m'accertain act 2, scene 2, and bugiardiin act 1, scene 8, becauseof theirdramaticsignificance a context dominated by in deception and disbelief-their repetition manifestingthe anxietyof characters living in an uncertain world. Word repetition, one must notice, is virtually nonexistentin earlyoperarecitative(the works of Peri and Caccinihave almost none). Monteverdi'sextensive use of repetition thus deserves the utmost at-

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 407 tention as one of the most effectiveties that musicalsetting can establishwith ordinarylanguage. As linguists involved in the field of discourse analysisob-

of focusing the attention of the listeneron some specificwords.54 In act 3, scene 4, Eumaeus, reiteratinghis invitationto Penelope to cheer up (rallegrati,repeated six times) and singing in duple-time recitative,insists that the man who killed the suitorswas indeed her husband ("egli [egli egli] era Ulisse" ["he was Ulysses"], the repetition emphasizingthe personaldeictic). Since Penelope inviteshim to believewhat his eyes see-just a poor beggar -Eumaeus repeatsthat "Ulisse [Ulisse] io vidi si [si], Ulisse [Ulisse] e vivo e qui [e qui qui qui]" ("I saw Ulysses,yes, Ulyssesis aliveand here";see Ex. 5). In response to Penelope's stubbornnessand contempt for his humble status, the shepherd Eumaeus can only oppose multiple repetitions,a sign of his attachment to ordinary language and his lack of rhetoricaldevices (see mm. 44-47). He finallyburstsinto triple-timeariosoin his lastline (mm. 51-56):

is characteristic everyday of a serve,repetition a distinctive conversation, way

Dico che Ulissee qui[qui], I tellyou Ulysses here, is iostessoil vidie'l so, non contenda I myself it andknowit, saw contend withmy "yes" il tuono conil miosi, your"no"cannot e is Ulisse[Ulisse] vivo[evivo]e qui[e qui]. Ulysses alive,andhere. "Here," we remember, is the spatial deictic that, together with "I" and "now," stands at the center of Biihler's representation of the deictic field (Fig. 1). Eumaeus'sinsistenceon this locative adverbin this scene signalsthe approachof the denouement of the plot, preparingthe listener for the final epilogue in which Penelope's prolonged disbeliefin the evidence brought to her (reiteratedto Telemachusin the following scene) finallygives way to the realizationof the truth. Penelope's skepticalview of the power of words to match realityand her continuous doubting of evidence is indeed a strikingly or denote modern feature.By emphasizingwords that, deictically symbolically, this skepticism, Monteverdi reinforces this modern aspect of the Homeric it, poem, translating so to speak,into the languageof musicaltheater. In the final scenes of Ritorno (act 3, scenes 9-10), Eumaeus,Telemachus, and Eurycleaare all engaged in their effort to persuadePenelope that the old beggar-now just in front of her-is indeed Ulysses.As in act 2, scene 2, and act 3, scene 4, the dramaticsituation here is also triangular, involving three addressers (pointers, x), one addressee (hearer, y), and a character that is pointed to (z)-the first corresponding to Eumaeus, Telemachus, and
54. As Deborah Tannenwrites, "repetitionof deicticsand discoursemarkers (such as Oh,Ah, but, and, etc.) plays a significantrole in establishingthe shared universeof discourse created by conversational interaction"(Talking Voices, 76). A composer's emphasison words such as oh, ah, and e (see for instance Ex. 8 and n. 68 below) bespeaksof music's imitation of spoken language and not exclusivelyof that of affections.

408

Journal of the American Musicological Society Monteverdi, II ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, act 3, scene 4, mm. 36-56 [fols.

Example 5 110v-111r]
36

EUMETE

rI
U-lis - se U-lis- se io vi - di si si

I U-lis

- se U-

39

PENELOPE

-lis - se

vi -vo e qui

qui

qui qui.

Re - la - tor

im- por-

42

EUMETE

A,
-tu - no Con-so-la - tor no- ci - vo.

,I
qui

Di - co cheU-lis - se 6 qui

46

io stes-soii vi - di e'l so

noncon-ten-da tuo no conil mio si il

U-

51

- se -lis

U - lis - se
M

6
m

vi- vo 6
B

vi - voe
i1017)(

qui
o

qui.

oa

This situationis Euryclea,the second to Penelope, and the third to Ulysses.55 gradually telescopeduntil it becomes, in the last scene of the opera, exclusively
55. In act 3, scene 4, Ulysses is not on stage, and thus Eumaeus can only referto him either with a pronoun (egli) or with his name. The extent to which naming and pointing arerelatedconcepts is an issue widely discussedby linguists, but one into which I do not intend to delve here. For Biihler'sview on proper names, see his Theory ofLanguage, 109, 130, and 251-64. See also note 35 above.

Monteverdiand a Languagefor MusicalTheater

409

dialogic, the hearer (Penelope) now coinciding with the pointer; thus x, y, z becomes (x = y) -+ z. At the beginning of scene 9, Eumaeus's and Telemachus'simpatienceat Penelope's obstinacyturns into excitement when Ulysses arrives(see p. 204 in Malipiero'sedition): Telemachus: Eccolo sen viene che e la suaforma tiene UlisseUlisseeglie Eumaeus: Telemachus: Eccolo afr. Herehe is coming in hisproper form he Ulysses Ulysses is He is hereindeed.

Together "Eccolo che .. ." and "Eccolo aff'e" frame, in duple time, the re-

peated naming of the hero, set in tripletime. When Ulysses startsspeaking,the tension is high (the melody startson a high note, Es, and on a first-inversion dominant chord, while the bass leaps up to G3#from the G2 of the previous scene) and its release is gradual (the melody descends stepwise for three bars). The sentence "O delle mie fatiche / meta dolce e soave, / porto caro amoroso / dove corro[dove corro] al riposo" ("Oh of my efforts sweet and gentle destination,dear loving harborto which I rush to rest") is set to a sequentialharmony(descendingfifths) that continuallydelaysits resolution, until the destination and "harbor"are reached at the cadence on the words "corro al riposo," markingthe very end of Ulysses' deictic journey.Musically, Monteverdiachievesan effectiverepresentation the instabilityand the vicisof situdes that Ulysses has experiencedand that he now sees passing quicklybefore his mind's eye, as in a flashback,until he finallyreachesthe long-awaited moment, the "rest"signifiedby the cadence. At the beginning of the dialogue, Penelope's music (mm. 6-9) has a more stolid and resolute characterthan that of Ulysses (all of her harmoniesare in root position): she does not even want to start the conversation("Fermati" ["stop"], she says).When she repliesto his disappointedwords (he againstarts on E5 and on a first-inversion chord; compare m. 1 with m. 10), Penelope's answerregainsthe same C-majorchord she left at the end of her previoussentence (comparem. 9 with m. 15): "I am not yourwife," she says,"but Ulysses' wife." The lack of communicationbetween them is representedby the differences in their music. Ulysses' response ("In honor de tuoi rai ... ," m. 22) borrows melodic and harmonicfeaturesfrom the setting of Penelope's previous words of rejection, as if he were trying to convince her on a subliminal level. But the queen remainsunconvinced (see Ex. 6): in her answer("Quel valor che ti rese .. .") she sings on stableroot-position chords until she thrice repeats (mm. 35-37) the demonstrative pronoun "this" ("questo [questo questo] di tua bugia / il dolce frutto sia"). The word questoworks as a discourse deictic referring back to her pleasure in Ulysses' courage (valor) in killingthe suitors:"Let this be the sweet fruit of your lies," she says,meaning that this should be enough for him to be satisfiedand leave. Her ironic words imply that the hero was certainlybold in killingthe suitorsbut only to win her as he would have done with any other woman. Perhapsas Penelope wanted,

410

Journal of the American Musicological Society Monteverdi, II ritornod'Ulissein patria, act 3, scene 10, mm. 29-43 [fols. 125r

Example 6 and 125v]

29

PENELOPE

Quel va-lor che ti

re - se Ad U-lis - se si - mi - le Ca - re mi

f'a

le strag-gi de-gli a-

33

-man-timal-vag - gi.

Que - sto

que - sto

que - sto di tua bu

gi-a II dol-ce

39ULISSE

frut- to

si - a.
-

Quell' U-lis - se

quell' U-lis - se son

i - o

...,9I..

Ulysses' reply is indignant, featuring the clearest assertion of his identity (Quell'Ulisse [quell'Ulisse] son io," mm. 41-43). But this further effort to persuadethe queen also fails,and she abruptlyends the conversation(in only four bars of music) by saying that he is not the first to abuse Ulysses' name ("non sei tu'l primo ingegno .. ."). The dialogic situationhas by now shifted focus from Penelope to Ulysses: Ulysses' proud assertion of his self ("I") is answeredby the "you" of Penelope. It is time for Eurycleato step in. In the rest of the scene, which gradually focuses on the two characters' final duet, librettistand composer introduce an emphasison the deictic expression that until this point has been neglected, "now": "Hor di parlaree tempo," Eurycleasays, "e questo[e questo] Ulisse" ("Now it is time to speak, this is Ulysses" [mm. 51-52]; notice, besides the repetition, the change of meter to of highlight the locative adverb).The appearance the main temporaldeicticwhich, together with "I" and "here,"forms what Biihler defines as the center of the deictic field--indicates that the re-centeringof Ulysses' self is about to be achieved, his "I" realigned with the axes of the "here" and the "now." After her statement, Euryclea continues saying that she discovered Ulysses' true identity only allora ("at that time," a furtherdeictic expression)when he was bathing nude and could not hide his scar.Penelope's doubt increases,but

Monteverdiand a Languagefor MusicalTheater

411

she againreacts firmly also "il by rejecting the evidence broughtby Euryclea: miopudicoletto,"she concludes, d'Ulisse[sol d'Ulisse]e ricetto" "sol (mm. struc81-85; see Ex. 7b). She singsthis sentenceon the samecontrapuntal il ture,andat the samepitch,asher"Tusol del tuotornar perdesti giorno"in act 1, scene 1 (see Ex. 7a), a ritornello-sentence in featured herlamentthat in opensthe opera(G-G, F#-A,G-BL,followed a cadence D minor). by as back Evidently, the musicclearly suggestsby referring to the beginning of the drama, are at a turningpoint in the plot: in Penelope's we subconof scious,the identification the absentUlysses(the tu and tuoof act 1, scene of 1) withthe realUlysses(the Ulisse act3, scene9, now in frontof her)is fiof Sol, nallyaccomplished Table1 for a comparison the two sentences). (see is in and meaning "only," the keywordthatis featured both sentences thatis in bothcases in in ("tu repeated sol"in act 1, scene1 is inverted "sold'Ulisse" act 3, scene 10).56 The deicticorientation towardthe absentUlysses,dominantin the ritornello-sentence act 1, scene 1 ("Tusol del tuotornar"), in is now reversed act3, scene10 ("ilmioletto"),andthe meetingof the "you" in (for the constantPenelope, the onlyyou) with the "I" is accomplished the in through parallelism the music. In Table1 the relationship betweenthesetwo keysentences Ritorno of is considered aninstance large-scale as of textual to from repetition be examined the pointof viewof the terminology classical of rhetoric.57 librettist The providesMonteverdi two key sentences with placedat symmetrical pointsof the makes first the plot, both expressing Penelope's gloomystate.The composer a sentence structurally ritornello the openinglamentandsetsthe of important secondone in a similar not identical but breath its lackof and way:its shorter (bothof andwithinitself,exceptforthe words"sold'Ulisse") repetitions signalthatwe arenow at the threshold the mostcrucial of in juncture the plotthe momentin whichUlyssespresents with the finalevidence that Penelope will at lastconvinceher.By establishing large-scale such music connections, actsas a "secondrhetoric," thus the traditional and devisedby terminology
56. See note 33 above for a similarcase in Orfeo. 57. For the similarperspectiveson language held by rhetoric and pragmatics,see note 16 above. As is evident from the examplesfrom Ritorno and Poppeapresentedin this study, musical repetitionhas the effect of creatinga differenttext from that presentedin the libretto.This "new" text-the one that the listenersactuallyperceive-is most usefullyexaminedfrom the perspective of the rhetoricalfiguresof elocutio. example,contiguous repetitionof words would belong to For the category of ornatusin verbisconiunctisand classifiedamong the figurae elocutionis adiecper tionem as geminatio, or epanalepsis. See Heinrich Lausberg, Handbookof LiteraryRhetoric:A Foundation LiteraryStudy,trans.Matthew Bliss,AnnemiekJansen,and David Orton (Boston for and Leiden: Brill, 1998), 275. As Walter Ong notices, the word rhetoricin the original Greek (rhitorike, meaning public speaking or oratory) referredessentiallyto oral speaking, not to its written codificationin treatises,which was devised only to enhance orality(Orality and Literacy, 9). For a view of repetitiongrounded in both rhetoricand linguistics,see Bice MortaraGaravelli, "Appuntisulla ripetizione,"in her Ricognizioni:Retorica,grammatica, analisi di testi (Naples: Morano, 1995), 37-50.

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Journal of the American Musicological Society

Example 7 Monteverdi,II ritornod'Ulissein patria, comparisonof settings of Penelope'swords in (a) act 1, scene 1, mm. 61-67, and (b) act 3, scene 10, mm. 81-85. See Table 1. (a)

Tu

sol

del tuo tor - nar

del tuo tor - nar

tu

sol

del tuo tor- nar

per

de - stijil gior - no

lost (Youonlyof yourreturn theday)

(b)

che ilmiopu - di - co let - to sold'U-lis - se sold'U lis - se6ri- cet - to

S -I
bed is (thatmychaste onlyof Ulysses the shelter)

II

rhetoriciansfor verbaltexts can be defacto extended to it (see Table 1 note). Examined in this way, unit (2), intended as a compound of music and text, representsas a whole an allusionto unit (1).58 That the relationshipbetween
58. From the dramaticpoint of view, this allusionis highly appropriate this turningpoint in at the action. The moment of its utterancecoincideswith that in which, in Penelope's mind, Ulysses is transformedfrom only a name (Ulisse)to a real person, a "you" (tu), now standing before her. Although their actualmutual identificationoccurs a few moments later,music, through allusion, anticipatesdramaticaction. In classicalrhetoric,allusionis classifiedamong the figurae sententiae (i.e., figures of thought) as opposed to flgurae elocutionis (i.e., figures of speech such asgeminatio; see previous note). Allusion is a figura per immutationem, also called significatio (see Lausberg,HandbookofLiteraryRhetoric, 408, under "emphasis").Significatiohas the same effect asgeminatio--that is, that of enhancingmeaning-but it operatesrhetorically a differentcogniat tive level:geminatio works as a "popular," exotericway of emphasizingmeaning, whereassignificatiois a more "elitist,"esotericdevice.

Monteverdiand a Languagefor MusicalTheater

413

Table 1 Badoaro/Monteverdi, ritorno d'Ulisse patria, Comparison Two Sentences in of II (see SungbyPenelope Ex.7)
(1) Act 1, scene 1 Tu sol You only A I del tuo tornar of your return B I del tuo tornar of your return B IItu sol I del tuo tornar I perdesti il giorno you only of your return lost the day A B C

(2) Act 3, scene 10 che il mio pudico letto that my chaste bed D I sol d'Ulisse only of Ulysses A' I sol d'Ulisse only of Ulysses A' Ie ricetto is the shelter E

Note: According to the terminology of classicalrhetoric, each sentence presents examples of geminatio. The name of Ulysses in (2) refers back to the deictic "you" (tu) in (1), whereas the word "only" (sol) is identical in (1) and (2). Thus the relationship between the words tu sol in (1) and sol d'Ulissein (2) is that of the chiasmus, a figure of speech termed antitheton, or commutatio: A: tu sol A': olX d'Ulisse

units (1) and (2) occurs because music indicatesthat, in this crucialmoment of of Ritorno, Monteverdi demands of his public a particular kind of listeningone that recognizes large-scaleconnections.59 After Penelope has uttered her intense sentence-bridging, both textually and musically, with her past-Ulysses startshis final and successfulpersuasive effort by highlighting his knowledge of the truth: "del tuo casto pensiero," he says, "io so [io so] il costume" ("I know the customs of your chaste thoughts"). In the end, what saveshim is his memory (memoria,repeatedin mm. 102-3, Malipiero'sedition), the figure of Diana sewn on their bed cover. Penelope's joyful recognition startswith "Hor si ti riconosco" ("Now, yes, I recognize you"), a sentence that deicticallyshifts the axis of the verbaltenses from the past to the present (Ulysses' preceding words are "m'accompagn6 mai sempre memoria [memoria] cosi grata"["I was never in the company of a more pleasantmemory"]).
59. For Heinrich Besseler,the seventeenth century marksa transitionin music-listeningattitudes, from the passivelistening of the past centuriesto a more activeand analytical one, in which the listenermust establishconnections among the short imitativefragmentsgeneratedby the text and exhibiting reciprocalrelationships(Das musikalische Horen der Neuzeit [Berlin:Akademie Verlag, 1959]). For a critique of Besseler's views in this book, see Robert Wegman, " 'Das musikalische Hdren' in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Perspectivesfrom Pre-warGermany," MusicalQuarterly82 (1998): 434-54, esp. 441-45.

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Now Penelope can sing an aria,after having expressedherselfin recitative for the entire opera.60 The final duet highlights the couple's present consolation ("quell'herbe verdeggianti ... hor si consolino" ["Those green grasses ... now console one another"]). "Now" is the time in which all the negative events and sorrowfulfeelings belong to the past ("Non si rammentipifi de' tormenti ... Fuggan dai petti i dogliosi affetti"), and the present becomes, affirmatively, piacereand vita.

Conflicting Subjectivities
di Comparedto other survivingVenetianoperasof its period, L'incoronazione is unusual not only for featuringreal historicalcharacters for Poppea(1643) the first time but also for the modalities of its text setting. Although largely anticipatedin Ritorno, the recurrenceof devices such as word/sentence repetition and change of meter are extraordinary Poppea. in Through these means, the composer explores various degrees of relationship between text and music, from recitativeto arioso to aria,in order to serve largerdramaticpurwhen a poses.61Monteverdimakesuse of these text-settingdevicesparticularly sentence in the third person is followed either by one in the firstperson-for example, a subjectiveexpressionof feelings beginning with the personaldeictic io ("I")-or by a sentence in the second person-an addresstoward an interlocutorstartingwith tu ("you"). In these instancesRoman Jakobson'sterm may be preferableto Btihler'smore esoteric synonym deicticsto illusshifters trate the function of the first and second personal pronouns in shifting the overall"orientation" a sentence.62 of In the following discussionof passagesfrom three scenes in the firstact of Poppea(1, 3, and 9), I illustratedifferentways in which Monteverdiespecially emphasizespersonalpronouns. In Poppea,an opera largelybased on contrasting subjectivities(Nero versus Seneca, Poppaea versus Otho, etc.), personal pronouns acquirea specialdramaticsignificance.In contrast,in Ritornospatial deicticsneed to be more prominent, since it is a work in which a sense of place is essential to the identity of the protagonist. As far as temporal deictics in are Poppea concerned, I will returnin the finalsection of this study to the issue
60. This feature has often been noted in the literatureon Ritorno, most recently in Tim of Carter," 'In Love's Harmonious Consort?'Penelope and the Interpretation Il ritornod'Ulisse in patria," CambridgeOpera Journal 5 (1993): 8-11. 61. See Rosand, "Monteverdi'sMimetic Art." For issuesof style and meaning in Poppea(inSome cluding a discussionof the literatureon the opera), see Tim Carter,"Re-readingPoppea: Thoughts on Music and Meaning in Monteverdi's Last Opera,"Journal of the Royal Musical 122 (1997): 173-204. Association 62. I borrow the concept of an overall "deictic orientation"of sentences in dramatictexts from Serpieri,"Towarda Segmentation";and Elam, TheSemiotics Theatre. of

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 415 exploredin the last scene of Ritorno,that of Monteverdi'suse of the temporal deictic "now" as a key word signalinga turningpoint in the plot.63 Poppea opens with a desperate Otho waiting and moaning outside the palacewhere his beloved Poppaeais sleepingwith Nero. Contraryto Ulysses, Otho is experiencinga de-centeringof his self--his lost center being Poppaea, to whom he is magneticallyattracted"like a line to its center" ("qual linea al centro"). As Ellen Rosand has discussed, Otho's de-centered feelings are reflected in the shape of his wanderingmelody and in the continuous avoidance of cadentialresolution.64 his opening lines, Otho is claimingthat even if the In in Poppaea's window do not appear, "I know that my sun [i.e., lights Poppaea] is herein" ("so ben io che sta'l mio sol qui dentro"). For these words, which follow a conditional sentence in the third person ("And if any light appearsto me"), the music shifts from triple-meterariato duple-meter recitative,exactlywhen the word io is sung (see Ex. 8, m. 19). Then ariastyle returns on the words "E pur io torno [io torno] qui qual linea al centro" (m. 23), a sentence in which the density of deictic words (personal, spatial, and verbal) is proportional to Otho's will to return to his deictic centerPoppaea.65During the opera, Otho's constant state of confusion and selfdoubt is highlighted by an emphasis,in both the libretto and the setting, on the firstpersonalpronoun, often in connection with verbs of motion having a deictic quality(e.g., in act 2, scene 11: "lo non so dov'io vada .. ." ["I don't know where I am going"]). Busenello and Monteverdi's emphasis on the first personal deictic in the dramaticcharacterization Poppaea has the opposite meaning. In her case, of unlike Otho's, pronouns such as "I" and "my"signalcomplete masteryof her self in her persistentseduction and manipulationof Nero. At the beginning of act 1, scene 3, Poppaea'sself-consciousdramaticappealto the emperorto stay with her-an appeal that soon reveals her hidden purpose, to elicit Nero's promise to repudiate his wife, Octavia-features the musical repetition of three words: the vocative Signor,followed by the imperativenon partir and, laterin the text, by da me ("Sir,""do not leave," and "from me").66The last two expressionsbelong to the domain of deictics (verbaland personal). The repetition of da me (see Ex. 9) occurs in a flatteringsentence through which
63. In the following comments on Poppea,I refer both to my examplesand to Alan Curtis's edition of Poppea(London: Novello, 1989), adopting the same procedure describedin note 48 for Ritorno. 64. Rosand, "Monteverdi'sMimetic Art," 119-20. 65. Laterin the scene, Otho's disbeliefand rage at finding Nero's soldiersoutside Poppaea's palace cause him to repeat the local deictic (Otho: "son questi[questi] i servi di Nerone; questa [questa] e la fede"). 66. At the beginning of act 1, scene 3, Poppaea'slines read as follows: "Signor[signor] deh non partire/ sostien che queste braccia/ ti circondino il collo / come le tue bellezze / circondano il cor mio."

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Example 8 Monteverdi, L'incoronazionedi Poppea(Naples, Biblioteca del Conservatorio S. Pietro a Majella,MS Rari6.4.1), act 1, scene 1, mm. 15-26 [fol. 6r]
15

OTTONE

e
ah

" I
ah

I
ah

I
ah sonben

19

i-

che sta'l mio

sol

qui

den

tro

23

E pur io tor-no io

tor - no qui

qual

li - neaal cen

tro.

i-4"

IL

Example 9
26

di Monteverdi,L'incoronazione Poppea,act 1, scene 3, mm. 26-29 [fol. 13r]

POPPEA

Vuoisl re-pente far

da me

da me

da me dame par-ti

ta?

i-'9 :''J

.J I~l

F [lip

II

Poppaea, by repeatedlyreferringto herself,drawsNero into her circularorbit into a "center"(as Otho defined --physically into an embrace,metaphorically her in the firstscene).67 the end of this scene, Poppaea'smagneticseductive At power, from which Nero can hardlydisengage, is enhanced again by the re67. Poppaea:"E tu che sei l'incarnatomio sole, / la mia palpabilluce, / e l'amoroso di della mia vita / vuoi si repente farda mepartita?"

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 417 peated deictic referencesto herself,unmatched by those oriented toward the emperor.68 In the altercationbetween Nero and Senecain act 1, scene 9, the characters use, on the one hand, sentences typicalof sticomythia (i.e., a dispute in alterlines between two characters);these sententiae lack deictics and are nating oriented towardthe thirdperson, for example: Nero: Seneca: Nero: Seneca: (Nero: Seneca: Nero: Seneca: Ottavia infrigidita infeconda. e e non Chiragione ha cerca pretesti. A chipu6 ci6 chevuolragion manca. non Manca sicurezza la all'opre ingiuste. is Octavia frigid barren. and He who hasno reasons searches excuses. for The mightyarenevershortof reasons. The unjust deedsfailto convince.)

On the other hand, Nero and Seneca addresseach other through firstand second personaldeictics (explicitor implicit);in these cases, repetitionis for the most part favored,as in the following: Nero: Seneca: (Nero: Seneca: i Lascia discorsi, voglio[io vogliovoglio]a modo mio. io Non irritar non non il [nonirritar irritar irritar] popoloe'l senato. Ceasethesearguments,willdo asI wish. I Do not irritate peopleandthe Senate.) the

The exchange between Nero and Seneca reaches a climax in measure95, in which sentencesoriented towardthe thirdperson feature,contraryto the pattern, emotionallycharged repetitions.Then, after a dramaticrest (with a ferseems to implode. The emperoraddressesthe mata), the situationtemporarily thriceuttering the second personaldeictic tu (see Ex. 10): the philosopherby three pitches are each time separatedby a rest, leaping in thirds over a changing harmony(from D majorto A major).This accusatorygesture buildsup an enormous tension, which then explodes first on an angered repetition of the word sdegnoin concitatostyle (prolonging the A-major chord), then on the crucial statement through which Nero finally proclaims, in self-assuringascending sequences, that despite any moral and political advice,despite everybody and everything, he will indeed act on his intention to marryPoppaea Nero's words at this point as they are set by (m. 117). It is worth transcribing Monteverdi:
68. Poppaea: "Tornerai?"Nero: "Tornerz?" "Quando?"N.: "Ben tosto"(notice the alP.: most exclusive use of verbal and temporal deictics). P.: "Ben tosto:Me'l prometti?" N.: "Te'l N.: giuro." P.: "E me l'osserverai?" "E se a te non verro,tu a me verrai" (the last two sentences, which begin with the discoursemarker"e," are repeated).In the next scene, Poppaea,confronted by Arnaltawith warningsagainsther climb to power, answersher with a self-reassuring ritornello in concitatostyle on the words "Per me guerreggiaAmor."

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di Poppea, 1, scene9, mm.107-21 [fol.34v] act L'incoronazione Example10 Monteverdi,

107

NERONE

Tu

tu

tu

mi sfor-zi sde-gno al-lo

al- lo sde-gno -lo al

109

0
sde-gno al-lo sde-gno al-lo sde-gno al tuo di - spet - to

_
E del Pop-po-loin on- ta

112

'
I-so I

e del se - na - to

r
E d'Ot - ta - via e del Cie-loe dell' Ab - bis - so Sian-si

115

sian-si giu - steodin-giu- le mie vo-glie ste giu - steodin-giu-ste Hog-gi - gihog-gi hog Pop-

118

-a mia -pe sa-r miamo-gliesa-r mo-glie sa-r

-pe - a sa-ri mia mo- glie sa- rA mia mo-glie sa- rAi

mia mo
mia mo
-

glie.
glie.

F:J

"( F

i ; I

oi

Nero: Tu [tu tu] mi sforzi allo sdegno [allo sdegno allo sdegno allo sdegno allo sdegno]; al tuo dispetto, E del Poppolo in onta, e del senato, E d'Ottavia,e del Cielo, e dell'Abbisso,Siansigiuste od ingiuste [siansigiuste od ingiuste] le mie voglie, Hoggi hoggi [hoggi] Poppea saramia moglie [saramia moglie sardmia moglie]. (You are rousing my anger; whatever you say, And despite the populace, the senate, And Octavia, and heaven and the pit, No matter if what I want is right or wrong, This very day Poppaeawill be my wife.)

Monteverdiand a Languagefor MusicalTheater

419

Both the librettistand the composer-the firstthrough anaphora("e ... e ... e .. .") and alliteration("siansigiuste o ingiuste"), the second through word and sentence repetition, sequences, concitato style, and a masterful use of rests-make this section the dramatic climax of the scene. In particular, through repetition the composer highlights the two textual meanings that music can emphasize:deictic meaning--in this case carriedby the "pointing" words tu, hoggi,and mia--and symbolic meaning-carried by the "naming" words sdegno, giuste, ingiuste,and moglie.69 As I mentioned, deictics possess an inherent gesturalquality (highlighted in Figure 2 through the distinction between "proximal"and "distal"movements). In theatricalperformances,actorscan choose to dramatizedeictic expressionsthrough correspondingbody motions. Similarly, opera singersoften associategestureswith deicticwords in those passagesin which music also emphasizes them. The exchange between Nero and Seneca examined above offers such an opportunity. In cases like this, an analysisof singers' gestures during an operaproduction shows not only how they projectthe twofold division of languagebetween deictic and symbolicmeaning, but also, more gener-

Nero at the momentin whichhe Figure3 showsa singerimpersonating starts fromact 1, scene9 of Poppea above("Tu singingthe passage analyzed mi sforziallo sdegno .. .").71In this performance Senecauses the dramatic restthatprecedes word tu to walkawayfromNero toward audience. the the But he is suddenlystoppedby the sound of Nero's foot stompingon the throne.The philosopher thus forcedto turnhis backto the audience is and watcha furious Nero thricepointinghis indexfingerandentirearmat him eachinstance tu (Fig.3). Neroholdsthispoof (andthe audience), matching sitionuntilhe sings"e del Poppoloin onta,"thendirects armfirsttoward his hisleftfor "e del senato," thentoward rightfor "e d'Ottavia," his both finally
69. Forthe distinction between deicticandsymbolic see aboveon meaning, my comments the Orfeo and after prologue, on act1, scene8, andact2, scene2, of Ritorno. Operatic composers Monteverdi oftenusemusical to the tu. repetition emphasize pronoun To citebriefly one faonly mousexample froma muchlater at Puccini's Madama the period: the endof Giacomo Butterfly, her protagonist, beforeher tragicsuicide,addresses child by singingseveninstances of just thepronoun--the in composer following thiscasea "cue" provided thelibrettist linereads by (the In first on "tu,tu, piccoloIddio!"). thissameopera,the child's appearance stagein act2 is signaledbythemother's iteration a deictic of word("Equesto? e questo? .. e questo") ... . as triple she showsher childto Sharpless; time,however, repetition already this the is in present the libretto.Clearly, relevance deictics anopera the of in needsto be examined bycase,according case to both theiroverall dramatic function the possible and differences betweenscoreandlibretto their (including various performance versions). 70. The distinctionamong these three componentsof musicaltheateris by Pierluigi Petrobelli. hisMusic theTheater: See in on and trans. Composers, RogerParker Essays Verdi Other Princeton 6 (Princeton: Press, University 1994),chaps. and7. 3 froma recently released DVD of a liveperformance Poppea 71. Figure is animagedrawn of conducted RendJacobs directed Michael and for by 1993 by Hampe theSchwetzinger Festspiele (Arthaus 100-109).

thelifeof aparticular performance.70

and actioninteract in ally,how verbalmeaning,musical structure, dramatic

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di Figure 3 RichardCroft as Nero in the production of L'incoronazione Poppeaat the 1993 SchwetzingerFestspiele(Arthaus,DVD 100-109). Act 1, scene 9: gesture correspondingto the words "Tu mi sforziallo sdegno; al tuo dispetto, e del Poppolo in onta." Reproducedby permission ofArthaus Musik, Division of KinoweltHome Entertainment,Munich.

upwardfor "e del Cielo" and downwardfor "e dell'Abbisso."The first gesture, directed toward Seneca, conveys the deictic meaning carriedby tu. The following four gestures, which draw an imaginaryfill circle around Nero's body, instead consistently match words with symbolic meaning (Senato, At Ottavia, Cielo,and Abbisso). "Siansigiuste o ingiuste le mie voglie," Nero to point towardSeneca. But it is only when he sings the tembegins gradually poral deictic hoggi(which he repeatstwice more, as he did with the initial tu) that the singerfullyreturnsto the gesturehe used at the beginning-his finger and arm pointed toward Seneca (as in Fig. 3). In this way, he symmetrically pairsthe two deictic meanings carriedby the words tu and hoggi(the firstis a personal deictic, the second a temporal one). Nero's last sentence ("hoggi mia Poppea sarai moglie" ["todayPoppaeawill be my wife"]) bringsthe symbolic meaning of moglieunder the semanticumbrellaof the deicticshoggiand mia. As the word "now" does in the last scene of Ritorno, in this scene of Poppeathe temporaldeictic "today"signalsa majorturningpoint in the plot: todayPoppaeawill be Nero's wife, and thus Senecawill have to die.

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 421

Singing "Now"
As Rosand observes, in Poppea the sentence "Hor che Seneca e morto" dramaticsignificanceby re("Now that Seneca is dead") acquiresa particular to a moment of the opera that is central, both structurally and draferring in this respect to Orfeo's Possentespirto): maturgically (and comparable Seneca'ssuicide. Occurringat the midpoint of the second of three acts, it is a crucialevent afterwhich nothing is the same as before.72The key sentence is used twice at the very beginning of two different scenes, sung by characters who have just arrivedon stage. The firstscene (act 2, scene 5, set in "Rome") featuresNero in a musicallydeclamatorypassageimmediatelyfollowed by the celebratoryduet in which he rejoiceswith Lucan.The second (act 2, scene 10, in which the setting has changed to Poppaea'sgarden) occurs five scenes later and featuresthe soon-to-be empresssinging the key sentence on a phrasecadencing on the fifth degree of G minor but soon turning, through an ascending sequence on the word Amor,to a bright B6major.In this last key,Poppaea invokes Love to help her in reaching her aim, to marryNero (an easiergoal now that the emperor, under her suggestion, has removed the final obstacle, Seneca). As in Ritorno, in Poppeathe moment to which the temporaldeictic "now" refersis decisivefor the plot: in the earlieropera, as we have seen, it signalsthe long-awaitedreunificationof Penelope and Ulysses;in the laterone, the word acts as a watershed,with the effect of "pointingbackwards" the moment of to Seneca'spassingaway.The philosopher'ssuicide representsa turning point in the plot not only by virtue of its position and dramaticconsequences,I would argue, but also because of the highly symbolic value that death had for the contemporaryaudience of the opera.In the seventeenthcentury,death, as the quick passage from being to not being, was thought of and thematized as a punctum, a zero point, a hic et nunc. This notion of death as the center into which past and futureconvergereflectedan atomisticsense of time as a succession of instants,a widespreadconcept in the Baroque.73 earlyseventeenthIn writersas differentas Daniello Bartoli(a Jesuitfrom Ferrara) and centuryItaly,
72. See Ellen Rosand, "Seneca and the Interpretationof L'incoronazione Poppea,"this di Journal 38 (1985): 34-71. The following discussion aims at elaborating the point, made in Rosand's article, that through his setting of the suicide scene Monteverdi intended to emphasize Seneca's tragic role, in contrast to the more ironic view of the philosopher conveyed by the librettist. 73. By invoking a concept of death that indeed belongs to the views of Seneca himself and the neo-stoics, I do not imply that neo-stoicism can explainthe meaning of a complex opera like Poppea (as do Iain Fenlon and Peter Miller in The Song of the Soul: Understanding "Poppea" [London: RoyalMusicalAssociation,1992]; see Robert Holzer's criticalviews of their book in his review in CambridgeOperaJournal 5 [1993]: 79-92; and Wendy Heller, "TacitusIncognito: di this Opera as History in L'incoronazione Poppea," Journal 52 [1999]: 39-96). The concept of death as an instantwas in fact common in seventeenth-century Europe, pervadinga great variety

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Ciro di Pers (a nobleman from Friuli) elaboratedon different signifiersfor death as a transientmoment. In their works they used images such as dust, For shadow,smoke, hourglasses,and clocks, as well as the point (punctum).74 example,in a treatiseentitled Man at thePoint, That Is, at thePoint of Death, which includesseveralquotations from Seneca, Bartoliuses a suggestivesimile that remindsus of Biihler'scircleintersectedby perpendiculars: we attribute as additional meaning to a circle when we draw its "invisibleand indivisible" geometrical center, in the same way we can better understandlife when we discussits center,death-since life is, in Bartoli'swords, a "continuousdeath," as volatileand transientas an instant.75 A poem set by Monteverdiin his Selvamoralee spiritualeof 1641 adopts a similarimage of transience:"Life is flash of lightning / which on appearing, / disappears in this mortal field. / Becauseif I look at the past, / it is already Busenello, the librettistof Poppea,emphasizesthe dimenhaving appeared."76 sion of time as instant (as "now") in works other than his operas.For example,

it dead,at the future,it is not yet born,/ at the present, vanishes, hardly /

of discourses. See Jose Antonio Maravall, Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure,trans. Terry Cochran (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 164 and Testidel Seicento 185; CarloOssola'sprefacesto the sections of his anthology L'anima in Barocco: italiano (Turin: Scriptorium, 1995), esp. 4; Vitaniello Bonito, L'occhiodel tempo:L'orologio Baroccotra letteratura,scienza ed emblematica(Bologna: Clueb, 1995); and Stefania Buccini, Sentimento della mortedal Barocco declinodei Lumi (Ravenna:Longo, 2000). al 74. In the literatureof BaroqueItaly,these imageswere often used in associationwith a common semanticarea,that of "nothingness"(nulla). See, besidesL'anima in Barocco, anthology the Le antichememoriedel nulla (Rome: Edizioni di Storiae Letteratura, 1997), also edited by Carlo Ossola, which includes essaysby members of the Accademiadegli Incogniti (to which Busenello belonged) advocatingthe controversialnotion of Nothingness. I examine the relationshipsbetween the "philosophyof nothing" expressedin these writings and Monteverdi's Poppeain my "StagingMusicalDiscourses,"44-55 and 68-76. 75. "Ponete il centro a un circolo che ne manchi:quell'invisibile indivisibil e punto vi d&sopra che rinveniremille ammirabili di in proprietA quella perfettissima fra tutte l'altrefigure. Ponete il punto della morte in mezzo al circolo della vita (la quale in fatti tutta intorno a lei si rivolge, essendo, come diremo, il vivere un continuato morire) avete sopra che condurre i pensieri a conoscere veritk,e gli affetti a intraprendere utilissimeoperazioni."See Daniello Bartoli, L'uomo alpunto, ciodl'uomoin punto di morte(Turin:UTET, 1930), 8-9. The book was firstpublished in Venice by Nicol6 Pezzana in 1668. A selection of poems by Ciro di Pers on the subject of clocks is in VitanielloBonito's anthology Leparole e le ore:Gli orologibarocchi (Palermo:Sellerio, 1996). One of Ciro's poems referringto the clock begins: "Mobile ordigno di dentate ruote / lacerail giorno e lo dividein ore / ed ha scrittodi fuor con fosche note / a chi legger le sa: sempre si more"(p. 82). See also Bonito, L'occhio tempo. del 76. "E questa vita un lampo / che all'apparir dispare/ in questo mortal campo. / Ch6 se miro il passato,/ e gi' morto, il futuro ancor nato, / il presente sparito,/ non ben anco apparito" (Claudio Monteverdi, Selva morale e spirituale, in vol. 15, pt. 1, of Tutte le operedi Claudio ed. Monteverdi, Gian FrancescoMalipiero[Asolo: n.p., 1940], 35-41 [italicsmine]; the authorof the poem is Angelo Grillo). Monteverdi'ssetting of this poem manipulatestime to an extreme, firstby emphasizing,rhythmically melodically,the contrastbetween "ch6 se miro il passato," and

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 423 in his sonnet "Short Life" ("Vita breve")he writes:"I was born to death and my birth was a point which destined me to frozen ashes."In another sonnet, "Time" ("Il tempo"), he defines time as follows: "Time was born son of eternity at the moment in which the Creatorwanted to make it [i.e., eternity], at only one point, both mother and ruler, changing the 'always' into an instant.""77 Moving in circularmotion, time is often signified by the clock: "Wickedinstrument,"Busenello writes, addressingthe clock, "which brings me near the point / in which the paths of fate dissolveinto nothing. ... / To me you seem a circle of mortal spell; / a magical sign impressesitself upon you, / numberingthe drops of our tears.""7 The discursive modalities through which death was thematized in the culturalcontext surroundingPoppeahave a profound impacton the setting of its centralscene featuringSeneca'ssuicide (act 2, scene 3). Through the obsessive repetition of the verb morirsung by the Famigliari, music excruciatthe the moment-the point--of the philosopher's ingly prolongs (almost freezes) death. The style is that of a madrigal (a genre that, by the time of Poppea, was practicallydead) and the form palindromic, that is, an arch structure (ABCBA) circlingaround itself and momentarilynullifyingany sense of time as forward-thrusted development.79

set to sustainedchordalmovement, and "e gid morto," set to briefimitativepassages;then by repeating, each time aftera dramaticpause, the same patternfor "il futuro ancor nato" and "il presente sparito."Through both the parallelsettings of the words passato, and futuro, and presente, the effect of "frozen"time conveyed by the mechanicalrepetitionof the pattern, the distinctions among present,past, and future are blurred. 77. "Nacquiallamorte e fu il nataleun punto / che destinommi a cenerigelate." "Figio d'eternitadeall'hor che piacque / dell'universoal fondator creante/ farlain un punto sol madre e regnante/ e dal semprein istante,il tempo nacque."The two sonnets are publishedin Giovanni Francesco Busenello, I sonetti morali ed amorosi,ed. Arthur Livingston (Venice: G. Fabbris, 1911), 53 and 80. 78. "Stromento reo, ch'al punto m'avvicini/ ove in nulla il destin le linee solve.... / Cerchio mi sembri di mortal incanto, / magico in te caratteres'incide / che numera le stille al nostro pianto" (ibid., 95). 79. The scene is discussed thoroughly in Rosand, "Seneca," 69; and Carter, "Re-reading strucPoppea,"186-91. Commenting on Rosand's observations,Carternotes the "symmetrical ture startingand ending with what seems to be the main point of the Famigliari's contribution, the poignant 'Non morir,Seneca, no' " (p. 191) and examinesthe variants this scene in the surof structureof the Famigliari viving sources.My discussionof the symmetrical passagein act 2, scene 3, is based on the versionpreservedin the "Venicescore"of Poppea(Venice,BibliotecaNazionale Marciana,Cod. It. IV 439 [= 9963]), which is the basisof Curtis'smodem edition of the opera. A comparison of the scene in this edition (pp. 121-30) with that in the libretto published in Busenello's Delle horeociose (1656; transcribedin Carter,"Re-readingPoppea,"188-89) makes clear the extent to which Monteverdi rearrangedthe lines of the text, resultingin a palindromic structure.As pointed out by Carter(see his n. 46), however, the situation is slightly differentin the other survivingscore of Poppea,the "Naples score" (Naples, Bibliotecadel ConservatorioS. Pietro a Majella,MS Rari6.4.1). In this score the ritornello"Io per me vorirnon vo, / non morir Seneca no" is repeated once more at the end of the Famigliaripassage, which until that point

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This episode is also crucialfor an understandingof the character antithetical to Seneca: Poppaea. If in fact the whole opera gains meaning from the poignant moment of the philosopher's suicide--just as life gains meaning from death, and a circle from its center-then it follows that the characterof Poppaeamakessense only in associationwith her polar opposite, Seneca.This dialecticalrelationship extends to their music as well: a soprano line gains meaning from a bass one, a sensualmelody from an austereone; finally,shifting to the ethicalplane, beauty and immoralityexist in opposition to wisdom and immortality.Throughout the work, Busenello and Monteverdienact this dichotomy by balancingthe two characters' dramaturgical weights, assigning them mutuallyexclusivesegments of the plot (they never actuallymeet). The metaphoricalcircle evoked above can thus be elongated into an ellipse, with Senecaand Poppaeabecoming its two foci, symbolizingdeath and beauty.80 It is no wonder that the public is often left puzzled as to the identity of the main protagonist and the meaning of Poppea.As in a varietyof contemporarydiscourses, in which antithesisforms the basic underlying structure, composer and librettist leave the dialecticalrelationshipbetween Seneca and Poppaea unresolved, making a direct appeal to their audience and invoking (indeed provoking) its reaction by presenting it with a moral alternative--an ethical dilemma--to be debated in the inner academyof the mind.8s

correspondsto that in the Venice score (see Curtis'sedition, p. 129 n. 1). In the seven surviving manuscriptlibrettosof the opera, the Famigliari passagecorrespondsto that of the 1656 libretto from Delle horeociose. in the only other survivingprintedlibretto of the opera, that published But in Naples in 1651 with the title II Nerone,our scene is omitted altogether(perhapsfor fearof censorship,since it shows a suicide). On the sources of Poppea,see Paolo Fabbri,"New Sources for Musicand Letters (1993): 16-23. 74 Poppea," 80. I borrow the image of the ellipse from Giovanni Pozzi's authoritativecommentary on Giovan BattistaMarino'sL'Adone,the quintessentialBaroquepoem, originallypublishedin Paris in 1623. As a structuralelement Pozzi identifies the recurrenceof binary oppositions and an emphasison the number two. He comparesthe poem to an edifice having an ellipticalplan and a bifocal structure,mirroringthe chiasmic form abba (in opposition to a circularone, aba). See Giovan BattistaMarino, L'Adone,ed. GiovanniPozzi (Milan:Adelphi, 1988), 2:76-83. Marino was a member of the Accademiadegli Incogniti, to which Busenello and manyVenetianopera librettistsbelonged (see note 74 above for their writings on Nothingness). For the recurrenceof the ellipsein the ItalianBaroque,see AndreaBattistini,IlBarocco(Rome: Salernoeditrice,2000), 10. For the historicallychanged relationshipbetween life/love and death in Baroque Italy, see Anna MariaPedulli and Michelina Di Rienzo, Erosand Thanatosnel romanzobarocco (Naples: Edizioni ScientificheItaliane,1999); and Buccini, Sentimento della morte,16, 61, 71, and 76. 81. But if we assume (as Rosand does in "Seneca") that the dramaturgical weight of the in philosopher'scharacterization Poppeais a result achievedby the composer through his setting (in contrast to the original view of the librettist), then to a larger extent we can attribute to Monteverdithe creation of the dialecticbetween Seneca and Poppaeahere highlighted, and this would representanothermarkof his "interventionist" attitudetoward the text. For the subjectof Monteverdi's modificationsof his librettos and their large-scaledramaticsignificance,see Ellen Rosand, "Monteverdi'sLate Operas:A VenetianTrilogy"(unpublishedmanuscript).On the issue of the dialecticalrelationshipsleft "unresolved"in Baroque culture, see Walter Benjamin, The

Monteverdi a Language Musical and for Theater 425 Focusing on the suicide episode as a centralmoment in which a discourse on time emerges also helps in understandinghow Poppearelatesto Ritorno. Both works featurean emphasison temporalitythat is used to highlight a crucial element of the plot (in the earlieropera it is Ulysses and Penelope's reunification). But in these operas, Monteverdi's strategy serves two different (although not wholly unrelated) discoursesby musicallyunderscoringdifferent types of deictics. In Ritorno, temporality is subordinated, or at least equated, to location and identity:the predominantemphasison spatialdeictics and speaksof the relativevalue of appearances evidence, the ultimatequestion of what we believe and know if we can no longer trust words to reflectreality. In Poppea, the contrary, on temporalityfullydefinesthe identityand fate of the the focus on personaldeicticshighlightsthe characters' protagonists:although the contrastingsubjectivities, operaputs death at its center as a powerful signifier for time, thus dealingwith the question of who indeed we are, if it is time that ultimatelydefinesour selves. The sense of the presentis an aspectof time that both theaterand music, as arts living in the "now" of performance,can articulatebest (that Monteverdi thematizesjust this element in his late works revealshis deep understandingof the natureof these arts). In that compound of theaterand music that is opera, music is the element most capableof reinforcingthis sense of "absolutepresto ent," as when it slows, even stills,the time of the action to allow characters their emotions.82Viewed from this perspective,Biihler'sgraphicrepexpress resentation of the deictic field as a circle intersected by two perpendiculars (meeting at the center of the "now," "here," and "I") is relevantto musical since it puts time into relationshipwith space and characters. It dramaturgy,83 not only effectivelydescribeshow an important aspect of language operates, but it also works as the compass that aids composer and librettistto position and direct the main coordinatesof drama,placing emphasison a certaintime, a certainplace, character, part of the plot, or dialogue, thus establishingconnections both within the work itself and with other discursive practices.

Origin of German TragicDrama, trans. John Osborne (London: NLB, 1977), originallypublished as Ursprung DeutschenTrauerspiels des (Berlin:E. Rowohlt, 1928). (For Benjamin,only the Romantic era would "yield a synthesisof the antithesisdeliberatelyopened up by the Baroque" [p. 213].) For a consideration of the audience of Poppeaas formed by the Accademici degli Incogniti, and the influenceof their ideology on the opera, see Bianconi,Musicin theSeventeenth Century, 188-89; and Heller, "TacitusIncognito." A different interpretationof Poppea,which takesinto account the role of the audiencebut focuses on the character Otho, has recentlybeen of presented by Giulio Ongaro in " 'E pur io torno qui': Sixteenth-CenturyLiteraryDebates, the of Audience'sView, and the Interpretation Poppea," papergiven at the Tenth Annual Conference of the Society for Seventeenth-Century 4-7 April2002. Music, PrincetonUniversity, 82. See above, note 26. 83. For this concept, see Dahlhaus, "Drammaturgia dell'operaitaliana," esp. 79-81; and the prefaceby Lorenzo Bianconi to La drammaturgia musicale,ed. Lorenzo Bianconi (Bologna: 11 Mulino, 1985), 7-51.

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Abstract Conventionalviews of text/music relationships earlyItalianopera focus on in the imitation of affections. But by dealing exclusively with the referential meanings of texts (e.g., emotions, images, and concepts) these views overlook an importantaspectof music'sinteractionwith language. In opera, music also

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imitates contextual communicative and functions-i.e., discourse, language's of In as studiedtodayby the subfield linguistics calledpragmatics. his operas idealof "imitating song a personspeaking" in Monteverdi realized Peri's fully ("imitarcol canto chi parla")by musicallyemphasizingthose contextin dependentmeaningsthat emergeespecially ordinary languageand that in areprominent dramatic texts,as opposedto poetryandprose.Suchmeanwhenever wordssuch as "I,""here," "now"appearand ings aremanifest wordscalled"deictics"-withthe functionof situating speaker/singer's the in utterances a specific timeandplace.Monteverdi deictics highlights through melodicand rhythmic shiftsof meter,style,and haremphases, repetition, to suitedto operaas a mony,as partof a strategy createa musical language genre and to singersas actors.In II ritornod'Ulissein patria and L'indi this serveslarge-scale aims coronazione Poppea, strategy dramaturgical with respectto the relationships amongspace,time, and character identity, highissuesalsodiscussed withinthe contemporary intellectual context. lighting