Download program notes and libretto - WGBH

II
Twins
The libretto of Niobe, Regina di Tebe, which was the second
one written for Munich by Luigi Orlandi, is based on Greek
mythology. Niobe and Anfione are the central characters of
the plot.Amphion—“Anfione”in the Italian text—was rightly
famous as a king of Thebes, but also as an incomparable
musician, whose abilities built the walls of Thebes. Niobe was
his wife, and together they had many children. So proud was
Niobe of her offspring that they were called the Niobids, a
notable exception to the rule that a Greek family is usually
named after the Father. Niobe boasted of her superiority to
Latona (Leto), the mother of Apollo and Diana, because the
goddess had only two children, while she had given birth to
many offspring. For her hubris, Apollo killed her sons, and
Diana, her daughters. Amphion, at the sight of his dead
children, killed himself. The devastated Niobe turned to stone
as she wept.The myth is clearly a moral warning to the human
race to remain humble while enjoying earthly glory.
Ovid, when he tells of the goddess’s revenge on Niobe in his
Metamorphoses, notes that the children of Leto are twins:
“The goddess was deeply angered, and on the top of Mount
Cynthus she spoke to her twin children.‘I am your mother and
you are my pride, no one but Juno is a greater goddess, and
even now someone presumes to doubt my powers and
worship will be prevented at my altars, unless you help me,
my children.’ ” In mythology, Diana was associated with the
Moon, as her twin brother Apollo was associated with the Sun.
This twinning, although based on a sexual difference,
symbolizes their complementary places in the cosmic balance.
According to Ovid, Latona was wandering the earth with her
newborn twins when she attempted to drink water from a
pond. The peasants there refused to allow her to do so by
stirring the mud at the bottom of the pond. Latona turned
them into frogs for their lack of hospitality, forever doomed to
swim in the murky waters of ponds and rivers. This scene is
represented in the central fountain, the Bassin de Latone, in the
gardens of Versailles.The choice of such a myth for the central
spot of the gardens is an allusion to the difficult Regency for
the mother of Louis XIV, to the“Fronde”—the uprising of the
nobility against the queen regent—and to the ultimate victory
of the French monarchy. The Parterre of Latona was designed
by André Le Nôtre and built when the idea of making
Versailles the center of power was still being developed; in
1686, Jules Hardouin-Mansart adjusted the Latona Basin by
elevating the central sculpture by the brothers Marcy with
three levels of marble, placing it so it faced in the direction of
the Grand Canal where Apollo in full adulthood emerges
triumphantly from the water on his chariot. This use of the
space in the garden was itself an allegory of the coming of age
of the Sun King.
Niobe’s tale, as part of the story of Apollo, was also chosen to
f e s t i va l o p e ra
Latona and her children, Apollo and Diana, French etching of 1694 by
Simon Thomassin (ca. 1652–1732) of the sculpture by Balthazar Marcy (1628–1674)
and Gaspard Marcy (1624–1681), from Recueil des Figures, Groupes, Thermes,
Fontaines, Vases, Statuës & autres Ornemens tels qu’ils se voyent á present dans
le Château et parc de Versailles, gravé d’après les originaux.
Par Simon Thomassin, Paris, 1694. Collection of Gilbert Blin.
decorate the bedroom of the Sun King in his Parisian castle of
Tuileries. The writer Félibien describes how the paintings of
Mignard “from the story of Apollo befit the Sun, and besides,
they are emblematic images of the beautiful actions of the king.
[…] The story of Niobe shows the inevitable downfall of those
who fail to keep the respect they owe to the sacred person of
such a powerful monarch.” Le Brun used this same symbol in
his first project for one end of the “Grande Galerie de
Versailles,”known today as the Hall of Mirrors, which was to
become an allegorical temple to the Sun King.
The choice of Niobe as a subject for the entertainment of
Maximilian Emanuel in Munich can also be read in the same
allegorical way. In his dedication, printed at the beginning of
137
2 0 1 1 b o s t o n e a r l y m u s i c f e s t i v a l
NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE