Nowadays, many might think of opera as a dignified, upper-class affair, available only to the moneyed gentry. But in seventeenth-century Venice where public opera originated, it was a roudy, baudy and licentious event where prostitutes rubbed elbows with aristocrats, transvestites with princes (they were sometimes one and the same,) and the anonymity provided by wearing masks temporarily erased all class differences. After the opening of the first public opera house in 1637, the genre had become so popular that nine major houses produced opera in Venice alone (though generally only four had productions going on simultaneously). By the 1670s, the decade of Pallavicinio’s Le Amazzoni nelle Isole Fortunate, opera and the famously permissive Venetian nightlife had become a major tourist attraction. Opera’s runaway popularity meant that some shows were even taken “on the road” and produced in other Italian cities.

One of the most popular subjects for Venetian opera was the Amazon women. Between 1650 and 1730, nearly 120 opera libretti included the Amazons. Who were these women? Ancient writers such as Homer, Herodotus and Plutarch circulated legends

about a tribe of female warriors who, originating in Turkey, founded towns and

formed an independent kingdom. They cut off their right breast so as better to shoot

a bow and arrow. They coupled with men once a year, and sent infant boys off to die

in the forests while keeping the girls for their tribe. The Amazon myth is different  depending on the writer. In some legends, the women took part in the Trojan War; occasionally they comingled with Alexander the Great; in still other accounts the Amazons battled the Athenians. Sometimes they were chaste, other times they were promiscuous. No archeological evidence has surfaced giving credence to any of these

tales, but they nevertheless form a highly influential literary trope through history. One principal theme unifies stories of the Amazon women: when gender roles are reversed, male political and sexual hegemony is threatened, the “natural” order of things is usurped, and harmony needs to be restored.

The particular work in question, Pallavicino’s Le Amazzoni nelle Isole Fortunate, has an unusual and special history in Venetian opera. Appearing at the inauguration of the Villa Contarini in Piazzola, it was not heard in Venice proper but rather some 20 kilometers to the west. The venue was stunningly elaborate. Owned and renovated by Marco Contarini, the son of the Doge, the journal Mercure de France extolled the Villa’s lavish

decoration and grounds. In contrast to the public opera houses in Venice herself, which

welcomed paying ticketholders, the Villa was a private place and open by invitation only. The Contarini family earned money by renting out rooms in the Villa instead of selling tickets. Although Pallavicino’s opera could have been performed inside, it is possible that it Notes for Le Amazzoni nelle Isole Fortunate by Paul V. Miller was heard outdoors: according to the Mercure the production included 300 actors, 100 Amazon women, 100 men disguised as Moors, and 50 men on mounted horseback.

There is no doubt that when opera was performed at the Villa Contarini, no other

productions in the city of Venice could possibly compete. The opera’s prologue – a dialog between Genius, Difficulty and Fear – is a metaphorical duel in words that establishes Genius’s prerogative to build a new opera venue even when many others in Venice were already successful. It concludes with Genius triumphant; the Villa’s owner must have been pleased.

The Amazzoni thereafter follows a somewhat predictable but nonetheless fascinating plot arch. Shipwrecked on the Amazon’s island, Numidio – a captain in the Sultan’s army and enemy of the warrior women – seems to falls in love with Florinda. At the same time Pulcheria, the princess of the Amazons, falls in love with Numidio. But instead of focusing on the conflict between Numidio’s love and his duty, the libretto often dwells on Florinda’s conflict between obedience to her vows of chastity and her feelings of love. By the standards of the day, Numidio is an effeminate captain: he cannot decide who to love or what to do. Stripped of his weapons, he is placed in chains and rendered impotent by women. On the brink of his execution, it is Cillene – a young Amazon woman who cannot even tell him from her imagined lover Pericleo – who unchains him. Later, by

setting fire to the Amazon’s cache of arms, Numidio shows how the metaphorical force of the Amazon women’s fiery passions can undo the warriors in a blaze of destruction.

At the same time, there is an extremely interesting wrinkle to the plot. Auralba, another

Amazon warrior, is in love with Florinda. She sings of her love while Florinda sleeps.

Murderously jealous of Numidio, Auralba is the one who nearly executes him. Cruelly

hoping that Florinda will deal the death blow herself, Auralba flies into a rage when she cannot. Auralba is clearly the “masculine” female in the opera and she serves as a foil for the gender inversion with Numidio.

However shocking it may seem that a lesbian character appears in an opera

from 1679, Wendy Heller cautions that such things ought to be kept in context.

Opera in Venice was an abstract genre, which rarely concerned “real” people.

Because it happened in a theatrical context, opera took place on a “safe” plane

of action, and even though it could be tantalizingly erotic, opera was not necessarily

as threatening as we might hope for today – when art, in the hands of some, has become a powerful vehicle for social criticism.

In the end, the Sultan and his army invade the Amazon’s island and Pulcheria’s

plan to repel their attack fails. It is Numidio who exposes Pulcheria’s last, desperate

plan, but he does so by sending the Sultan a message: hardly a heroic act. After the Amazons surrender, the Sultan grants the Amazons clemency, allowing them to live as long as they are under his mantle – which, we assume, will be “reasonable” and “just”. In the final scene, he and Pulcheria appear enthroned together in the theater. She, having lost her potency and independence, apologizes for an “accident” when a piece of stage machinery collapses – clearly a symbolic mishap that resonates deeply with the opera’s underlying premise of gender inversion. At this moment in our production, Apparenza (Semblance) and Verità (Truth) appear. Despite the potentially deadly mechanical failure, Truth nevertheless declares the day a success: since social order is restored, all now find their rightful place in the established hierarchy.

Musical elements enhance Pallavicinio’s Amazzoni and provide further insight to the Venetian notion of the Amazons. The most intense lament in the opera occurs when Jocasta (the adopted daughter of Pulcheria,) is severely wounded in battle. The lament’s ability to convey the deepest emotion is one of seventeenth-century opera’s most potent devices; yet, no Amazon woman sings a lament to a lover. At this time in Venetian opera, arias like laments were beginning to overshadow recitatives in musical importance. Though some important dialog occurs in recitative, Amazzoni contains more song and less recitative than earlier operas.

In the end, what can we learn from Amazzoni? During the 1670s, the status of women in Venetian society was discussed with great interest. Although women were absolutely excluded from public life in Venice, some men had begun to recognize them on a more equal footing. Only a few short years before Pallavicino’s work appeared, discoveries regarding female sexuality were made in anatomy courses, and the first doctorate in philosophy was awarded to an Italian female in 1678. Slowly but surely, women were gaining ground in the social sphere, but it would take many more centuries for them to realize their rightful claims.

In the meantime, Venice continued to be a place of contradictions. Both Venus and the Virgin Mary were deeply rooted in Venetian symbolism, and Venetians conceived of themselves as embodying conflicting ideas of virtue and licentiousness, impenetrability

and seductiveness, as well as Christian piety and pagan mystery. According to Heller, it

was a female body that the male aristocracy inhabited. In order not to offend God, who might send his wrath down on Venetian fleets, Venetians maintained the status quo at all costs. Opera was a space where social rules could, however briefly, be overturned. It provided a place where an inverted universe could not only be seen but also heard.

If there is one final thing to be taken away from Pallavicino’s Amazzoni, it is that theater, poetry and music have an incredible ability to shed light on another society – one, though long since gone, still can teach us much about ourselves as well as those who have lived before us.