Il duca d'Andria e il principe da Vanosa

Speranza

More about Fabrizio Carafa, duca d'Andria.

Nell'opera di Sciarrino, "Luci miei traditrici", tratto da Cicognini, "Il tradimento per l'onore" (1664).

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Luci miei traditrici - the look that betrays

Next to Mackbeth, Lohengrin, Perseus and Andromeda, the opera

"Luci mie traditrici" (the work with the greatest staging history) tells another "old" story.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, a 16th-century composer of madrigals and murderer of his own wife and her lover, is a historical prototype of the protagonist.


The bloody life of "the Prince of musicians" has soon become a legend serving as an inspiration for many literary, film and operatic works.

Apart from Sciarrino, Carlo Gesualdo stirred the imagination of e.g.

Werner Herzog,
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński and
Alfred Schnittke.

It is hard to tell now how much truth there is in the described details of the murder.

Were music and hunting Gesualdo's only love?

Was he neglecting his wife, Maria d'Avalos?

The chroniclers cited by Herling-Grudziński stated that Gesualdo spent too much time on composing in his Neapolitan palace near San Domenico Maggiore.

He treated Maria as a "tool of rare whims and sexual distractions".

For long hours the woman had been awaiting her husband in their bedchamber, weeping bitter tears and listening to the sounds coming from the studio...

Herling-Grudziński writes that:

"Maria d'Avalos was said to be the most
beautiful woman in Naples and

FABRIZIO CARAFA, duca d'Andria

the most beautiful man, the «archangel».

Their affair has soon turned into passion with no restraints.

Whenever the duke-madrigalist went hunting, the duke «archangel» (who was married) would spend the nights in Maria's bedroom.

They, and Maria in particular, seemed not to notice the danger they were in.

Their love affair continued for a long time, until the Duke kept himself busy with his madrigals and had his eyes shut.

He opened them in 1590.

Today, Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa is a character in the history of Italian music and in crime chronicles.

He is the composer of original madrigals, conducting harmonic experiments, and alchemist experimenting on human bodies.

Who is the "Prince of musicians" in Luci mie traditrici?

The starting point for the composer was the 1664 drama by

Giacinto Andrea Cicognini,

based on the murder story, to which Sciarrino wrote his libretto.

He rejected the historical context and gave up the realities of the epoch, focusing on pure drama.

"Luci mie traditrici" is not really an adaptation, although the composer wanted the spectator to identify with the characters governed by irrevocable fate, as in an ancient Greek tragedy.

Because the story has some traces of a Greek tragedy held in-between the desire of the heart and the letter of the law.

Was Carlo Gesualdo acting out of his free choice, or rather under the pressure from his milieu?

The narrator of the short story by Herling-Grudziński, entitled The Funeral Madrigal, is trying to answer all these questions.

The locals in a quasi documentary by Herzog accompany him, emphasizing the fact that the Duke was tortured by guilt, that he himself cut down the wood surrounding the castle, and that he died of wounds, as he had himself beaten daily by his servants...