1muller
N EW V OICES IN C LASSICAL R ECEPTION S TUDIES
Issue 4 (2009)
R ECENT T HEAT RICAL A ND M USIC AL A D AP T ATIONS O F
A PULEIUS′M ETAMORPHOSES
? Hendrik Müller-Reineke, University of G?ttingen
Undoubtedly, no other work of ancient literature is so full of theatrical episodes, masquerades, and pantomime as Apuleius‘ novel Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass from the second century AD,1 in which Lucius, a young man, is accidentally turned by witchcraft into asinine form and in this guise experiences a stream of adventures before he gains his human form back only by initiation to the cult of the goddess Isis.
As Regine May has recently shown convincingly, drama is used constantly as an intertext in all of Apuleius‘ works, and especially in the Metamorphoses the author makes use of the readers‘ knowledge of contemporary dra ma, in particular comedy, to interpret the comic adventures of his protagonist.2
It is therefore unsurprising that soon after this only Latin novel to have survived as an entirety was translated into the modern languages, it was also, at least partially, adapted for the stage. In earlier centuries though, these adaptations are limited to the inset story of Cupid and Psyche. The reason for that is the overall atmosphere of the story which forms the framework of Apuleius‘ novel with its somewhat loose moralit y: Lucius‘ sexual encounters with Photis and even more his carnal adventures in asinine form were for many centuries not considered as a suitable topic for a literary or a theatre audience.
However, with the radical changes in the attitudes of the Western world towards sexual morality and ever growing sexual freedom since the 1960s our attitude towards certain aspects of classical literature has fundamentally changed, and this change also had an enormous influence on the reception of this most fascinating piece of ancient literature. Still, Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses as a whole were discovered relatively late as a subject matter for plays and have been put on stage regularly only in very recent years.
I will begin this paper by giving a brief overview of the general, and in particular the musical and theatrical, reception of Apuleius‘ novel since the Renaissance. This summary proves the assumption that stage adaptations of Apuleius‘ novel for centuries more or less mean adaptations of the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Although most of my observations are based on already existing research and are therefore far from original, I hope at least to combine some loose strands, as in many cases the data available so far exists only in the form of handbook entries. But as my main focus in this paper is clearly aimed at more recent adaptations of the Metamorphoses,I can only treat most of these adaptations from the Renaissance to the twentieth century very briefly, and furthermore I will look at things with a central European perspective. More important for the sake of my conclusion is the impression of the overall development, and the reader should most importantly notice the ever growing mass of productions of Cupid and Psyche stage versions, many accompanied by music, from the sixteenth century onwards.
In the second part I will concentrate on the growing number of productions of the Metamorphoses at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty first century, some of them still based on the inset tale of Cupid and Psyche, but others constituting a clearly growing number of adaptations focusing on different aspects of the novel. The reader‘s attention is especially drawn to some of the very latest adaptations over the last decade, some of them quite alien to the original. With these productions this paper attains a far more global perspective, both in terms of their country of origin and their affiliation with different genres. Most of the very recent adaptations are not (yet) available or are even simply not reproducible in printed form.3 In these cases their documentation on the Worldwide Web has supplied me with material for this overview.4 The nature of this material shows that, particularly in the case of performance reception, it is necessary to take a look beyond the boundaries of tradition established by classical philology, especially as in this case we are not dealing with a piece of literature which was originally intended to be put on stage. Instead we have to be aware of the ?critical distance‘between the ancient text and its modern versions that should help us to broaden our cultural horizon.5
E ARL Y L I TERARY R ECEPTI ON O
F T HE M ETAMORPHOSES
D URING TH
E R ENAI SSANCE
Whereas during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses were treated as somewhat dubious,6 they had a considerably larger influence on the emerging novelistic literature of the Renaissance and early modern times. The few surviving Roman verdicts on the literary quality and importance of the ancient novels are negative, usually on the grounds that these texts were considered too frivolous in content to join the serious canon of literature: Macrobius7 in his Somnium Scipionis ?condemns prose fiction as merely titillating and more suitable for the nursery than for serious consider ation‘,8 and likewise in a supposed letter by emperor Septimius Severus9 in the Historia Augusta the novel is associated with old women, its content characterised as trivial, and its readers labelled credulous. This early marginalisation is partly revised during the Renaissance, when it was the allegorical interpretation of Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses(along with that of other novels) that helped to confer the deep intellectual significance which seemed to be lacking on the surface.10 The modern reception of Ap uleius‘ novel begins in 1355 when the humanist Giovanni Boccaccio11 discovered a manuscript of the Metamorphoses at Monte Cassino, transcribed it,12 and later allegorised the tale of Cupid and Psyche in chapter 7.2 of his De Genealogiis Deum Gentilium, a collection of similar mythological narratives from antiquity. Boccaccio also included three adultery stories from book 9 of Apuleius‘ novel in his classic Il Decamerone, best known for its bawdy tales of love in all its facets.13 The stories Boccaccio adapted from his model are ?The lover in a cask‘ (Apuleius, Metamorphoses9.5–7) at Il Decamerone7. 2,14 in which a wife hides her lover in a tub, and two combined adultery stories at Decamerone5. 10: ‘The Miller‘s wife‘ (Apuleius, Metamorphoses9.22–31), in which a wife and her new lover are surprised by the miller‘s return. The wife manages to hide her lover at first before he is eventually discovered by the husband and punished appropriately. Boccaccio‘s versions of these episodes from Apuleius are clearly modified:15 the alterations of the original stories are obviously required by the sexual attitudes of the Renaissance that, needless to say, were different to those of antiquity. But Boccaccio has even exploited
his alterations to give Apuleius‘ version a more comic tone: in his version it becomes clear from the beginning that the reason why the miller‘s wife took lovers at all lies in her husband‘s homosexuality, and consequently the cuckolded miller punishes his rival by assaulting him in the mill‘s bedroom.16
Boccaccio‘s use of Apuleius‘ work only marks the beginning of the latter‘s popularity. His collected works were also among the earliest classical books ever printed, with the first edition published in Rome under the inspection of Johannes Andreas, bishop of Aleria, in 1465 and reissued in 1488 and 1493 in Venice. Naturally, with the subsequent translations of the Metamorphoses into Italian (Matteo Maria Boiardo, printed in 1508 and especially Agnolo Firenzuola‘s influential version, finished in 1524 and printed as L’asino d’oro in 1550, later reprinted several times), Spanish (Diego López de Cartagena, 1513), French (Guillaume Michel, 1522), German (Johann Sieder, 1500, printed in Augsburg 1538 as Ain Sch?n Lieblich, auch kurtzweylig gedichte von einem gulden Esel) or English (The Golden Asse by William Adlington, 1566), Apuleius‘ novel became one of the most widely read works of fiction in Europe.17 In France alone, the Golden Ass was published four times between 1600 and 1648. The Metamorphoses also helped to give birth to the genre of the so-called picaresque novel in Spain.18
S EPARATE S TAGE A DAPTATIONS OF T HE M YTH OF C UPID AND P SYCHE
(S I XTEENTH–T W ENTIETH C ENTURY)
The inset tale of Cupid and Psyche (Apuleius, Metamorphoses 4. 28–6, 24) in particular has inspired both writers and composers since it became popular in the Renaissance.19 It tells the story of the marriage of the human girl Psyche to a mysterious spouse—who turns out to be the god Cupid—their separation caused by her evil sisters, Psyche‘s adventur ous quest for her lost husband, and their happy reunification at the end. The tale has often been characterised as the earliest European folktale. Yet this designation is an anachronism, as the development of the genre of fairy-tale, according to recent research, is clearly a result of modern times: in antiquity its place was taken by mythological tales based on popular belief.20 Already in late antiquity the story of Cupid and Psyche had developed an allegorical reception of its own, manifesting itself in a fifth or sixth century version by Fulgentius, a Latin grammarian of African origin, who in his Mythologiarum Libri explained a series of older myths in either mystical or allegorical ways. Fulgentius sees in Apuleius‘ tale the quest of the human soul, Psyche, for Love, alias Cupid.21 In the Renaissance this allegorical version has been reawakened by Boccaccio‘s version in De Genealogiis Deum Gentilium mentioned earlier.22
Separate printed editions of the tale appear surprisingly late though, the earliest by Northius at the end of the eighteenth century.23Northius‘ edition is clearly inspired by the common contemporary German interest in fairy-tales and folktales and has been followed by an ever growing number of editions until today.
As, quite naturally, Lu cius‘ sexual adventures both as a human and an ass were not considered apt for stage presentation in Renaissance and early modern times, the tale of (Cupid and) Psyche with its fairy-tale character and timeless validity emerged separately as an interesting subject for all kind of artificial reception: from the fifteenth century it became a usual motif for painters and sculptors,24and later the couple‘s fate
became a popular element of everyday culture, with versions on tapestries, for example.25 Quite naturally it was adapted by librettists and set to music by composers as well, and over centuries formed the thematic basis for a continuing sequence of stage adaptations, many of them a combination of theatrical and musical elements in the genre of ballet or opera.26
Italian composers found the story of Cupid and Psyche as early as the sixteenth century for use in their work: although the epic version Fabula Psiches et Cupidinis by the poet laureate at the court of Ferrara, Niccolò da Coreggio27 is unfortunately lost,28 its plot seemed to be the main influence of the Piedmontese aristocrat Galeotto del Carretto,29 who wrote an early scenic piece Le nozze di Psyche e di Cupidine, that reportedly was performed on stage at Milan in 1520. The main difference from the or iginal version by Apuleius is the twist that, in the end, Psyche‘s sisters are reawakened from the dead and forgiven for their mischief.
But from Italy as the innovative cultural centre of Europe adaptations of Cupid and Psyche spread across the whole of Europe. From the seventeenth century onwards we can trace an ever growing number of musical compositions, namely ballets, operas or Singspiele(?sung plays‘) on Cupid and Psyche and their performances all over the continent. These early modern versions made use of the dramatic twist of the story and its happy ending, which provided them both with a perfect formula for an entertaining and gripping piece of drama and (where appropriate) music with a clear structure whose dramatic solution could be stretched over several acts. The timeless mythological and generally serious character of Apuleius‘ original did not necessitate radical changes, so that writers and composers could concentrate on the artistic implementation. The perceptible popularity of the subject between the sixteenth and nineteenth century that can be seen from the sheer number of adaptations and productions, clearly led to an unspoken competition that fortified the efforts of all artists engaging with the originally ancient material.
In Germany the national tradition of Cupid and Psyche plays starts with Sigismund von Birken,30 who was one of the most prominent and productive baroque poets of his time. Von Birken wrote a pastoral Singspiel31 whose first performance took place at Nuremburg in 1652. Only a couple of years later, in 1660, a Ballett von der Natur was performed at the court of prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick32 at Wolfenbüttel that included a part Spiel von der Psyche. The prince was not only a noted art lover, patron, and respectable poet himself but for a short while, in the year 1646, he was personally educated by Sigismund von Birken with whom he obviously shared a common interest in the story of Psyche.
But undoubtedly the most important early modern versions and stage adaptations of P syche have their origin in the French culture of ?Le Grand Siècle‘under the Sun King Louis XIV.33Molière‘s34 play Psyché(1671) was one of many spectacles produced in celebration of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of Devolution between France and Spain in 1668. Molière though did not start the French tradition himself: in the seventeenth century there had already been two ballets performed on the subject at the French court, the Ballet de la reine tiré de la fable de Psyché of 1619 and Isaac Benserade‘s35Ballet de Psyché of 1656. A few years earlier, in 1669, Jean de La Fontaine36 (1621–1695) had also published a tale entitled Les Amours de Psychéet de Cupidon.Like these earlier versions Molière had to adapt
Apuleius‘s sometimes far too over tly sexual version for the seventeenth century stage. Still Molière was only responsible for outlining the plot, and versifying the prologue, the first act, and the first scene of acts two and three. The rest of the play was written by Pierre Corneille,37 and finally set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully;38 this in fact was Molière‘s and Lully‘s last and most successful collaborative work, a magnum opus whose performance lasts more than five hours. Soon afterwards, the two most prominent French artists of the time ended their collaboration, which had begun in the early 1670s, in dispute. The plot differs from Apuleius‘ original version on several occasions; in Act Five for example Psyche is killed by a poisonous vapour coming out of Proserpina‘s box and only lat er is granted immortality so that she is reunited with Cupid in the end.
Molière‘s and Lully‘s Psyché was given for the first time on January 17th, 1671 at the Salle des Tuileries. As was usual for the traditional ballet de cour (court ballet) the cast included not only professional singers and dancers, but also many eminent figures at court who actively participated in the ballet scenes. For modern taste the play is more or less impracticable in performance and can be enjoyed more as a work of literature.
Only a couple of years later in 1678 Lully produced a second version of Psyché, this time a tragédie en musique (musical tragedy), that he composed in collaboration with Thomas Corneille.39 Thomas of course was the younger brother of Pierre Corneille who had assisted Molière with the earlier version. This operatic version reuses the interlud es from Molière‘s play, since they had been such a spectacular success seven years earlier. All in all Lully seemed to be in a hurry while composing this version of Psyché. The plot is identical with the earlier version only in the Prologue and at the closure and is notably varied by Corneille by darkening the role of Venus and transforming her into a diabolical character. Although this later version was also well receiv ed by the contemporary audience, compared to Lully‘s other operas it appear to have been the least popular and is often overlooked by modern musicologists.
Another French version that was produced in the eighteenth century40 is Jean Joseph Cassanéa de Mondo nville‘s41L′Amour et Psyché(1758), a one act ballet héro?qu e (heroic ballet) composed by this most famous violin virtuoso of his time, who was also a protégé of Madame de Pompadour.42
At roughly the same time Reinhard Kaiser,43 a German composer, was director of music at the Hamburg opera house on the G?nsemarkt and cantor at the city‘s cathedral. His opera Die Wunder-sch?ne Psyche used the libretto by Christian Heinrich Postel ,44 itself based on Apuleius and a contemporary Italian play version by Matteo Noris,45 entitled L‘amor innamorato. It was first performed in three acts in 1702 at the Hamburg opera house.
With the turn of the eighteenth century we see ballet and opera versions performed in all major European cities from Paris to St. Petersburg, a development that continued into the nineteenth century. A quick glance at the German operatic tradition of the time is sufficient to prove that the subject of Psyche attracted writers and composers more than ever. The perception and therefore artistic emphasis in these two centuries is clearly shifting from the dramatic to the more comic aspects of the story, as stage productions were now produced for a much broader audience; writers could no longer
take the knowledge of the original version for granted and had to condense the content of their plays to fewer acts.
To name a few examples: Joseph Schuster,46 who was actually court composer at Dresden, produced an opera entitled Amor e Psiche for the Teatro San Carlo at Naples while travelling in Italy in 1780. Peter von Winter47 was educated at Mannheim, Munich and Vienna where he took lessons by Salieri. He later became bandmaster at the Bavarian royal court at Munich where his opera Psyche. Heroisches Spiel in two acts was performed at the Salvatortheater at Munich in October 1790. The libretto was produced by the Carl Friedrich Müchler48 and was also the source for the homonymous Singspiel by Carl Bernhard Wessely,49 the first performance of which took place on November 18th 1789 at the Nationaltheater in Berlin.
The Austrian playwright Carl Meisl50 gave the subject an even lighter tone: Amor und Psyche, a so-called Karikaturoperette (caricature operatta), was set into music by Ferdinand Kauer51 staged October 2nd 1817 at the Josephstadt theater at Vienna.
To sum up, the intensified interest of composers and writers in the subject continued throughout the nineteenth century, as César Franck‘s52 tripartite symphonic poem Psyché, written for chorus and orchestra and first performed in 1888, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal‘s53 lyric poem Psyche of 1892 prove.54
In 1897 a new medium discovered the subject: a silent short movie was shot by photographer and early cinematographer Frederick W. Bleckyrden. An anonymous plot synopsis describes it as follows:
On a stage at San Francisco‘s Sutro Baths, in front of what looks like a large crowd, a young woman portraying Psyche and a girl of about ten portraying Cupid perform a simple dance. Psyche wears a white dress with petticoats and dons a white-feathered hat. Cupid is in a white leotard with wings on her back. The dance itself is rhythmic and without drama or much interaction between the characters—more of a prancing about.55
This first movie adaptation marks an important step in the overall reception, but still in the twentieth century we can find a number of adaptations of the Psyche story that clearly tie in with much earlier traditions.
Adaptations of the tale in new music are Paul Hindemith‘s56 seven minute ballet overture, first performed under the title Cupid and Psyche on October 28th1943 at Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy,57 or the opera in one act with the title Cupid and Psyche(1956) by the Austrian born composer Kurt Manschinger,58 known after his emigration to the US by the pseudonym of Ashley Vernon.
There is also a very recent short opera by the German composer Eberhard Schoener,59 called Palazzo del Amore/Cold Genius (1996), in which Amor and Psyche meet Romeo and Juliet and sing together about eternal love. In the course of the plot the lovers are threatened by modern cosmopolitan and multicultural society and by the gods likewise. But love is triumphant in the end, for one pair of lovers in death, for the others in heaven. Beside Argentinean mezzo-soprano Nidia Palacios,60 and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli,61the cast of the CD production of Schoener‘s opera included Italian rock icon Gianna Nannini62 and the American singer Helen Schneider,63
accompanied by the United Philharmonic Orchestra Budapest which proves the cross-over character of the opera.
Even in contemporary popular music we can find distant echoes of Apuleius‘ tale of Cupid and Psyche, even if their occurrence is limited to song or CD titles. In the mid–1980s for example the British synth-pop group Scritti Politti64 released an album called Cupid and Psyche 85, which became a huge commercial success. A similar example is the debut album When Cupid Meets Psyche from 2001 by Stephen Coates aka (The Real) Tuesday Weld, 65 sharing not only a remarkably similar album name, but also the same love-fuelled style as Scritti Politti.
M ORE F ROM C UPI D A ND P SYCHE:
R ECENT M USI CAL AND T HEATRE V ERSIONS OF T HE T ALE
It is impossible to give a detailed overview of all of the ongoing and recent productions of theatrical adaptations of the story of Cupid and Psyche, as this tale—as we have seen—has not only been adapted for the stage (and even) screen for centuries and has so become an integral part of our cultural heritage, but has also inspired other European versions of the story such as popular German or French fairy tale versions based on the internationally prevalent folk motifs The Search for the Lost Husband, The Monster Bridegroom, and particularly Beauty and the Beast.66 The latter in particular itself triggered a chain of independent reception:67 French versions appeared from the late seventeenth century among collections of contes de fees (fairy tales), inaugurated by Charles Perrault,68 the first published version of the tale being that by Gabrielle de Villeneuve69 in 1740. This tradition culminated in the most popular version of La Belle et la Bête in J.M. Leprince de Beaumont‘s70Magasin des enfants (1756). In Germany likewise a number of the famous Kinder und Hausm?rchen(Children‘s and Household Tales) collected by the Brothers Grimm71 can be traced back to the core folk-motifs just mentioned.
In the twentieth century the story was adapted for the movies, most famously Jean Cocteau‘s72 French version La Belle et la Bête from the year 1946,73and Disney‘s 1991 animated film or the TV Series created by Ron Konslow74, running from 1987 to 1990 on CBS. The story also became a worldwide successful Broadway musical with music by Alan Menken75 and lyrics by Howard Ashman76 and Tim Rice,77 running on Broadway for 5,464 performances between 1994 and 2007. In modified form it is the scenario of the movie classic King Kong from the year 1933, recently remade by award-winning director Peter Jackson78 in 2005.
But the ?Beauty and Beast‘-tradition certainly deserves a treatment of its own, so in the following I will return to adaptations which as regard content have a closer connection to the story of Cupid and Psyche proper. Generally it remains difficult adequately to describe live performances for a reading audience; and undoubtedly the production and the live audience is a key part of modern reception.79 So the following task of taking a detailed look at modern theatrical adaptations of either Cupid and Psyche or the Metamorphoses as a whole can only give an approximate impression without yielding a satisfactory overall picture. An adequate way to emulate the effect of actual personal presence might be through citing reviews. Although the danger is that one relies of course on the individual or even one-sided opinion of theatre critics, this method seems to be the closest to the real theatre experience of an audience. By way
of example, three versions of the story of Cupid and Psyche, a musical, an American play, and a German mask play, are examined. These observations will be followed in the next chapter by an appraisal of four versions of the Metamorphoses as a whole, one of them a Canadian opera, the others respectively plays from Italy, the UK and Austria.
As we have already observed, most of the adaptations of the Cupid and Psyche story follow the original version quite closely in content and structure. It is often simply by means of the production that the desired variations and effects aimed at the audience are achieved. The contemporary audience in particular is in most cases not expected to have a concrete clue of the actual origin of the tale, but a general knowledge of the plot is assumed. This may lead to the interesting effect that both authors and directors more than ever stick to the original version, as deliberate changes and variation would be appreciated by only a minority of viewers and listeners.
Following the huge success of an earlier adaptation of a classical text (Mary Zimmerman‘s80 Broadway hit Metamorphoses,81based on Ovid‘s myths), Sean Hartley82 had his lyrics Cupid and Psyche put to music by Jihwan Kim.83 The musical successfully tries to retell the story for a modern audience while preserving the basic plot. But no attempt has been made to give the story a contemporary setting, which is certainly impossible when places like Mt. Olympus and Hades play a major part and the actors represent ancient gods on stage. But these ancient gods do nonetheless behave the same way as contemporary humans in most respects, so that typical stock characters of our society are blended into the ancient myth: Venus for example acts like an over-protective mother who forbids her son Cupid to fall in love with the mortal Psyche, whom humans have begun worshipping in her stead.
Hartley, who is a regular collaborator with The Walt Disney Company, has managed to create a verse libretto which can be understood by children as well as adults. In the best tradition of American musical theatre the production, while making you laugh, also manages to tug at the heartstrings by underscoring lessons to be learned, underlining the allegorical character of the story that has been dwelt on since late antiquity.
The musical was performed with a four-person cast—Cupid, Psyche, Venus, and Mercury—for 90 minutes without an intermission at New York‘s tiny 40-seat John Houseman Studio, downstairs at 450 West 42nd Street—?off-Broadway‘—and had its debut on September 17th, 2003. The set was simple, consisting of little more than white walls, benches, and a couple of doors, painted with clouds. The special effects were achieved by the costumes, such as a glittery revealing gown for Venus and a cyclist‘s outfit for the messenger Mercury. As one critic said about the actual music by Kim: The song titles—Venus‘s ?Spread a Little Love‘, Cupid‘s ?One Little Arrow‘, perpetually single Mercury‘s I Hate Love—suggest a more generic tone not truly present in the score; the songs, steeped in bubbly melody and well-honed musicianship, are attractive and varied, full of honest character and droll humor, and never resorting to cheap tricks.84
The young US playwright Joseph Fisher85has also adapted Apuleius‘ original version as a comedy. His Cupid & Psyche had its world premiere in 2002 at the Stark Raving Theater in Portland where Fisher was playwright-in-residence at the time. It is still
being produced around the US. M ore than two hours in length, Fisher‘s play includes a cast of eight actors, half of them male, half female, who perform the complicated love affair between Cupid and the beautiful mortal Psyche with a contemporary twenty-first century spin, as it reminds the audience more of a celebrity reality show than of an ancient myth: the play covers barely half of the original myth, and often seems to be an intellectual discourse about the nature of love and beauty, with each of the characters bringing their own poi nt of view into the picture. Some critics have attacked Fisher‘s lengthy monologues that sometimes detract from the actual action of the story, and especially the use of cell phones as a means of communication between the gods seemed somewhat out of place.86Still Fisher‘s play has been a success. As critic Bob Hicks from The Oregonian has put it:
This play by … Joseph Fisher is one of the most interesting scripts I've seen produced this season—an imaginative, comic, accessible and irony—free variation on a classic theme...you'll be rewarded with a play that‘s literate, a little sexy and grown-up, a play that deals forthrightly with the double edge of sadness and happiness that comes with love.87
A very recent German adaptation of the Cupid and Psyche tale is Amor & Psyche. Ein Spiel mit Masken für einen Mann und eine Frau, adapted from Apuleius by Claudia Hann88 and Udo Mierke.89 This production, first performed in 2002 and still currently running at the Cassiopeia Theater in Cologne, tells the story of Cupid and Psyche in 85 minutes without a break as a masque play. The masks are not actually worn by the two actors Claudia Hann and Waldemar Hooge,90 but carried in front of them, so that they appear to be autonomous objects. This leads to the impression that at times four instead of two actors appear to be on stage. The production interprets Psyche‘s story as an act of successful inner maturing away from the influence of her family. The accentuation of this aspect gives the story a contemporary twist aimed at attracting a younger audience.91 In 1999 The Cassiopeia Theater initiated a series Mit allen Sinnen lesen (Reading with All Senses) that is dedicated to the dramatisation of classical works that were intentionally not produced as theatre literature. Amor & Psyche is only the second production of the series that has started with a scenic collage Liebe und Verwandlung (Love and Metamorphosis), based on Ovid, Plato, and Otto Brahm.92 All these very different adaptations have in common that regardless of the actual genre of performance, even very recent stage versions of Cupid and Psyche continue to follow the ancient myth in general and stress the timeless testimony of the narrative. There is clearly an enduring fascination and a permanent interest in the story which holds even for the fastidious theatre audience of the twenty first century.
A N EW D EVELOPMENT:T HE M ETAMORPHOSES A S A W HOLE O N S TAGE
It may sound like an impossible task to put the whole of Apuleius‘ novel on stage. Still, in recent years there have been a growing number of productions that try to achieve exactly this. What makes these modern adaptations so attractive is not so much their accurate recounting of the ancient model, but the perceptible effort to point out that despite its age the Metamorphoses can be an appropriate metaphor for the global society of the twenty first century with its sometimes bewildering mix of cultures, religions, and sensual attractions, that seem to suggest a parallel with Apuleius‘ own
lifetime and the variegated cultural atmosphere of the Roman empire in the second century.
Interestingly enough, it was an Italian effort that first tried to undertake the ambitious task of adapting the complete body of the novel for the stage. And even more fascinating that this experiment began as early as the early 1970s. Under the director Sergio Spina93 the Metamorphoses had been made into a movie in 1969 and released in August 1970. With its duration of 99 minutes L’asino d’oro: processo per fatti strani contro Lucius Apuleius cittadino romano remains the only cinematic adaptation of Apuleius‘ novel so far.94 The script, written by Spina himself, lays its focus on the erotic aspects of the novel which makes the movie range over the erotico-storici (erotic-historic)sub-genre of Italian soft pornography, together with other (for our taste) sensational biopics of famous Roman individuals,95 which were obviously quite popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
More than 25 years later one of the cast members of the movie, Paolo Poli, 96 who in the meantime had become one of Italy‘s most renowned actors, picked up the original idea and gave it a more serious touch. Still it is the contemporary comic tone of Poli‘s version that made this production a special event. From March 28th—April 15th, 1995 his version of L'asino d’oro was performed at the Teatro della Tosse in Sant‘ Agostino of Genova. The play had been adapted by Poli together with his long-time collaborator Ida Ombini and he also directed the production.
In April 1999 the Canadian Opera Company produced a more than two hour operatic version in two acts of the Golden Ass, based on the libretto by the celebrated Canadian author Robertson Davies.97The idea of an opera based on Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses had been a dream of Davies for more than four decades, yet finally set in music by Randolph Peters,98 it was performed a couple of years after his death at the Hummingbird Festival at Toronto. Famous Canadian critic and professed opera fan Ben Viccari gives a vivid description:
Audiences who came to the premiere expecting an opera that lacked in tonality and harmony wer e agreeably surprised to find Peters‘ music indeed highly accessible and Robertson‘s libretto witty and amusing. And the production was outstanding ... From the moment the curtain rose, the stage was filled with constant motion as more than 50 performers recreated a market place in ancient Carthage of almost 2,000 years ago. Deployed on a set consisting mainly of two flights of marble stairs, and acting out a variety of situations, including some torrid (and convincing) lovemaking and a ballet based on the legend of Cupid and Psyche, they moved up and down the stairs with fluidity.99
The popularity of the Metamorphoses for the stage is even growing in the new millennium: The Golden Ass or The Curious Man100 by British author Peter Oswald101 was written as an erot ic verse comedy and first performed at Shakespeare‘s Globe Theatre in London during the 2002 season. Intended by the author as an allegory on human lust in every possible way, the production also included every conceivable kind of theatrical genre, ranging from silent movie to puppetry and opera. The cast therefore also included musicians and added up to around 40, which made this three hour play in three acts quite a spectacle/spectaculum; it also included some scenes of an x-rated
nature, the adultery stories co mmented on as ?pass the parcel‘, anecdotes, which were acted out in a riotous way. Oswald‘s story is actually quite close to the original. Lucius, an insatiably curious young man of extraordinary appetites, plunges into a carnival of vice, sorcery and madness, and eventually finds himself transformed into an ass. He is then hurtled into a new series of misadventures with bandits, adulterers, slave-drivers, cult members, and circus performers. So the audience learns about the wickedness and depravity of human kind from an ass‘s-eye view.
While the first act ends with Lucius‘ transformation, the second act not only recounts his further adventures under an assortment of owners, but also includes an operatic puppet show in the Japanese Bunraku tradition, telling the tale of Cupid and Psyche. In the last act the hero is able to escape his asinine body and, having confessed his sins and been initiated into a secretive ancient cult, is able to live a decent and humble live thereafter. The director Tim Carroll102 made a considerable effort to fulfil the audience‘s desire for sensual excitement and comical thrills, though he may have gone too far in the end, when he presented the band of robbers as a gang of Wild West cowboy-outlaws driving around the stage on mini-scooters or the goddess Isis as an ice-cream vendor on a tricycle.103 As critic Amanda Hodge has put it in her review:
Tim Carroll envisaged the production as rooted in recent popular culture... In parts it‘s a fun frolic and the gulf between the ancient source of the story and its modern edginess is intriguing but the sum of its parts doesn‘t unfortunately equate with my idea of an entertaining evening; it‘s certainly way overlong, often seems puerile rather than witty and lacks flair overall.104
The play Apuleius Short Cuts,105 by the Austrian author Wolfgang Kindermann,106 who, like Oswald, has adapted other ancient themes for the stage over the last decade,107 is another clever, two-hour adaptation of Apuleius‘ novel. The total of nineteen scenes involves five actors. It had its world premiere at the Innsbrucker Kellertheater in Austria on June 10th, 2004. Vienna-born Kindermann presents the Roman Empire as a global corporation, Lucius as a commercial traveller and the other protagonists as his colleagues, with whom he works in the field. According to Apuleius‘ own intention, lector intende: laetaberis (reader pay attention: you will enjoy it) (Apuleius Metamorphoses 1.1.1), the protagonists are always looking for pleasure and gratification.
The ass does not appear directly on stage, but it becomes obvious that desire transforms humans into animals. Lucius is infamous as a ?lady-killer‘ within the corporation and makes an ass of himself; equipped with asinine attributes of a long tail and a speech defect he wanders around different circles of society in which free life and love are exercised. When in the end he is fascinated by the obscure Isis-sect, his re-transformation seems to be far from desirable. Kindermann‘s adaptation is a lively and clever contemporary version of Apuleius for a twenty-first century audience, highly entertaining and sometimes deliberately reminiscent of contemporary TV-shows like Jackass and other reality-shows.
A LIENATI ON A ND
B URLESQUE O F A PULEI US‘M ODEL
The production of the Metamorphoses by the world renowned Polish theatre company, Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices,108 is internationally well-known. Gardzienice
takes its name from a small village near Lublin, Poland where it is based. It was founded in 1978 by the company‘s artisti c direc tor, W?odzimierz Staniewski,109 who had previously worked with Polish theatre legend Jerzy Grotowski110 (1933–1999) since 1971. The group is rooted in the tradition of Grotowski and Poland‘s most outstanding artist of the second half of the twentieth century, Tadeusz Kantor.111 Gardzienice is considered by many to be the most important contemporary theatre company in Poland today. The Centre is famous for taking up old, forgotten songs and musical traditions and has been credited with creating its very own theatrical culture based on this material.112Most of the group‘s productions are based on a long and gradual evolutionary process of collective research into the fast-fading rural folk traditions of Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to rigorous drill in dance, song, and acrobatics, the group‘s members make expeditions to study the music and rituals of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Roma and Jewish communities.113
With the Gardzienice version of the Metamorphoses we are clearly entering a grey area of the still very small number of theatrical or stage adaptations which are inspired by other parts of Apuleius‘ novel than Cupid and Psyche, which are at the same time emerging from the boundaries of the original to create something new.
Metamorphosis [sic]—a Theatrical Essay(Metamorfozy, 1997), composed by Staniewski, is a unique performance. Reviving the spirit of a pre-Christian society full of energy, joy and lightness the company for the first time did not use living traditions, but actually went back for inspiration to stone relief and papyrus remains from between the fifth century BC and the second century AD. So strictly speaking the actual textual source for this production is not Apuleius‘ Latin text, rather the production tries to reconstruct ancient Greek songs and sounds. Staniewski is convinced that Pythagorean music was sung and danced in the dynamic and passionate way we normally associate with indigenous cultures. As in all other productions of the troupe, musicality to a certain extent replaces verbal discourse.114
It is the overall atmosphere rather than the text of Staniewski‘s Metamorphosis, which is mainly based on the eleventh book of Apuleius‘ novel, although he himself says that words are of no significance. The audience can indeed grasp the performance without understanding the Polish text.115 However, words find their equivalents in situations on stage, incorporating live images, acting, dance, song and music. The eleven singers and dancers appear at the mythical-historical turning point when the gods Apollo and Dionysus bow out and Christ appears. As Apuleius was a Platonist, the group refers to key Platonic ideas, including the nature of soul, the nature of love, and the mystery of change.
The ecstatic performance seems to finish too quickly in the eyes of the audience. But each performance production is an interpretation and always unique, and the play was a huge international success, performed at festivals and theatres around the globe.116
As Apuleius‘ novel is sometimes grotesque, so on the fringes of t he established cultural world of the early twenty first century we find some adaptations which prove to be equally bizarre or too avant-garde for the general taste of society. This overview of theatrical adaptation will therefore conclude with two such examples, one an adaptation of Cupid and Psyche, the other mirroring one of the most notoriously erotic scenes of
Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses, the mating of Lucius as an ass with the wealthy matron/matrona in Book 9 of the novel.
Guests of the `Puppet Uprising Fr inge Usurper‘ Festival, held in Philadelphia in 2004, and visitors to El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe from Feb. 17–26th, 2006 had the chance to witness a most interesting production with the title Amabantur, a toy-theatre version of the story of Cupid and Psique [sic] played by the Mattel toy dolls, Barbie and Ken, and set in English and Spanish verse. The people behind this production were Ron Dans and Laia Obregon-Dans,117 who under the motto ?Small actors, big meaning‘ describe their work as
inspired by the old puppet and folkloric theater traditions of Catalonia, Spain, France, and Italy. Each of the plays is original. Some are based on mythology and folk tales while others are based on historical events and characters, and current topics. The plays are not specifically targeted for children although most are suitable for ages five to ninety-five. 118
The American-Spanish couple wants to bring back to life ?something that is altogether missing in so much of our modern culture.‘ Consequently there are as many levels of interpretation for their plays as there are ages in the audience. Despite their admirable efforts, due to the limited nature of this adaptation, the main source of distribution for it—apart from similar puppet festivals—is obviously the World Wide Web. So in the end it might be difficult to have versions like this widely distributed or at least accepted as a genuine part of Apuleius‘ cultural heritage.
That even our enlightened Western European society has its boundaries can also be proven by a final example from Germany. In the summer of 2004, a partial adaptation of Apuleius‘ novel proved to be too frivolous for Germany‘s time-honoured hanseatic city of Hamburg—at least according to some tabloid journalists. In recent years, the Catalan group ?La fura Dels Baus‘(Sewer Rats),119 which emerged in the late 1980s from the world of Catalan firework processions and street theatre, has coordinated and catalysed a number of events that can be shown in different formats, from theatrical or operatic productions, and Olympic ceremonies120 to advertising productions and such hybrid forms as rave parties or other high-voltage technological performances. With the ?Sewer Rats‘, we finally have a new kind of stage creation that results in new forms of dramatic creativity, which sometimes go beyond traditional limits; this a form for the twenty first century.
One of their productions, XXX, was quite successfully performed in Spain and Britain, and was also planned to be put on at the annual Kampnagel Summer Festival at Hamburg. The group has, according to their website,
decided to enter into the erotic genre by looking at the radical and transgressive writer the Marquis de Sade121 and his novel Philosophy in the Bedroom. Following the line of this work written in 1795 (although placing it in the present day), XXX is about the abuse of a young woman called Eugenie carried out by a group of liberal people. Madame Lula, a retired porn star, sensual, calculating and manipulating, is the brain of this particular journey through the sexual initiation of the innocent Eugenie.122
We meet an 18-year-old drama student who is inducted by a group of porn actors into their craft. Lesbian caresses are followed by oral instruction as well as vaginal and anal penetration, until the hapless Eugenie succumbs to every form of sensory delight. According to director álex Ollé,123the show is offering ?pastiche porn to release us from our presumed inhibitions and to ram home Sade‘s point that sexual pleasure pursued to its limits is spiritually li berating‘.124 Undoubtedly pushing the four actors to their extremes, the scenes of obscenity conclude in an unbearable climax of gang-bang, rape and mutilation, and contain a video sequence of the mating of a naked woman with an ass, clearly inspired by Luci us‘s sexual encounter with the wealthy lady in Apuleius‘ Metamorphoses.
A successful campaign by Germany‘s mass-selling tabloid Bild drew attention to the fact that the play included a video sequence showing a woman having sex with a donkey, and this in turn led to a police investigation against the Spanish group on the charge of ?diffusion of violence and bestiality.‘125 The video scene had finally to be cancelled.
Quite clearly even nowadays such a close reception of Apuleius‘ novel proves to be problematic with certain audiences, evidence enough for the overall descriptive force of Apuleius‘ novel. Although an ancient audience might be used to descriptions of bestiality as a common theme in classical myth, and therefore might be less shocked by Apuleius‘ a dultery tales,126 the planned public performance of a sexual act between the ass and a condemned poisoner in Apuleius‘ novel is also considered a step too far and Lucius-ass is spared this final act of degradation. And so history repeats itself: as in the novel Lucius is able to flee his public degradation, for the modern Hamburg show the public sexual act finally also had to be cancelled.
C ONCL USI ON
Whereas the inset tale of Cupid and Psyche relatively early developed a separate reception of its own, and therefore it is not surprisingly that nowadays we find traces and theatrical adaptations of it in a broad range of genres, ranging from fairy tale over musical to animated film, the adaptation of the whole of Apuleius‘ novel for the stage is a relatively recent development.
As this study of recent theatrical adaptations has shown, even these very recent versions of the Metamorphoses are not minute re-narrations, but are rather either comical or allegorical interpretations of the second-century novel.
The res ults of this paper fit into the concept of ?critical distance‘ as one important theoretical approach within reception studies. They demonstrate, as Lorna Hardwick has put it, that ?critical texts are used as critical devices for outwitting censors and enabling current social and political concerns to be addressed through the apparently neutral, ?distant‘ (and safe) medium of classical culture.‘127 As the knowledge of the Metamorphoses‘ content could not be taken for granted, authors as well as directors do not have to meet certain set expectations—as they do in the case of the inset tale of Cupid and Psyche128—but instead have a certain freedom of expression and interpretation. This freedom in accordance with the general content quality of the novel allows them to transfer the action to contemporary society or to take it as a starting point for an artistically independent reception.
In every case, it is the fascinating present-day impression of Apuleius‘ novel and its ?globalised‘ mix of cultures, social backgro unds, and religion that qualifies it as a most fascinating and increasingly popular subject for contemporary theatre practice. Hopefully this survey of recent stage adaptations of both Cupid and Psyche and other aspects of the Metamorphoses can help to raise awareness in the research community of this interesting phenomenon of growing theatrical interest in Apuleius‘ novel and inspire further research.
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E NDNOTES
The initial idea for this topic emerged during a postdoctoral sojourn in Berlin, during which I worked as an extra for the Deutsche Oper. In the context of the festival `Theater der Welt in Berlin’ (18 June–4 July1999), the theatrical essay Metamorphosis, based on Apuleius‘ novel, was performed at the Matth?uskirche. I thank Prof. Stephen Harrison (Oxford), Prof. Wolfgang Haase (Boston) and the anonymous readers of New Voices for their helpful comments.
1 For theatrical elements in the novel in general see: Frangoulidis (2001); Fick (1990), Zimmerman (1993).
2 Cf. May (2006).
3 As Macintosh (2004) stated: ?However, since so much work in performance reception has been conducted in areas where subject … have rarely ventured before, there has perhap s been much that has been overly empirical and raw‘.
4 This may explain why, especially in the second half, the sources for many of the citations are actually URLs.
5 Cf. Hardwick (2003: 8).
6 Apuleius was chiefly famous as a magician and Platonist philosopher then, cf. Schlam (1990).
7 Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius was a Roman grammarian and Neoplatonist philosopher who lived during the reigns of emperors Honorius and Arcadius (395–423) and was still particularly popular in the Middle Ages.
8 Cf. Harrison (2002: 143–4); the relevant citations are Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis 1.2.8:
?Hoc totum fabularum genus, quod solas aurium delicias profitetur‘ and Historia Augusta 12, 12: ?cum ille neniis quibusdam anilibus occupatus inter Milesias Punicas Apulei sui et ludicra litteraria consenesceret.‘
9 Lucius Septimius Severus (146–211) was a Roman general, and Roman Emperor from 193 to 211.
10 See Scobie (1978).
11 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) was an Italian author and poet. He was an important Renaissance humanist and author of a number of notable works.
12 The copy in his own hand is preserved as Florence. Laur. 54.32.
13For Boccaccio‘s dependence on Apuleius cf. Haight (1945) Mass (1989).
14 For the tub episode see Dick (1941).
15 These alterations are demonstrated by Radcliff-Umstead (1968).
16 Cf. Scobie (1978: 213).
17 Martos (2003) gives an excellent introduction on Spanish and Portuguese Renaissance reception, for the Italian development cf. Moreschini (1994) and Acocella (2001).
18 A general overview of the Nachleben of the Metamorphoses is given by Walsh (1970: 224–43). For the influence of the novel on Spanish literature see esp. Scobie (1969: 91–100) and Scobie (1978:218 and 227, esp. n. 45). The topic has been freshly approached by Küenzlen (2006).
19 The reception of Cupid and Psyche up to c.1650 is now covered by Carver (2008) and Gaisser (2008).
20 For the relation of myth and fairy-tale in antiquity cf. Heldmann (2000, 141) and crucially Fehling (1977) who shows that literary fairy-tales derive from the novel rather than vice versa.
21 See Fulgentius, Mythologiae 3, 6.
22 Cf. above n. 6.
23 Northius (1789).
24 Cf. Weiland-Pollerberg, F. (2004)
25 Holm (2006).
26 An extant list of compositions and performances can be found in the database by Reid (1993: 919–55); an other helpful source is the ?Bibliographie zum Nachleben des antiken Mythos‘ published by the Commission for Ancient Literature & Latin Tradition of the Austrian Academy of Science (www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/mythos/bibliomythos.pdf . Accessed 14 April 2009.
27 The poet Niccolo di Coreggio lived from 1450–1508.
28 Stiller (2002).
29 Galeotto del Carretto, born 1455 died in1531.
30 Sigismund von Birken (1626–1681) was a distinguished German hymn writer and baroque poet.
31 For the genre of Singspiel, the earliest German-language opera libretti, cf. Wade (1990).
32 Duke Anthony Ulrich (1633–1714) of Brunswick-Lüneburg ruled over the Wolfenbüttel subdivision of the duchy from 1685 until 1702 jointly with his brother, and solely from 1704 until his death.
33 Louis XIV (1638–1715) ruled France for 72 years, the longest reign of any major European monarch.
34 Molière (1622–1673), French writer. His name is a pseudonym for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. Molière was a French actor and playwright, considered one of the greatest writers of French comedy.
35 Isaac de Benserade (baptised 1613–died 1691) was a French poet who became a favourite at court, especially with Anne of Austria.
36 Jean de la Fontaine (1621–1695), French poet, whose fables rank among the masterpieces of world literature.
37 Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) was a French tragedian who was one of the three great 17th Century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. He has been called ―the founder of French tragedy‖ and produced plays for nearly 40 years.
38 Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), Italian by birth, born as Giovanni Battista Lulli in Florence, Lully made his career in France, where he rose from page to the position of Composer of the King‘s Music, Ma ster of Music to the Royal Family and to a position of complete control of all musical performances that involved singing throughout.
39 Thomas Corneille (1625–1709) was a French dramatist and younger of the ?great Corneille‘ Pierre.
40 There has not been an y scenic performance of Mondonville‘s opera since 1777 and outside France until 2004 when the opera was performed for the first time for over 200 years by students of the Musikhochschule Hamburg.
41 Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1711–1772), French violinist and composer.
42 Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764) was a well known courtesan and the famous mistress of King Louis XV of France.
43 Reinhard Kaiser (1674–1739), also known under his Italian name Rinardo Cesare, his surname is also known as Keyser, Kaiser or Kayser.
44 Christian Heinrich Postel (1658–1705), was a German poet, librettist and lawyer and was the most important and prolific writer of libretti for the Hamburg Opera towards the end of the 17th century.
45 Matteo Noris (1640–1714) was an Italian librettist and a prominent figure in Venetian opera in the second half of the 17th century.
46 Joseph Schuster (1748–1812), was a German opera composer.
47 Peter von Winter was baptised in 1754 and died 1825.
48 Carl Friedrich Müchler (1763–1857) was a German writer who originally worked for the Prussian administration and later turned to literature. He produced several libretti and became also popular for his crime stories.
49 Carl Bernhard Wessely (1768–1826), German composer and conductor. He was conductor at the Berlin National Theatre (1788–95) and at Prince Heinrich's private theatre at Rheinsberg (1796–1802). After the prince‘s death he became a civil servant at Potsdam, where he founded a society for the performance of classical music.
50 Carl Meisl, alternatively spelled as Karl Meisl (1775–1853) was an Austrian civil servant und playwright, and one of the most important representatives of the Viennese Volkskom?die . Meisl was best known for his parodies of serious drama and opera.
51 Ferdinand August Kauer (1751–1831) was an Austrian composer and pianist who wrote about 200 operas and Singspiele.
52 César Franck (1822–1890), composer, organist and music teacher of Belgian and German origin who lived in France. Franck belongs to the important figures in classical music in the second half of the 19th century.
53 Hugo von Hofmannsthal was born 1874 in Vienna and died 1929 in Rodaun. He was a major Austrian poet, dramatist and essayist.
54 Cf. Schmid (1985: 31–32, 58–64).
55 See https://www.sodocs.net/doc/0a4789365.html,/title/tt0217344/plotsummary . Accessed 14 April 2009.
56 Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor who emigrated to the US in 1940 and became an American citizen in 1946, but returned to Europe to live and teach at Zurich.
57 Eugene Ormandy (1899–1985) was an eminent conductor and violinist whose 44-year tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra began in 1936.
58 Kurt Manschiger (1902–1968), an Austrian born musician, composer, and critic who also emigrated to the US in 1940.