"Issipile" di Pietro Metastasio, Atto 1
Drama for Music by Antonio Bioni, exhibited in Breslau in 1732. Libretto: Pietro Metastasio
The Ars-Augusta e.V. in collaboration with the Stettin Theater, it will stage for the first time in modern times an opera by Antonio Bioni, and in particular an opera written for the Wroclaw Theater in 1732. And the opera "Issipile" . The manuscript is in the Archive of the Friends of Music Society in Vienna and will be edited by our Association in the coming months. The following booklet is used for the study of the work.
Libretto in English can be found under this Link.
The following translation was made by Enrique Gomez-Cabrero Fernandez, conductor of the opera.
Dramatis Personae
Toante: King of Lenno, Father of Issipile
Issipile: Lover and bride of Giasone
Eurinome: Blood princess, mother of Learco
Rodope: Confident of Issipile, lover of Learco
Learco: Rejected lover of Issipile
Giasone: Prince of Thesalia, lover of Issipile
Changes of scene
Temple of Bacchus
Little forest
Royal hall
Garden with Diana’s holly forest
Countryside with view to the see and tents
Remote location
Beach with ships and a bridge
ACT I
SCENA I
Baccus Temple
Issipile and Rodope
Issipile: Alas, have mercy of my fair pain,
Rodope, my friend.
Run, fly, hurry up,
Save my father.
Tell him not to come to these infamous beach
Let him know about the scheme, the riots,
And the women’s fury.
Rodope: Didn’t you swear to kill your father not long ago?
I saw you with such decided face
During the terrible sacrifices…
Issipile: I only pretended to support the fury of Eurinome.
Did you see how frenetically and ferociously
she spread her fury in every heart?
And who could stop a torrent?
I wouldn’t be useful to my father if I would be
suspected by my already convinced colleagues.
Piety moved me to seem cruel.
My lips swore to slaughter my father,
while my heart asked the same gods to defend him.
And the ardor of my face was fear.
Rodope: Me too…
Issipile: If you don’t hurry, my friend, the cure will be pointless.
The ships are already so close to the harbor:
And if you don’t rush…
Oh god, Eurinome returns.
Rodope: And how full of anger and vengeance are her eyes!
Issipile: Give me, o Gods, some advice.
SCENA II
Eurinome, with Amazones, and the aforementioned
Eurinome: Rodope, Princess, brave companions.
From the coast of Tracia to this lands
the unfaithful men of Lenno are returning to us.
It is up to us to revenge the offenses cause by the vile sex.
Those ungrateful men are returning,
but only after having seeing the crops renew three times away from us.
They come to us, but they carry in their eyes
the infamous fruits of the furtive bedrooms:
And their barbarian lovers painted in their faces,
And they got already used to feed themselves with feral milk.
Now proudly, with your defeated and neglected beauty,
Ah revenge, revenge we swear to fulfill.
Everything is going according to plan.
The night is convenient:
The king is tired:
The noisy rituals to the god of Naxos,
the confuse waves covering the lamenting voices in between festive screams.
Fathers, sons, brothers and husbands, let them fall in slaughter:
And let the merit, or the blame, be common to all of us.
May the great example of the feminine disdain
teach the vile sex to be faithful.
Issipile: Yes, yes, let death be the price to pay
For whoever shows mercy.
Rodope: (How well she pretends to be furious!)
Issipile: Rodope run:
You know… As soon as they descend to the beach
come back to warn us…
Eurinome: Useless precaution! I saw them myself jumping out of the ships.
Issipile: Yourself?
Eurinome: Myself
Issipile: (Ah my father must be warned.) She starts running away
Eurinome: Where are you going?
Issipile: To the ships. I want to reassure the king, hiding my hate with a fake welcome.
Rodope: It’s too late. Here comes Toante.
Issipile: (Oh Gods! I am dead)
SCENA III
Toante, the aforementioned
Toante: Come, my sweet beloved, to the arms of your father.
I felt all the heavy weight of the years separated from you:
And I already feel the weight of my years become lighter
now that you, oh daughter, are close to me. He hugs her.
Issipile: (My heart is being torn apart)
Toante: Why do I find Issipile so tired?
What is this coldness before the homecoming of a father!
Issipile: Ah you don’t know… My lord…
Rodope: Silence. Softly to Issipile
Issipile: (What pity!)
Eurinome: (Ah your weakness is betraying me.)
Toante: Is my presence troubling that much?
Issipile: You don’t see my heart, because… Eurinome makes gestures not to speak
Toante: Explain yourself
Issipile: Oh God Eurinome repeats the gesture
Toante: Explain yourself oh daughter.
If your wedding with the prince of Tessaglia,
who will come in a moment, doesn’t please you…
Issipile: From the first moment I saw him I adored him
Toante: Maybe you grew fond of reigning in my place,
And you fear that my return will be the end of your reign?
You are mistaken. I am no longer sovereign nor king in this land.
Punish, absolve, command, reward, and condemn as you wish.
I wish nothing, beloved Issipile, than to live with you and die near you.
(He hugs her, and Issipile kisses his father’s hand and cries)
Issipile: Father, stop.
Toante: But what does your crying mean?
Issipile: It is a necessary effect of a pleasure
that suddenly floods your heart
Aria Toante
I know that the excess of a pleasure
can bring you to tears:
But her tears seem to me
to be caused by pain.
And the gaze of a father
cannot be completely fooled,
if it is looking for the way
to reach her daughter's heart.
(Da capo)
SCENA IV
Eurinome, Rodope, e Issipile want to follow Toante
Eurinome: Issipile.
Issipile: What do you want?
Eurinome: Alas, if you don't have the courage to kill Toante;
leave that heavy duty to us
Issipile: Why do you want to steal that honor from me?
Trust me.
Eurinome: Promise it to me solemnly:
You want me to trust you:
but when faced to your father you become pale
ARIA ISSIPILE
In the battlefield the fierce warrior
becomes pale too
when he hears the scream
calling him to arms.
A little bit of fear
doesn't make courage any weaker
for when it is leaving your heart
it just stops in your face.
(Da Capo)
SCENA V
Eurinome, Rodope.
Eurinome: Rodope, we have no time to waste, and we shouldn't disagree anymore.
I will give the agreed signal at any moment now.
But I see confusion in your face still!
Rodope: I have pity of Toante's old age,
And I respect his royal character.
Eurinome: But he is the worst of all our enemies.
Learco died because of his harsh sentence to exile him.
And you should remember it better.
I lost a son: You lost a lover
Rodope: His crime deserved the punishment.
He pretended to love me but he was trying to kidnap Issipile.
Eurinome: Rodope I see that in your weakness
you are looking for excuses.
Rodope: I am a woman after all.
Eurinome: And because you are a woman
You must get rid of your chains and avenge yourself.
ARIA EURINOME
It is not true (even if they say so)
That the heavens don't allow
any other value to our sex
than to be lovely and make them love us.
We can, whenever we want
be fierce during the war, be cautious during peace
Alternating the charms and the rage
Be frightful, and be seductive.
(Da Capo)
SCENA VI
Rodope, poi Learco
Rodope: But what are the heavenly Gods doing?
Is there not even one among them that will protect
this miserable land? Oh unfortunate night?
Oh terror... but... am I dreaming? Learco?
Learco: Ah don't give me away. Silence Rodope
Rodope: Oh Gods! You are alive? Everyone thinks you dead.
Learco: In order to deceive Toante I invented that lie.
Rodope: What is misleading you to your dead now? Flee away.
Learco: To be allowed but one moment to behold your charms.
Rodope: Beh, I've got no time for your lies, Learco.
And your return stinks of jealousy. You should have heard by now,
that Issipile will be bound to the Prince of Thessalia.
And you should be plotting some dark plan.
Learco: Ah I am not that evil.
Rodope: Enough. Save yourself: Run away.
Tomorrow will be met with the dead of every man.
Thus swore all the barbaric women of Leno.
And now is the time agreed for the crime.
Learco: And do you think I am such a simpleton?
If you want to scare me you must invent a better tale.
Rodope: Believe me: Run away,
You are lost if you turn down my mercy
Learco: I beg your pardon, but your mercy is suspicious.
You believe that I betrayed you, and you care so much about my safety?
Ah it is difficult to believe a virtue when it is greater than normal.
ARIA RODOPE
Because we measure someone else
by using our own heart
our judgment is confused
by guilt, and by virtue.
If you sadly disbelieve
my heart is full of mercy;
I believe sadly too
that you are a traitor.
(Da Capo)
SCENA VII
Learco solo
Learco: Eh I won't listen to a crazy woman.
I must stop the wedding of Giasone the Thesalian at all cost.
Armed crowd of sailors, thugs and raiders,
await my sign next to the beach.
I know every corner of this place.
In the meantime I will listen.
I will ask the locals.
If you are afraid of failing
you should move forwards from failure to failure,
for every regret is untimely.
ARIA LEARCO
He who didn’t have to run away
the first time he takes to the sea
Thinks that every star is a bad omen
He is afraid that every breeze is a tempest,
The smallest movement makes him shake
But when he becomes an expert, he fears so little
That he can sleep to the noise of the roaring sea,
Or he sings on the bow side.
(Da Capo)
SCENE VIII
Little forest
Issipile, Toante, later Learco apart.
Issipile: Here you will be safe, father. This is Diana’s sacred forest.
Wait for my return hidden in those shadows over there.
Toante: Is this, daughter, the wedding with Giasone? Is this the sweet welcome?
Issipile: Alas there is no time for those, my lord. Hide yourself.
Toante: Oh God you are going back to expose yourself to the women’s fury.
Issipile: In doing so I am securing our escape. Some other women, because the esteem you,
Are vouching for my presence, helping me to deceive them.
Toante: But how do you expect to deceive Eurinome?
Issipile: I will chose corpse of one of the slaughtered men from Lenno.
We will dress him with your royal clothing
and I will cry over his body instead of over yours.
Toante: This merciful fraud is not very secure.
Issipile: There is someone in the heavens who protects the king:
There is someone who protects the innocent
Toante: Let’s hope there is no ill fate prepared for us.
Issipile: If all turns against me, and instead of your blood their fury claims mine:
Let it shed. At least my fate will reassemble yours.
The earth will know that where everyone else was mistaken
I didn’t miss the path of virtue: And I completed a daughter’s duty. She leaves
Toante: Oh courage! Oh Virtue! Just to think I am the father of such a daughter,
I forgive every other offense that my destiny gave me.
Ah, take the throne from me:
Take my life and keep my daughter’s good sense.
I would lose much less that way. He enters the forest
SCENE IX
Learco, then Toante.
Learco: What did I listen! So Rodope’s story is true.
What a nice farse would be if Issipile would find me instead of her father
Upon her return! That way I could deceive her, kidnap her… it’s true… but how…
Yes, love is suggesting me this ingenious fraud. Passion. Toante.
Toante… Where is he hidden? (He comes near the forest)
Toante: (An unknown voice keeps repeating my name, what does he want?)
Learco: Miserable daughter! She will kill her own father without knowing it!
Pretending to be merciful
Toante: What are you saying? What do you pretend? Who are you?
Learco: If I don’t find Issipile the king is lost. Pretends not to hear him
Toante: Why? Speak. It is me.
Learco: Praised be the Gods. Run away, run away from this lands, my king.
It is already suspected that you are hidden in here.
They will come any moment if they keep suspecting your daughter’s mercy.
Toante: I want at least to die in her defense.
Learco: If you love her run away fast. There is no safer defense than that one.
Toante: And who do I have to thank for the warning?
Learco: You don’t know me! I… am… Deh leave already. I see over those trees
The reflection of the naked weapons.
Toante: Will you ever be satisfied, cruel destiny! He leaves in a hurry.
SCENE X
Learco
Learco: Ah the heavens are supporting my ingenious love!
Shy lovers, learn from me. You should skillfully mix,
The lies, and the courage: To take: to steal:
Everything is done for our glory. Win by pure luck or by ingenuity.
To the victor goes the spoils.
ARIA DI LEARCO
Every lover can call themselves a warrior,
Since the school of love
Is not that different to that of Mars.
Some men are charming and deceitful:
Some invent traps and ambushes,
And forgets every old trouble
Both of them are great victors.
(Da Capo)
SCENE XI
Royal hall
Issipile, Rodope.
Issipile: Listen to me, don’t go away. Holding Rodope
Rodope: Oh your cruelty is too horrendous. I cannot suffer such a barbarian daughter anymore,
you want to taint your evil steel with the blood of you father. Leave me alone.
Issipile: You are mistaken.
Rodope: Shall I not believe my own eyes? I saw the king lying in his bedchamber, slaughtered.
And now I am shaking with fear and terror.
Issipile: My friend, instead of Toante you saw… Somebody is coming.
Listen. Wait for me near Diana’s sacred forest. You will discover all the secrets
And you will then thank me
SCENA XII
Eurinome, the aforementioned
Eurinome: Someone among betrayed us
Issipile: Why is that?
Eurinome: One of the tyrants is still breathing:
He was caught in the harbor, coming into these lands on a magnificent vessel.
Issipile: (Alas, maybe is my father)
Ropope: (Maybe is Learco)
Issipile: Could you see him? To Eurinome
Rodope: Do you know his name? To Eurinome
Eurinome: He was hidden in the shadows and we could not recognize him.
But he is armed, and he is brave.
Rodope: Was he captured? To Eurinome
Issipile: Was he defeated? To Eurinome
Eurinome: No, but any moment now our squadrons of women will do so.
Rodope: (ill-judged Learco)
Issipile: (Incautious Father)
SCENA XIII
Jasone with his naked sword, chasing some Amazones, and the aforementioned
Jasone: You cannot escape my wrath! From out of the stage
Here you are… (He approaches Issipile, and then recognizes her)
Eurinome
Together with: Oh Gods!
Rodope
Jasone: Wife!
Issipile: Prince!
Jasone: Is this the kingdom of Lenno?
Or are these the coasts of the unwelcoming Libia?
Issipile: Beloved prince what God saved you?
Jasone: I was coming for our wedding, and instead I found myself surrounded by weapons!
Issipile: You should have warned me about your arrival
Jasone: I expected to give you a greater pleasure by surprising you.
Issipile: Rodope go. Let everyone know that the life of the prince of Thesalia is to be respected.
Our oath only affects the men of Lenno.
ARIA RODOPE
I leave, I fly to stop
The fierce crowd
Of amazon warriors
Inflamed with fury
I will say that your order is
To not raise the swords
Against the Thesalian warrior
Who is defended by your heart.
(Da Capo)
SCENA XIV
Jasone, Issipile, Eurinome.
Jasone: What oath are you talking about?
Eurinome: The vile sex has been punished by us.
Not a single man from Lenno is alive.
Jasone: Oh heavens! How could you follow such wicked plan?
Issipile: It was helped by the exhaustion and the night. Some were slaughtered by the steel.
Others drank themselves to death with poisonous cups. Others suffocated in their sleep,
And in hundred other ways, hundred others where betrayed by their so called friends.
Jasone: I am frozen! And your father?
Issipile: Also he died as the common folk.
(If I tell him the truth, I will expose my father)
Jasone: So this is the cause of all the fury.
Ah let’s go away together, beloved wife, to a less cruel place. He takes her hand
To breath with me. Our wedding has the most terrible omen.
The blood of the murdered king will not rest without revenge.
I swear to the Gods I will deliver a memorable vengeance.
Eurinome: The name of the criminal will be enough to calm you down
Jasone: Why?
Eurinome: She is dear to Giasone. She will get forgiveness and mercy from him
Jasone: I will be cruel against whomever she is. That is the way of the sweet love
To the woman who has my every thought
Eurinome: She killed him Pointing at Issipile
Jasone: Who?
Eurinome: Your wife.
Issipile: (Oh God)
Jasone: Speak. Defend your honor, my beloved.
Is this dark crime true or not?
Issipile: (What hard decision!) It is true (before answering she looks at Eurinome)
Jasone: How! Drops Issipile’s hand
Issipile: (Suffering is necessary)
Jasone: I am dreaming, delusional?
What is this voice that hurts my heart?
Did Issipile speak? Is Giasone listening?
Eurinome: Now you must fulfill your vow. Avenge the murdered king if you want To Jasone
Jasone: Is there a more criminal soul on earth!?
Issipile: Don’t condemn your wife yet, my love
Jasone: Hide yourself. Flee.
Are you my wife? Am I your love?
And who could ever shake your hand when your father’s corpse is still warm?
I feel like I am your partner in crime.
You breath the same air I do, And I freeze when I look at you.
(When he leaves he stops near the scene, and looks in awe to Issipile)
Issipile: (How much you cost me, father)
Jason: They say that the face reflect the heart’s image. Let them believe her:
Let them behold she sweet lies of her false gaze.
Issipile: Why do you look at me in silence?
ARIA JASONE
I am looking for a sign
Of cruelty on your face:
But I find none.
It’s not possible to hide
Such rebellious anger
Buried in your heart
(Da Capo)
SCENA XV
Issipile and Eurinome
Issipile: Did you hear? Oh God!
Eurinome: Don’t sigh, for you will lose every merit of your work.
And those regrets are offensive to your courage.
Issipile: Let’s run and make the offensive mistake of my beloved’s heart disappear.
No, first let’s bring my father out of peril’s way and then…
But in the meantime Giasone will leave me.
Ah a daughter’s duty is more sacred.
Let’s keep that in mind and leave the rest to the Gods
ARIA ISSIPILE
I hear you, cruel god of Love:
You talk with sweet charming affects
To this sad heart.
Alas shut up. At this moment
I cannot divide my mind
Between my lover and my father
(Da Capo)
Dance of bacchant women who insidiously flatter the soldiers from Lemnos.
END OF ACT I
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