AN EARLY CROAT TRANSLATION OF RINUCCINI'S »EURIDICE«

Some tirne ago Dragan Plamenac drew attention to the existence of an early l 7th-century translation into Croat of Ottavio Rinuccini's Euridice,1 the text which served as the libretto for the first preserved opera, set to music by both Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini. Plamenac did not discuss the translation at any length since he rightly observed that »every attempt to fit the Slavic text to the music that went with the Italian has failed of a practicable result.«2 Later the translation was briefly discussed by D. Pavlovic in his study of the origins of musical theatre in Dubrovnik3 and his observations have recently been brought to light again by J. Andreis in his Music in Croatia.4 Having satisfied himself that there was no way in which Primovic's Croat text could be fitted under the existing music of either Peri or Caccini, Plamenac presumably concluded, althought he nowhere says so explicitly, that Primovic simply translated the text of Ottavio Rinuccini's dramatic poem in the way in which a little later Ivan Gundulic, a person of much higher literary standing than Primovic, translated the same author's Arianna. Pavlovic mentions the specific musical stage directions which appear in Primovic's translation and these he sees as a sure indication that the translation was used in a performance with music. Andreas too mentions these stage directions, but both authors take them simply as examples of PrimoviC's avvareness of the role of music without tracing their origins. Apart from the obvious link with Rinuccini PrimoviC's translation thus remains unconnected with its true sources and because it is only a small episode in the cultural history of a small nation, its significance for the early history of opera is likely to remain unrecognized. The circumstances in which Rinuccini's Euridice was first set to music are too well known to be discussed here and therefore only a brief sum-

Some tirne ago Dragan Plamenac drew attention to the existence of an early l 7th-century translation into Croat of Ottavio Rinuccini's Euridice,1 the text which served as the libretto for the first preserved opera, set to music by both Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini.Plamenac did not discuss the translation at any length since he rightly observed that »every attempt to fit the Slavic text to the music that went with the Italian has failed of a practicable result.«2Later the translation was briefly discussed by D. Pavlovic in his study of the origins of musical theatre in Dubrovnik3 and his observations have recently been brought to light again by J. Andreis in his Music in Croatia. 4 Having satisfied himself that there was no way in which Primovic's Croat text could be fitted under the existing music of either Peri or Caccini, Plamenac presumably concluded, althought he nowhere says so explicitly, that Primovic simply translated the text of Ottavio Rinuccini's dramatic poem in the way in which a little later Ivan Gundulic, a person of much higher literary standing than Primovic, translated the same author's Arianna.Pavlovic mentions the specific musical stage directions which appear in Primovic's translation and these he sees as a sure indication that the translation was used in a performance with music.Andreas too mentions these stage directions, but both authors take them simply as examples of PrimoviC's avvareness of the role of music without tracing their origins.Apart from the obvious link with Rinuccini Primo-viC's translation thus remains unconnected with its true sources and because it is only a small episode in the cultural history of a small nation, its significance for the early history of opera is likely to remain unrecognized.
The circumstances in which Rinuccini's Euridice was first set to music are too well known to be discussed here and therefore only a brief sum-mary will be offerect.sOttavio Rinuccini wrnte his dramatic poem to be set to music and performed during the wedding festivities for Maria Medici and Henry IV of France.The performance took place on October 6, 1600 and the work which was heard was a joint effort of Peri and Caccini.In order to diminish the importance of Caccini's contribution and overshadow him, Peri had his version of the complete opera published,6 but vain and proud Caccini not to be outdone composed his own version of Euridice. 7he contest between two rival composers is therefore responsible for the existence of two printed scores and modern musical historiography has on those grounds attached a particular importance to Euridice, especially Peri's version which is hailed as being a better work than Caccini's although no serious assessment of the latter's work has ever been made.The original Peri-Caccini version was not heard again, but both of the rival scores were revived several times in the following fifteen years or so, one performance in Bologna preceding only by a year PrimoviC's Croat translation of 1617.sPasko(j) Primovic is still a relatively little known poet of the Dubrovnik school whose main interest seems to have been in translating and adapting works from other languagesš.Ljubic mentions his translations of psalms and hymn texts.9Ris Euridice appeared in Venice in 1617 and although there is an indication that it is a translation, the authorship of Rinuccini is nowhere acknowledged.The dedicatory epistle that follows abounds in florid language and praises the dedicatee but does not throw any light on the destination of the translation or the reasons which prompted it. 10»Euridice, a tragicomedy by Pasko Primovic Latiničic of Dubrovnik.Translated by him from the Latin (Italian) language into the Dubrovnik (Croat) language.To the very illustrious Gentleman Kristo Giliatovic.Secretary to the most illustrious Governors of the independent City of Dubrovnik.Printed in Venice By Ivan Salis.1617 ... «.I have been able to trace two surviving copies.One, known to Plamenac is in the National University Library in Zagreb.It is slightly damaged, the last three pages are missing but the text has been added by hand, presumably that of A. Barichevich, one of its early owners, whose name appears on the titlepage.Another copy, in excellent condition, is in the British Library (fonnerly British Museum) in London.
In common with other Dalmatian translators or adaptors of Latin and Italian plays Primovic gives some of the characters more homely Slavonic names so that compared with Rinuccini's original, PrimoviC's list of characters looks as follows: It is the main protagonists who retain their names, the names of Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses well established in the pastoral tradition of the sixteenth century are changed presumably in order to suggest more strongly the fanciful identification by Dubrovnik authors of the surroudings of their city with Arcadia.11 PrimoviC completely omits La Tragedia and her prologue which figures so prominently in Rinuccini's original.This seems to suggest that Primovic had in mind a possible performance in Dubrovnik and that the translation was not only a literary exercise.The Prologue, though it aspires to represent the universal role of tragedy is a truly occasional piece which has to be understood against the background of the royal wedding for which the opera was written and performed.12Words like: Lungi via, lungi pur da regi tetti Simolacri funesti, ambre d'affanni Ecco i mesti coturni e i foschi panni Cangio, e desto ne i cor pil:! dolci affetti.13 11This was made possible by the fortuitous fact that the name Dubrovnik is derived from dubrava -a wood.To be sure, at severa! points Primovič renders the word bosco as Dubrava and prints it with a capital letter.
12 The implications of this have been recently discussed by Barbara Russano Hanning, Apologia pro Ottavio Rinuccini, Journal of the American Musicological Society, XXVI, 1973, p. 240. 13 It may be convenient here to bring to light an early nineteenth-century translation into English: Far, far be banish'd from the royal sight Funereal forms and shadows of distress!Lo! now the tragic buskin, ITI()Urnful dress, I change, and in the mind awake de!ight.(Joseph Cooper Walker, Memoirs of Alessandro Tassoni ... also an Appendix Containing Biographical Sketches of Ottavio Rinuccini, ... and an Inedited Poem o/ Torquato Tasso .. " London 1815, p. 225.)  and the reference to the »royal Seine« would have meant very little in Dubrovnik where there were no royal heads or hereditary rulers and where it was not customary to address the Rector, who was elected by the aristo• cratic parliament, by any glowing terms of praise.To be meaningful and acceptable within the conventions in Dubrovnik the prologue would have had to be reshaped so much that it would have been rendered virtually meaningless and Primovic must have realized the futility of such an undertaking.
In Rinuccini's printed libretto as well as in the scores of Peri and Caccini the division into acts is implied and is indicated through directions for the change of scene but the word »act« is not used anywhere.Primovic differs from all these sources in that he clearly marks the beginning of each act and refers to each with the Croatized word At.Stage directions are most frequent in the first act, and the whole text is laid out clearly and with ample spacing, the name of the character appears in the middle of the page, above the appropriate lines, like this: Vila od Kora poiuchi.
Cin da bude dam.as vecchia Trikmt Sunze tvoia sviechia; Prodgli draghi danak ovij Da nad sviem iniema dostoino slovi.(p.3)14 In the rest of the text (acts 2-5) the names of the characters are printed in smaller type and in abbreviated form, next to the first line to which they refer, similar to the way in which they were printed in the first edition of the original libretto of 1600: Rad. Blascena Gluibav bud, i gne stril tai slati Cemerni ka tvoi trud, u rados obrati (p.14) This may have been done in order to save space and reduce the number of pages.References to music are also less frequent after the first act.
It is these references to music, especially in the first act, that have intrigued Plamenac, Pavlovic and Andreis.Where did Primovic get them from?Certainly not from Rinuccini's libretto where not a single reference to music appears.Also, in the published version of the libretto Rinuccini follows the Iogical flow of the text and thus avoids repetitions which are inevitable if an operatic ensemble scene has to be fashioned out of a single line of text once the libretto is set to music.Compared to the original, PrimoviC's version reads quite convincingly as an accurate record of the action as it develops in sung form.A sentence once spoken by one character is repeated by another, then again by the original one, then the same words are given to the choir.Such deployment makes no sense in a spoken play but makes perfect sense if the words are sung.It is therefore natura! to refer .toone of the early settings of Euridice and the better known Peri's version is the obvious first choice.At the start of his first act Peri closely follows Rinuccini's original where the sequence of speakers is: Coro (which in this case means »the leader of the choirn), Ninj(a), Past(ore), Ninj(a).This second tirne Nymph sings the following words: Vaghe Ninfe amorose, Inghirlandate 'l crin d'alme viole, Dite liete e festose: »Non vede un si.mil par d'amanti 'l sole.«(50-53)'' It is at this point, when Rinuccini, following the habit of so many Italian Petrarchist, pays hommage to Petrarch by quoting him, 16 that Peri constructs the first ensemble scene of the opera: Petrarch's line is repeated first by a Pastore del Coro, then by Arcetro and then sung by five-part choir.Primovic follows this order, in outline at least, and it may appear that he took Peri as a model and introduced two minor changes: instead of Arcetro it is again the Nymph who repeats Petrarch's line and the choir is described as singing in four parts (Kor u cetiri glasa) instead of Peri's five.However, a simple comparison with Caccini's Euridice clearly reveals Primovic's source: it is there that the Nymph sings the line given by Peri to Arcetro, and the choir at the end is, indeed, in four parts.17This is an exciting detail for not only does it make Primovic's Euridice the earliest translation of an operatic libretto from Italian into another language, but also seems to indicate that the translation was done from the score of Caccini rather than from Rinuccini's libretto as has hitherto been assumed.The whole of Primovic's first act can be easily related to Caccini's score.True, the very first reference to music at the beginning of the translation: It is quite natural to expect that the rest of Primovic's translation conforms with Caccini in the same manner.Unfortunately this is not the case and tbe question of PrimoviC's sources for tbe rest of tbe libretto becomes a puzzling one.Tbis can be ilustrated by comparing Priniovic's layout and stage directions witb tbose in tbe two scores.There are no stage directions in Primovic's fiftb act and tbe closing text of tbe cboir is given in straigbt form as it appears in Rinuccini, without any reflection of tbe repetitions occasioned by tbe setting.
Tbe supposition that Primovic used Caccini's version for tbe first act and Peri's for tbe remaining four must be discounted straigbt away.Peri does not follow.tbe libretto literally but at a number of points deviates from it eitber by giving Rinuccini's original words to persons other tban tbose marked in tbe libretto, or inserts fragments wbich do not appear in Rinuccini.In all sucb cases Primovic, like Caccini, closely follows Rinuccini's version.
It is possible that these insertions are by Peri himself.The first one has a certain Petrarchan flavour and it is perhaps not too fanciful to suggest that the words are modelled on the last line of Sonnet CCXLV:: o telice eloquentia, a lieto giorno!This is the very same sonnet from which Rinuccini had already quoted.By reversing the meaning Peri demonstrates that the state of joy, earlier connected with the quotation from Petrarch is now transformed into a tragic situation, and also provides a point of reference which the public versed in refined poetic allusions would have been able to recognize.Similarly, Aminta later announces that the tragedy is over and sees himself as a joyous counterpart to the tragic messenger, Dafne.Also, it is not difficult to observe a connection between Aminta's words and the third stanza of the Prologue.19 In the absence of any libretto which would combine the features of Peri's and Caccini's version of the opera in the way in which it was done in our translation, PrimoviC's source remains obscure.The connection between Caccini's and PrimoviC's is too close to be ascribed to a mere coincidence and the insertion of stage directions which cannot be found in Rinuccini indicates that he could not have relied only on the original libretto for those acts.He may have started to translate from Caccini's score, but having found that impractical switched to a libretto, now !ost, based on Rinuccini's original and prepared, with stage directions for the Bologna performance of Peri's version in 1616.This is seemingly the only way in which Primovic's inconsistencies and the change of layout between the first act and the rest of the text could be explained.To the best of our knowledge there is no record of a libretto issued for the Bologna performance.Also, it is not known whether Primovic was indeed in Bologna in that year but his translation bears a strong mark of an eyewitness account.At the opening of his translation he s.tates that the First Shepherd sings alone.Later he refers to Selenko (Tirsi) as »coming out with a lyre« (Selenko ishodij slijrom .. ., p. 16) and to Orfeo »accompanying himself on a lyre« (ter us lijru poie, p. 36), both precise descriptions not found in any other source, which could have been prompted by his recollection of an actual staging.
It is temping to speculate how aware Primovic was of the significance of various cultural forces which determined the ideology of the Cameratists.Florentine Neoplatonism, symbolic tradition of the intermedi, Mannerism, and the Aristotelianism of Girolamo Mei each of which exerted some influence on the early opera were not so strongly in evidence in the culture of Dubrovnik from which he stemmed.Now it is true that Petrarchism profoundly influenced Dalmatian and Dubrovnik poetry of the sixteenth century, but the poetic diction which emerged there was not the diction of slavish and uninventive imitators.Dalmatian authors succeeded in blending standard Petrarchan elements with patterns and conventions of the popular poetic tradition.In the process the density and richness of Petrarchan language were somewhat diluted to bring it closer to the eloquence and certain narrative quality which characterizes folk poetry.Fifteenth and sixteenth-century translators of Petrarch such as šiško Menčetic or the Zadar poet Petar Zoranic regularly lengthened Petrarch's line and hardly ever kept to the prescribed number of lines in a sonnet -in their hands sonnets became poems of sixteen ilnes.Primovic inherited this technique from the sixteenth-century Petrarchists and applied it to Rinuccini's verses.Although at a number of places he shortens Rinuccini's text by omitting odd lines, his general tendency is to lengthen.Examples such as the following, where in a longer fragment the number of lines in the translation corresponds to that of the original are rare and the correspondence is usually achieved through condensing the text of the original: Rinuccini's poem is written predominantly in lines of seven and eleven syllables, as was the case with a great deal of poesia per musica of that tirne, and these Primovic in most cases attempts to render into octosyllabic lines often forming a rhyming couplet: NQ special musical significance should be sought in such instance.It is true that in mid-seventeenth-century Venetian libretti, like those by Giovanni Faustini written for Cavalli, different lengths of lines were beginning to indicate the emerging difference between the recitative and aria but this could hardly be expected at the tirne of Primovic's translation.He was simply following the native tradition and made his Euridice almost a compendium of devices and patterns cultivated by Dalmatian authors.
Versification was not the only problem involving two cultures with which Primovic had to deal.Behind Rinuccini's text stands the weight of tradition and convention which had accumulated over decades of intense activity in devising textual contrapposti, in staging the intermedi, in inventing symbolic images in which the power of music would be illustrated through references to the celestial spheres and the influence of celestial music on human character and behaviour.Audiences expected these things and the audience of Rinuccini's Euridice contained enough refined and cultivated people for, among other things, subtle references to Petrarch not to be wasted.Primovic by comparison had little to what to relate in the theatrical tradition of Dubrovnik.True, the tradition of pastoral play had been strong there but it did not include the learned and the symbolic elements.Is is not surprising, therefore, to find that in a particular place where Rinuccini alludes to the symbolic implications of celestial harmony, Primovic's translation omits the allusion and changes the tone of the pas: sage: Rinuccini (384-389) Al rotar del ciel superno Non pur l'aer e 'l foco intorno, Ma si volve il tutto in giro: Non e il ben ne 'l pi!!l!ltO eterno; Oome or sorge, or oade il giorno, Regna qui gioia o martiro.
Sunze istece, pak sapade, Svitlos dnevi noch vasima; Na tem svitu (vai) nikade Nitko stavna dobra neima; Srechie ovdi prave nie. 20imovic thus gives his version a stronger moralistic stamp.Of course there are moralistic overtones throughout Rinuccini's poem, but introduced in such a way as not to detract from the flow and the flavour of the drama.Primovic, however, attaches some importance to such places and, as in the above examples, lengthens the text in translation to secure the impact.It is not only the difference of the two traditions: the few years that divide Rinuccini, with his firm roots in the sixteenth century, from the translation saw a marked increase in the prominence given to the moralistic tendencies of the Counter-Reformation and these Primovic's work exhibits more consiously.In Primovic's version Christian terminology sometimes substi-tutes what had in the original still been terminology appropriate for a pagan religion.Benigno dan de gl'immortali Dei (298) becomes Darov saisto Priviscgnega (p.26), Priviscgni being an expression for the Almighty.Quando al tempio andaste (639) is rendered as K svetoisi ter Zarkvi ... (p.53).The »holy church« thus significantly reinforces the neutral tempio of the original.
On the basis of the given examples it should not be assumed that Primovic is quite insensitive to the implications of Rinuccini's text.In a number of other instances his translation is faithful and accurate in detail, the changes he introduces are only the matter of stress and not of a thorough alternation of Rinuccini.One of the very important aspects of Rinuccini's work is preserved by Primovic and confirms that he was aware of an element of large-scale construction which modern readers of the libretto, or listeners to the operas, divorced from the intellectual climate in which the works were created, are likely to overlook.
An important element of the early opera was the desire, not unconnected with the Mannerist preoccupation with the idea of tirne and change 3,s constructive elements, to represent human passion and suffering through music, but not in a descriptive form as had been done in the madrigal but in actual sense -to make the audience aware of the passage of tirne during which the protagonists of the opera experience through music their passion, suffering and redemption.21One structural device used in order to bring this more forcefully to the attention of the audience was Peri's insertion of the antithesis to the quotation from Petrarch and later explicit statement of Aminta in which the audience is reminded that the tragic story, having run its full course, brings us back to the state of bliss.That state of bliss is reached through the magic power of Orfeo's music and its attainment is, as we shall see, also coupled with an ingenious device borrowed again from the Mannariest repertoire.
Orfeo is a demigod (semideo) associated with music and love, and it is Venus who is especially invoked by the chorus at the end of the first scene: At the end of the play the Chorus (Aminta) confirms that indeed Orfeo was able to do this throught the power of his lyre: Mannerist art in general, and literature in particular, relies on the effective and often unexpected unity of opposites, mostly expressed in a very concentrated form.Petrarch is often taken as a model and his piangendo rido may be considered a classical example of such unity, which since it implies putting together diverse and contradictory words, visual representations or shapes, was aptly named contrapposto.22 The whole text of Rinuccini, if viewed from this angle may be now seen as a giant contrapposto but stretched out across so large a time-scale to be almost ineffective.Orfeo, the musician in whose art is reflected the harmony of the celestial spheres wins as his ally Venus, »the daughter of the third heaven« as Pri-movic tells us,23 and then regains for himself Euridice who had been claimed by the underworld; he manages to bring together two opposites: Heaven and Hades and Rinuccini's words piegar d'Inferno forcefully illustrate in terms of an image the deed which Orfeo acCOJl?-plishes.
It is not uncommon to find that towards the closing stages of a stylistic period dimensions of works of art grow, the final flourish is often a display of abundance and complexity and it could be argued that Rinuccini's Euridice stands as one of the last examples of a literary tradition rooted in the Mannerist phase of the Italian Renaissance.By projecting a contrapposto on such a large canvas Rinuccini weakened its effect and made it almost disappear.It is nevertheless there as a reminder of yet another Mannerist attitude, that of dif!iculta, a deliberate complexity, difficulty, which a work of art has to possess in order to be judged as worthy and successful.The involvement of the audience through surmounting the di!ficulta becomes that way more intense and the listener is drawn more closely into a situation where he himself may experience the purifying effect of the tragic situation and its final happy turn. 24It is a credit to Primovic that he faithfully translated precisely these structurally important sections thus showing that he may have been aware of the less obvious implications of the original.We may never be able to discover whether his • translation was set to music arid performed -in itself it is a fascinating document of the interaction of the two cultures on the two sides of the Adriatic.
Pastir od Kora Parvi poiucchi u sam glas (»The first shepherd from the choir singing alone«) is Primovic's addition which does not appear in any of the Italian sources but describes what actually happens in a performance.After the first ensemble scene where the link between Primovic and Caccini is obvious there follows a short dialogue between a shepherd and Euridice, followed in turn by the final ensemble in which the solos of Nymphs and shepherds are punctuated by the ritornello Al canto al ballo sung by the choir.At this point Peri's score reads simply: Partesi Euridice, e Dafne con altre Ninf e del Coro.Caccini's score gives a more precise indication: Coro Primo a V e si replica al fine d'ogni stanza.Al canto al ballo, to which closely corresponds PrimoviC's Kor parvi u pet glasa.Na tanze na piesni.Rather than simply indicating that the ritornello should be repeated after each stanza as is done by Caccini, Primovic prints the repetition in full, presenting an account of what happens when the score is sung.

5
For a detailed account of the first performance of »Euridice«« see C. Palisca, The First Performance o/ »Euridice«, Queen's College Department of Music Twenty-fifth Anniversary Festschrift, New York 1964, p. l.
Venus then leads Orfeo towards the underworld and tells him to proceed further alone in order to try and influence Pluto to release Euridice: