The plots and characteristic situations of the intermezzi make any production a continuous variation on the same theme. The intrigues are built mainly around stereotypes regarding women: their cunning nature, their obvious inconstancy, their congenital duplicity.  

What amuses us—or leaves us perplexed and irritates us in these scenes—was different for an audience in the eighteenth century, when these works were a great success. Humor based on sexism (misogyny, homophobia, transphobia), with hints of xenophobia, ageism, etc., is always in the background, if not center stage. What amused people then may be exasperating today, but not always, not necessarily.  

The real difficulty is to distinguish which comic effects remain enduring, tenacious, inextinguishable, and which ones are faded, or have completely expired. The humor may be hidden in a detail or need explanation because of an unfamiliar historical context. Amusement may also depend on whether one enjoys the mockery and identifies with the satirist or sympathizes with the mocked. It is these layers of meaning that the dramaturgy must untie to prepare the new building which is the performance.  

For Pimpinone, it seemed necessary to conduct a global reflection. This critical approach is what I am attempting here, based on a reading of the libretto. This attempt to “understand” the texts by constantly keeping in mind what the original intentions were, is also to determine whether those intentions are still dynamic today: generating comedy and carrying meaning. 

Read the entire essay of Gilbert Blin in the program book ⇒