Opera Director & Designer
Poetic space and opera scenery for Circé
Full article for the 2023 Boston Early Music Festival program book. By Gilbert Blin
Reading time app. 45 minutes
Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Beaucourt (1650–1718), known in literature under her married name of Madame de Saintonge, inherited her taste for letters from her learned mother. Madame de Saintonge started her literary career by creating two librettos for Henry Desmarest, each centered on a strong female figure: Didon in 1693, and the following year, Circé, both produced by the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera). In 1696, Saintonge published an Histoire secrète de Dom Antoine, Roy de Portugal, based on the archives of her Portuguese family. The same year, a collection of Poésies galantes offered over one hundred of her works. This book was reissued in 1714 with additional material and showed the great variety of her production as an author. Her rich literary work does not appear to have been inspired by an especially interesting or unusual personal life. As the Histoire littéraire des Femmes Françoises noted in 1769: “She was born in Paris in 1650, and died there on March 24, 1718, aged sixty-eight. We have spoken of her charms and her talents: but we have not been told of any peculiarities of her life.” Nevertheless, Madame de Saintonge is known today for her unique voice and original approach to the various genres in which she worked. For French opera after the deaths of Lully and Quinault, she helped renew the genre by establishing a new relationship between the actions of her main characters and their theatrical environment, offering multiple opportunities for musical developments and stage effects. This approach is exemplified by Madame de Saintonge’s libretto for Circé.
Like her close mythological relative Medea, and their Renaissance successors Armida and Alcina, the magician Circe has often been portrayed on stage. The female sorcerer became a favorite topos of the baroque stage for two main reasons: first, this heroic figure allowed for an attempt to place the supernatural powers of a woman in opposition to the merely natural powers of a man, and second, for the spectacle, both visual and musical, that such powers could give birth to on stage. From the beginning of baroque performance history, correspondences have been noted between theater machinery and the magic art: Torelli, the Italian designer most famous for his mechanical set changes, was called the “Great sorcerer,” and literature of the period attests to the association between the theater artist and the magician Circe. What the magic of Circe and other stage enchantresses had in common with the magic of theater designers was the unseen cause of the observable effects. The moving force in both cases was human, but the knowledge of how to confound the senses was a secret art. In 1694, it seems that the enchantments of Circe were an opportunity for Madame de Saintonge to question the notion of creativity and its powers.
The fable of Circe is full of symbols, which alone and in combination offered the possibility of multiple interpretations. Although Saintonge in her libretto does not depart from the general idea that Circe is a seductress, she also represents a powerful female figure misled by a male deceiver. Saintonge makes a selective reading of the Odyssey which focuses on the end of Ulysses’ stay on Circe’s island and on the sorceress’s passion for the Greek hero who ultimately betrays her. In her version of the story of Circe, Saintonge draws mainly on Homer, but also on Ovid and Virgil. She structures the plot in a new way and invents episodes that lend themselves to theatrical spectacle.
During the first half of the opera, the theme of the enchanted island is reinforced by an association with various concepts of peace, pleasures, and prosperity. This idea had already been introduced in the allegorical prologue depicting the “Jeux et Plaisirs” fleeing war and finding refuge in “a Grove, and in the background a pleasant meadow irrigated by the River Seine.” Although there is no mention of the characters or subject of the tragedy that it introduces, the prologue offered a poetic parallel between “l’Isle de France,” the region bathed by the river Seine, and the Island of Aeaea, the kingdom of Circé. There is a similitude in their identity and function: both islands welcome refugees from the wars, both islands are a shelter for a form of hedonism: “Les Jeux et les plaisirs” in the prologue, or “les Amants Fortunés et les Amantes heureuses” and “Les Prêtresses du temple de l’Amour” in the following tragedy. Furthermore, both islands are each under the power of a sort of “genius loci”: La Nymphe de la Seine or Circé.
The island has a “raison d’être”: Circé herself. The seat of the sorcerer queen is presented in Act I, “The stage represents an avenue [of trees], and in the distance, the front of the Palace of Circé.” A straight line leads toward Circé’s palace. The art of Italian gardens and French parks comes to mind, but this disposition with its geometric patterns converging upon a center building was far from new for the stage. Over a century previously, in 1581, an influential ballet de cour featuring Circe, Le Balet Comique de la Reine, had been described by its author, Balthasar de Beaujoyeux (1535–1589). In addition to the plot, based on the story of the enchantress Circe and her evil power, it includes the text that was sung and recited, a description of the staging, and some engravings showing the sets of the show. At the back of the hall was Circé’s garden, “enclosed with balustrades, with gold and metallic balusters of brownish silver, and divided in two green alleyways,” decorated with flowers and fruits “imitated in gold, silver, silks, and feathers of appropriate colors. This garden appeared even more beautiful, as it had a trellis arching over it.” Behind this rich garden was Circé’s castle surrounded by walls, where the magician queen was seated on her throne.
In Madame de Saintonge’s text, Circé’s island also has at its center Circé’s palace. A straight path, an “avenue,” leads to this seat of power. The avenue, with its etymological component, focuses our attention increasingly toward the focal point of the palace. Here there is an indisputable classical rigor in both the word and how this geometric and poetic definition expresses itself. The identity of the space is mostly given by the central part of the stage picture, namely the backdrop: “the front of the Palace of Circé.” At first glance, this simple set shows a rather classical space bringing together ordered nature, an avenue of trees, and classical architecture, seen in the front of the palace. The first set is described precisely in terms of the organization of the space: a straight line between trees leading to Circé’s palace, but without any additional terminology. To have a clearer idea of the true atmosphere of this place, one must go further into the libretto. It is here that we first experience Circé’s magic: the transformation of Ulisse’s companions. In Homer, this first evil expression of Circe’s magical powers happens before the actual meeting between the sorceress and the hero. By placing this episode as the initial magical display of the opera, Saintonge gives a psychological dimension to Circé’s action: the love-besotted magician attempts to prevent Ulisse from sailing away by depriving his sailors of their human form. The audience is confronted with an ambivalent expression of magic: we may sympathize with the motive for what Circé does, but we are shocked by its effects.
When we think of the fantastic bestiary of Circe, we rightly think first of the pigs, former companions of Ulysses transformed by the magician goddess, as told by Homer, and present in the visual arts since Antiquity. However, this bestiary turns out to be much more complex and composite in Ovid and Virgil, and Madame de Saintonge’s choice reflects this complexity: in her libretto, Circé transforms Ulisse’s companions “into many kinds of monsters.” The frontispiece by François Ertinger (1640–1710) for the printed libretto included in the Recueil general des Opera published in 1703 shows us the stated action in a space that perfectly corresponds to the indications in the libretto. If we consider Ulisse’s gesture of astonishment, the engraving shows the end of the transformation, only moments after Circé had used her magic wand. But here the “monsters” of the libretto are exotic animals: a lion, an elephant, a wading bird, a wolf, a snake, a rabbit, and a pig, this last zoological choice harkening back to Homer’s account. In fact, it seems that Ertinger was also inspired by Les Compagnons d’Ulysse, the fable by Jean de La Fontaine, published for the first time in the year leading up to Circé’s creation. Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, La Fontaine elaborated on the diversity of animal forms. This may also have been influenced by the eponymous “Tragédie ornée de Machines, de Changements de Théâtre, et de Musique” of Thomas Corneille, performed successfully in 1675 with stage music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. In one of its scenes Circé frightens Glaucus “and with a wave of her Wand makes Serpents, Lions, Tigers, and various other Animals appear, being her many Lovers whom she has metamorphosed for lesser outrages than the one [Glaucus] dares to commit: disdaining to respond to her passion.” Racine, in his Remarques sur l’Odyssée, published in 1662, chooses another explanation for the presence of the various animals on Circé’s island. According to him, the lions and wolves are not metamorphosed men but wild animals domesticated by Circé’s potions.
We begin to understand how Saintonge was able to integrate all these elements into her libretto by choosing the word “monstres”: French poets of this period were careful to avoid words that were perceived as trivial or commonplace when read or heard. For this reason, words such as “chiens,” “ânes,” “vaches,” or “cochons” don’t often appear in French poetry of the late seventeenth century. This inclination to shun certain words due to their less refined connotations surely also influenced Thomas Corneille when he described the metamorphoses of Sylla in his play about Circé: “The Fable represents Sylla surrounded by Dogs who frightened him with their dreadful barking. This term ‘Dog’ is so rough and unsuitable for our Poetry that I believed it should change into that of Monsters.” Madame de Saintonge may have felt the same concern for avoiding any infringement of the “bon goût” and decided to ennoble Homer’s “porcs” into a more generic and mythological “monstres.”
Subsequent to the stage indication “into several kinds of monsters,” Circé orders the monsters to hide “in the depths of these woods.” This simple line tells us that the transformation was accomplished with costumes, such that the mobility of the Greeks was not altered by the change, i.e., they were able to leave the stage as monsters. The transformation of the Greeks into beasts is followed by another magical change, when Circé, with the expectation of appeasing Ulisse, who is understandably disturbed by the sight of his men changed into monsters, transforms the first space, the forest, to a beautiful garden. With her magic wand, Circé alters the appearance of the island: “Change, sad locale, / Into a more delightful place.” There is a clear desire for contrast between the first and second spaces in Act I. Saintonge describes the new space as “a Garden full of Jasmines and Orange trees, which form allées as far as the eye can see: waterfalls are seen in the distance.” By this spectacular shift, Circé is now presented as a seductive thaumaturge, capable of creating a paradise.
In the sung text, Saintonge gives further clues about the distinct atmospheres of both places: “this wood,” “these forests” in the first part of the Act are “sad locales,” while the garden appearing by magic is presented as a “more delightful place,” a “charming woodland.” There is a suggested sensuality to the new place, in which Circé invites the inhabitants of her island to praise the beauty of faithful love in this enchanted abode: “In this lovely place, Cupid causes no fear.” The lascivious songs of these “Amants fortunés” and “Amantes heureuses” have their equivalents in the visual and perfumed delicacies of the garden. The mention of jasmines, a fragrant blossom which, in the language of flowers, symbolizes voluptuous love, and orange trees, suggest a warm Mediterranean climate to which the waterfalls add a welcome note of coolness. This is perhaps an indication that the imaginary island could be located on a real map of the Mediterranean Sea. But, as we have seen before, this luxurious paradise defies exact location as it is the power of Circé which defines the climate, as one of the “fortunate lovers” declares: “By her power, our beloved goddess / Makes eternal spring / Reign in our fields.” As a daughter of Helios, the Sun God, Circé’s magic has control over the seasons.
These images and songs of bliss lead us to the location of Act II, where the characters are on another part of the island: the action takes place in “The Temple of Love, supported by marble columns adorned with crowns of Myrtle.” This new location defines another possible center of the island, a spiritual one: if Circé rules the island, it is the god of Love, Eros/Cupid, who is its tutelary spirit. Saintonge knew that the myrtle plant, with which she adorns the temple, was sacred in Greek mythology and present in rituals to the goddesses Aphrodite and Demeter. Because of its association with Love and Fertility, this evergreen shrub with white flowers had come to be known, starting in the Renaissance, as a symbol of marriage. In the temple, under these benevolent auspices, Circé prays to the god of love for a perfect union with Ulisse. This second act goes further than the previous one: by now Ulisse and his Greek warriors, restored by Circé to their human forms to please her lover, join the high priest and the nymphs who are officiants of the temple. It seems that Circé’s power is boundless and that the god of love protects her.
We see “in the background the image of this god, between those of Youth and Beauty.” This visual trinity summarizes the power of the enchantress, who, in her perfection, knows how to defy time and the decline which comes with age. While first addressing Circé in Act I, her confidante Astérie pointed out that the magician’s beauty was eternal: “You will always be young and beautiful.” The act finds its spectacular culmination when the god of Love comes down from the heavens to give his ambiguous oracle: “As for you, Circé, I love to see your ardor, / I will increase Ulisse’s passion, / And before the end of the day, you will know his heart / And you will see whether I have been favorable to you.” Circé is misled by this announcement as Ulisse continues to pretend to love her, though his “passion” is for another woman. The indication “Cupid on a cloud” helps us to further visualize the general look of the space: the temple has a courtyard open to the sky to allow Cupid’s descending flight. The god of Love is the first of many deities who will appear in the opera.
In contrast with the societal and spiritual locations of the previous acts, nature dominates the rest of the opera, but a nature which is mysterious, inhospitable, and even hostile to all the mortal characters. In the following acts, we move to other more remote locations on the island. In a way, this other side of the island corresponds to the psychological state of Circé: the sorceress is slowly revealing the dangers of her passion and the space reflects this fickle obsession. This is the dark side of the enchanted island, the sad truth behind the pleasing illusion. In Act III, “Une Solitude,” first defined as a lonely place, is where Ulisse has hid himself away from Circé. It is also the place where princess Éolie, his actual lover, appears alone on the island. How did Éolie, searching for Ulisse, arrive on the island? As a daughter of the wind-god Éole, the libretto suggests that she was carried by the Aquilons: “North Winds, your strength / Has served my passion all too well, / You have carried me to this horrid place”. At her command, “The North Winds appear, surrounded by clouds” but are dismissed by Minerve. This solitude is finally the place where the wise goddess, who protects the Greek hero, will “frighten him with horrid dreams / To make him leave such a dangerous place.”
By her divine power, Minerve creates an oneiric vision to show Ulisse the danger Circé represents; Saintonge here follows the example of Quinault, and her sleep scene owes much to the famous one in Atys: here also, after the gods of pleasant dreams exercise their powers, “frightful Dreams” warn the hero of the dangers that likely await him. But in Circé, Saintonge mixes two subliminal referents: the vegetative and crystallized states, after metamorphoses, of Circé’s previous lovers and the warning sent by Minerve. Thanks to the intervention of the goddess, Ulisse, although dreaming, finally sees the island for what it is: a deception based on pain and sorrow. This modern association between dream and illusion is certainly an achievement of Saintonge’s dramaturgy. The staging indication of this scene gives an idea of the premonition as intended by Saintonge: “The back of the Theater opens, and reveals Ulisse asleep in a place filled with rocks and trees, which still retain some features of men; they are all the unhappy Lovers that Circé had transformed when she no longer loved them.”
To show the audience of 1694 these unfortunate lovers that Circé has transformed, Bérain planned to show human bodies embedded in the rocks and implanted in the trees. For this dreamscape, Bérain even made specific drawings to clarify what he had in mind for the trees with human faces on their trunks. His designs for Circé might be depicting fully painted sets, or scenery where the faces of the male chorus singing the “Songes funestes” appear encrusted in the rocks and in the tree trunks. This last option is likely. In La Fôret de Dodone, a comedy created in 1721, we have a full description of such an effect: “Four isolated, hollow oaks, in which there are men who can walk and move their branches like arms. On each tree is an opening in the form of a small frame, which opens and closes, when desired, so that the man who is in the tree shows his head, and hides it when he pleases. He has a green mask and moss hair.” In 1694, the effect was clearly inspired by Ovid and all the illustrations portraying his metamorphoses of humans into trees. The phantasmagory prompted by the voices of the “ominous dreams” develops through these fantastic creatures appearing to Ulisse in a nightmare. Finally, “The Dreams vanish, Ulisse awakens.” While the rest of the act shows the reunion of Ulisse with Éolie, it also reveals the desperation of Circé upon learning she has a rival. The gory suicide of Elphénor, Circé’s only Greek ally, ends an act where hallucinations, black premonitions, and other forms of intense despair reveal the illusory identity of the island and its malignant effect on its visitors.
The “wood” of Act IV is an ideal setting for showing a grim scene of invocation: the magic of Circé reveals its underlying darkness. To discover the identity of her rival, the magician conjures the ghost of Elphénor. This recourse to the forces of the underworld shows the weakness of Circé, her vulnerability due to her internal conflict. The major spectacle of Act IV is undoubtedly her invocation of Hell: “A great mist arises at the back of the Stage, where we see the Ghost of Elphénor emerging.” Surrounded by demons who build his tomb, the ghost does not reveal much but confirms that Ulisse is unfaithful to Circé. From this moment on the sorceress is fully enraged and without restraint: she calls the Euménides, who, according to Homer, “take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath.” Virgil, in the Aeneid, recognized three sisters, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, and Desmarest wrote a trio of male voices to embody the Virgilian “endless anger,” “jealous rage,” and “vengeful destruction.” Saintonge adds “The Furor,” personified by a dancer, to this vocal trio to emphasize Ulisse raging and threatening his own life. How was this rapid succession of spectacular events staged in 1694?
While some drawings by Bérain depict sets, the components of which can be placed in relation to the descriptions contained in the libretto and score of Circé, among the documents linked with more certainty to the first performance of Circé, a unique one contains penned indications clearly referring to the staging of Act IV in 1694. Although not in Bérain’s hand, the content written under the drawing is more consequential than the drawing itself, as it complements and clarifies Madame de Saintonge’s staging indications. If not Bérain, who wrote this information? A member of his atelier? The person in charge of the “staging”? We will call him, following Furetière’s dictionnaire, the “ordonnateur.”
Saintonge wrote in her libretto for Act IV, “a Wood,” while Bérain’s workshop document indicates: “Fourth Act. The Stage changes and represents a forest.” The document also specifies, “we will use the trees and rocks shutters all the way to the back”; it is likely that these shutters composing the set were not specially designed for the performance of 1694. The stock of sets at the Paris Opera was full of these types of scenery, as the spaces they defined are frequently found in operas by Quinault/Lully and their followers. “The drop of the Elysian fields,” the ordonnateur writes, “which was in the previous act will stay in this one.” His note shows that, for the creation of Circé in 1694, previously used scenic elements were redeployed: this is confirmed but also heightened by the reuse of an existing backdrop of the Elysian fields. If we look at the chronology of performance at the Paris Opera, one title contains the Elysian fields: Proserpine by Lully, revived in 1682, which shows les Champs-Elysées in Act IV. The possibility of using the same backdrop from the enchanted solitude of Act III is remarkable as not only does it reveal the reuse of a specific drop, painted for another opera, but it shows an interpenetration on the stage of two spaces indicated as totally distinct in the libretto of Circé. Here one may see an attempt to support the idea of a magic island where every landscape is an illusion.
In Circé’s libretto, during Act IV, Scene 3, the demons build a tomb at the rear of the stage. Coming from a trapdoor, the “tombeau” is a focal point which suddenly gives the grove a funereal character. Bérain’s design for this set of Circé shows a sarcophagus in the middle of a pavilion flanked by mourning figures in an ensemble reminiscent of the funeral ceremonies that he had designed for the French court. The annotated drawing explains, as in the libretto: “Four Demons raise a tomb in the back of the Stage.” But, more surprisingly, it adds, “we will use the tomb of Alceste.” Again, as with the “toile des champs elysées” element, Bérain is reusing a scenic feature from a production of a prior opera, doubtless to save costs. Does the drawing for Circé show the actual “tombeau” from Alceste that was in storage in 1694? This seems possible, since artists, though eager to follow successful traditions, often sought to create new stage effects through the combination of seemingly disparate preexisting elements. Thus, an inhospitable grove containing a grave was the ideal setting to evoke a witch’s sabbath in the minds of the audience, and a ghostly apparition would certainly cause a frisson of fright in an audience very receptive to the manifestation of the afterlife. Circé’s character acquires in this act a nefarious identity and the demons will serve her henceforth: after building the tomb of Elphénor, they reappear at the end of the act “transformed into Nymphs” to tempt Éolie and, later in Act V, flying in to burn the boats of the Greeks.
According to the ordonnateur, Elphénor’s ghost emerges from the ground and returns belowground “an instant after.” But the order of events is unclear as the text below Bérain’s drawing puts this event after the demons have appeared and erected the tomb, while the printed libretto has the shade’s advent as being immediately after Circé calls for it and before the demons appear. Here the sung text is helpful as we learn that Circé invites the shade of Elphénor to acknowledge the tomb. The wandering soul of Elphénor is offered rest by Circé: “I want your spirit / To be at peace forever.” The apparition, though attesting only to Ulisse’s unfaithfulness, contributes to our understanding of Circé as a necromancer. This aspect links the magician to Medea, who also reveals her wicked self after her husband Jason’s infidelity. These characters appeared on the Paris Opera stage less than a year prior to Circé’s advent, when Médée, the opera of Thomas Corneille and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, was first presented on December 4, 1693. Madame de Saintonge was undoubtedly influenced by Thomas Corneille’s libretto for Charpentier, as she surely was by those Quinault wrote for Lully.
The “ghost” effect was neither new nor rare, and Madame de Saintonge had already used it in her earlier libretto for Didon, when “Sicheaeus’s ghost” appears at the end of Act V. In Circé, thanks to the specific placement of the effect “at the back of the stage,” some designs by Bérain attributed to other operas may serve as examples. Such are the designs attached to Énée et Lavinie by Fontenelle and Collasse, created in 1690, where the ghost of Didon appears in Act II. One drawing shows the apparition in front of an architectural setting, “a little rustic temple,” at the spot where the tomb would stand in Circé. The spirit of the Carthaginian queen appears above the huge face of an infernal monster and surrounded by “a murky vapor”. What, in 1694, was the nature of this mist or vapor which announces the “bloody” apparition of a ghost from a trap door? It is tempting to imagine some real smoke, but in fact, by a process of stylization, the vapor was painted on flat sceneries in the same manner as clouds for the sky. This usage will endure for centuries, even after pyrotechnics have achieved major developments on stage. A remnant of the production of an opera by Marmontel and Piccinni, also titled Didon, presented in Fontainebleau in 1783, shows the persistence of such an effect. The original handwriting on the back of the scenery does not leave any doubt about its dramatic function “for the shade of Anchize” and its physical use “coming from under the stage.”
The libretto of Circé does not specify where the demons and the Euménides, who are called upon by Circé to torment Ulisse, appear from, but the verses sung by the sorceress to summon them give a sense of origin and direction: “Demons, Demons, dread my power, / I will open your frightful Caves”. Considering that the space of Act IV is described as “a wood,” the demons must have come from below the ground. Here again the document for the staging of Act IV confirms this and gives us some more clues, as it insists that the ghost of Elphénor, the demons, the singing Euménides, their dancing followers, in fact every apparition, were all entering from under the stage: “coming out from underneath. The Shade of Elphénor rises from the ground and must sink a moment later. The Euménides emerge from hell with their retinue in the ninth scene.” It offers also a pragmatic addition to deal with so many performers: “We will use all the trapdoors which are already in the theater and what will not come from under will come from the sides of the stage.” Eventually, “The Tomb that was raised by the Demons is hidden by some Trees” and in the last part of Act IV, the space serves as the frame for another trick of Circé when the “démons transformez en Nymphes” try to confuse princess Éolie with a maze of temptations. Here, after a scene reminiscent of Quinault’s Armide, Saintonge breaks all traditions stemming from the Odyssey, as she chooses this moment to have Mercure appear, bringing the antidote to Circé’s enchantments. The most significant difference resides in the fact that it is to Éolie, not to Ulisse, that Mercure offers Moly, the godly flower which protects against Circé’s spells. Here Mercure, after having demonstrated the power of Moly by dismissing the demons, gives it to Éolie and entrusts her with the mission of saving Ulisse. By choosing Éolie for this heroic task, Saintonge develops her character and makes her a double rival of Circé, in the realms of both love and power.
This “Mercure [who] descends from Heaven” at the end of Act IV is also unique because during the performance the god did not appear in a flying machine as did the opera’s earlier deities. This apparition of Mercure comes after other gods’ entrances: “l’Amour on a cloud” during Act II, “Minerve on her chariot” and “Les Aquilons appear[ing], surrounded by clouds” in Act III (they will reappear in Act V). Until Mercure’s appearance, gods always appeared by means of a flying machine, the “Gloire” as defined by the 1694 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française: “Gloire, In the Comedies and in the other spectacles, the high and illuminated place, where one represents the open sky and the divinities from the Fable.” There are indeed two types of flying effects in Saintonge’s creation: the flying machines which carry a character (Amour, Minerve, Aquilons) and the free flying of a character flying by himself like Mercure, since the god with his winged garments could carry himself. This effect of free flying is more difficult to achieve and can be dangerous, requiring a special harness and more manpower to operate. But here again, the fundamental document from the original production gives an unexpected clue about the 1694 performance. It explains how Mercure’s flying was achieved: “It is a fake Mercure who will fly across.” Mercure was represented either by a stand in, replacing the singer, or by a painted element that was flat or three dimensional to accentuate the illusion. The crossing of the figure allowed the singer wearing the same costume to appear from behind a wing and deliver his address to the Demons and Éolie.
The final location on Circé’s island, which we encounter in Act V, has an asymmetrical composition, the first one in the opera. “The Set changes and represents on one side, Rocks, on the other, a Wood, and in the background a Seaport.” This is the first setting of the performance showing a composition where the two sides of the stage present different elements: the space of this act is the frontier between the island of Circé and the outside world. Here also, the specificity of the space is made clear at the back of the stage with the presence of the harbor and the sea. After the palace of Circé, the temple of Love, the magical forest, and the cenotaph of Elphénor, we are now on the coast of the island, the periphery of the magical kingdom, from which Ulisse and the Greeks will escape. This act shows first the gods and their support of the Greeks: “Aquilon and the other Winds come to console Éolie, to whom they are kind. A Troupe of Nereids and Tritons emerges from the Sea and joins them.” The visual presence of the sea, associated with the Greek and Roman origins of the tale, reveals itself as an intermediary between the magical world of Circé and the natural world. The Greeks start to embark but Circé arrives, and seeing Ulisse with Éolie, realizes that she is forsaken. She calls on demons to burn the vessels “but the power of the Moly stops the Demons from obeying Circé.” A drawing by Bérain for this Act V shows the flying demons with torches above the harbor where the boats of the Greeks are leaving.
Circé then blames the gods for favoring a “faithless deceiver,” and begs Ulisse to remain. She sees the boats sailing away and first vows to destroy the Temple of Love. This renunciation leads to the most tragic moment of the opera. At the end of this remarkable scene, after passing through various states of anger and repentance, Circé concludes that “since Ulisse has changed, let everything change here.” This last expression of the magic of Circé is the most spectacular and shows the close connection between her state of mind and the world she creates. In opposition to the magical transformations of space in the previous acts, the garden of Act I, or the tomb of Act IV, which both displayed some creative aspects, now the magician uses her power to disorder, disorganize, and devastate her island. The forsaken sorceress calls for trees and rocks to “fall into the waves in a dreadful chaos.” The full destruction of the space, happening before the eyes of the audience, was an effect, though not new, much admired at the Paris Opera. Quinault and Lully in Armide (1686) already showed “The Demons destroy[ing] the Enchanted Palace.” Closer to Circé, the Médée by Thomas Corneille and Charpentier specified, “the Statues and other ornaments of the Palace are shattered. We see Demons coming out from all sides who, having fires in their hands, set this Palace ablaze. These Demons disappear, the night forms, and this building seems only ruin and monsters, after which a rain of fire falls.” The very last lines in Saintonge’s libretto mix sound, scenery movement, and lighting effects: “We hear a great noise of Thunder, the Rocks and the Trees are overturned and fill the Harbor; Chasms that spew flames appear in their place.” To isolate herself, Circé blocks the access to her island. Destroying the whole port, she permanently prevents the arrival of any other man with a wall of fire. The magic island may still exist but it is now inaccessible; the magic show must also end for the audience.
Madame de Saintonge’s libretto for Circé distinguishes itself in many ways from its ancient sources. The new events and their timing and order as told by Saintonge create a new portrait of the magician, one that is more complex and multifaceted. Far from the capricious and malevolent sorceress, the writer paints a female character whose unreciprocated passion for Ulisse pushes her to use her magical powers for creative and then destructive purposes. These fantastic elements, along with many interventions of deities, suggest a multi-faceted spectacle, where changes of space are in constant demand to offer different perspectives. In addition to the libretto, the work of Bérain, the designer for the 1694 performance, confirms that Circé, a “tragédie en musique,” was treated as a “pièce à machines.” Drawings and manuscript notes give some remarkable insights into the way French stage artists of the late seventeenth century dealt with a new production, a process where imagination was often limited by the resources available. The documents from Bérain, including the one on staging Act IV, are especially revelatory for understanding the style and intent of the staging of Circé. These sources reveal how the technical work on the performance was conceived as part of the story telling. They suggest some period “customs” and “regular uses” regarding scenery of the Paris Opera but are also indicative of the creative intuition and pragmatic spirit in which the staging was conceived. In parallel with the conception of the score and, in some ways, of the libretto, respect for the narrative was imperative, but trickery combined with technical conventions were the real keys to the magic of the performance. Authors, performers, and designers all worked together to create an illusion and developed, along with the audience, new ways of perceiving the monumental Circe.
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