The Theriomorphic and Dionysian in Silvio Benco’s Libretto La Falena for Antonio Smareglia

Abstract

The Benco – Smareglia cooperation has been thoroughly investigated from the point of view and with the scientific tools of musicology, so the idea behind this paper was to examine the libretto of La Falena, the first of the three libretti, written in 1897, and look for the numerous intertextual connections deriving from the demonic, inhuman, or rather superhuman features of the female protagonist. While the dualism typical of the Scapigliatura is translated into antithetic constructions in the antinomian creation of characters, in the plot structure and in the semantic coupling of love and folly, the reuse of gothic and legend derived elements is functional to the eroticmonstrous connotations of Benco’s femme fatale. The perturbing dimension of female eros presented by Benco is also ascribable to Nietzsche’s theory of the Dionysian disorder.

Keywords

• silvio benco
• antonio smareglia
• falena
• theriomorphic femininity
• dionysian principle