Orphic Variations in Scenes of Clerical Life

Authors

Kenichi Kurata

Date of this Version

2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

George Eliot Review 40 (Special Issue, 2009)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

This is from Orfeo's climactic aria, Che faro senza Euridice, in Gluck's opera, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762). That the tune may sound too graceful to suit the desperate words can be explained by Orfeo's awareness of the means he has ready to hand of being reunited with Eurydice: he can cross the river Styx again by killing himself. At the moment of this declaration, contrary to the original myth, personified Love intervenes and Orfeo recovers Eurydice for the second time.

What I would like to suggest in the following paper is that this myth of Orpheus' descent to the underworld provides a paradigm that enables us to follow the patterns of desire in Eliot's early fiction, through the reading of its employment in 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-story'. Gluck's Orfeo was originally played by a castrato, and the gender of the role has continued to be treated ambiguously. Therefore, it is not unnatural that Caterina in 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story' should express her feminine desire by singing this aria in the drawing-room of Cheverel Manor: Caterina as Orfeo is lamenting the loss of Anthony as Euridice.

Certainly, Che faro is 'Sir Christopher's favourite' (p. 240),2 but the song he specifically requests (p. 142) and asks for an encore (p. 143) is a different one, Ho perduto it bel sembiante, which suggests an emotional investment in Che faro on Caterina's part: it is her personal choice within her repertoire, whereas generally she has to sing to order (p. 171). Moreover, while both songs in 'which the singer pours out his yearning after his lost love, came very close to Caterina's own feeling' (p. 143), it is the Che faro which is especially praised, 'Excellent, Caterina [ ...] I never heard you sing that so well.' (p. 143) That the aria is sung again later in a significant manner, together with the fact that Eliot shows her recognition in the article, 'Liszt, Wagner, and Weimar', that it was Gluck who reformed the opera in order fully to integrate the sung parts into the plot? encourages us actively to read into the aria's signification within the context of the story.