In The Battle of the Books, Jonathan Swift wrote how Aesop maintained that the Ancients worked like bees, while the Moderns work like spiders. The Bees collect matter from several flowers to make honey and wax, which are essential to happiness. Spiders, on the other hand, spin their web from within, and are the image of self-sufficiency. The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns raged in political and intellectual Europe. In 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau published his Contrat social, where he espoused the principles of ‘radical democracy’, to be followed by Émile, the manifesto of educational naturalism. Also, the Encyclopédie was being compiled by Diderot and d’Alembert – a monumental compendium of information and an instance of legitimation of the Enlightenment. Within that context, composer Christoph W. Gluck promoted his new vision on opera: music shouldn’t be hedonistic or superficial, but emotionally participative and dramatic, similar to what ancient Greek theatre had been. His opera Orpheus and Eurydice was the first that followed such new canons. We will be able to see it starting on Friday, April 28, at the Fenice Theatre in Venice.
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