Since ancient times, the story of Circe’s magical mischief has captured imaginations. In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe appears first as an enchantress who pauses from weaving tapestries to transform half of Ulysses crew into swine. But the Homeric Circe relents after falling in love with the handsome Greek hero. She reverses her spell, releases his company and ultimately helps Ulysses find his way through the underworld by sharing an important magic potion. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Circe comes across as more malevolent, transforming Glaucus’ beloved Scylla into a monster and then a rock. This is the story that Cristoforo Ivanovich (1620 – 1689) adapted for the opera.

Circe’s appalling lack of ethics and inability to check her anger has led commentators through the centuries to wonder how a “daughter of the sun” could wind up so unhinged. While some have speculated that the story is a warning about the dangers of drunkenness, those of a more Freudian slant surmised that Circe was a projection of male sexual fantasies. In the Renaissance, humanists debated whether it might actually be better to exist as an animal. Botanists named a genus of nightshade plants “circaea” to memorialize the enchantress’s intoxicating herbal potions. James Joyce entitled a memorable section of his monumental Ulysses after Circe, and chess players named a class of moves “circe” where a piece disappears and is “reborn” somewhere else on the board. The story attracted opera composers and librettists in seventeenth-century Venice, and Circe appears many times throughout the century on the operatic stage.

The librettist of our opera was the prolific Venetian writer Christoforo Ivanovich (1620 –1689). Born in what is now Montenegro, Ivanovich was a canon at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and wrote several opera libretti. While Ivanovich’s contribution is straightforward, the composer of the music is not entirely clear. La Circe was first presented in Vienna in 1665. Pietro Andrea Ziani is the most likely composer of the Viennese debut, since he travelled to Innsbruck in 1662 and later served the dowanger Empress Eleonora in Vienna. Many years after its success in Austria, La Circe appeared in Venice at the Theatro Sant’Angelo in January 1679. It is possible that it was revived three years later in Venice. Several sources cite Domenico Freschi, not Ziani, as the composer of the Venice production. Indeed, Freschi had just supplied music for Sant’Angelo’s production of Tullia superba in January 1678, an opera centering around Circe but with a Roman, rather than a Hellenic setting. Strongly associated with the Venetian operatic scene, Freschi wrote the music for the very first opera performed Sant’Angelo in 1677. When La Circe debuted in Venice, Ziani had already been living in Naples for two years, but he was still known in Venice and continued to write for the stage there. Because borrowings happened all the time before the advent of copyright law, it is even possible that the opera known today had parts composed both by Ziani and Freschi.

Regardless of the composer, the themes addressed in Ivanovich’s La Circe were typical for their day. In love with Glauco for pleasure and Pyrrhus to incite vengeance, Circe’s amorous feelings slowly change to anger. At the end of act 2, she sings “if I become dead to love, I will be reborn to rage,” whereas in act 3 she sings, “let anger triumph where love is useless.” Circe does not release her victims herself – except for poor Scylla, Pirro vanquishes her spells through his courage. Thus, the libretto also warns that a powerful woman can be dangerous. The noble characters Andromaca and Pyrrhus fear Circe before they even meet her: her sorcery renders reason and order impotent, while inspiring terror. Like the Amazon women who ruled the island in Pallavicino’s Le amazzoni nelle isole fortunate (1679), chaos often followed women in Venetian operas who possessed power or dominion over men.

What is the root cause of Circe’s moody excesses? Homer’s Circe permits Ulysses and his men leave her island peacefully after a year. But in Ivanovich’s libretto, the Greek hero abandons her, as Aeneas left Dido. “Oh Heavens! Why do you show such kindness to the man who betrayed me?...I will see that this betrayal does not go unpunished.” It is male deceit and lovesickness that turns Circe towards vengeance.

The music of La Circe adds considerable depth to the drama, coloring the words in many ways. The opera is filled with expressive music. Andromaca’s beautiful lyric arias in 3/2 meter (“Dammi sospiriti”, act 1, scene 6 and “Di Pirro eche sarà”, act 2, scene 10) are only two examples. But the music accomplishes something else: it humanizes Circe and makes her a more complex character. As befits his essentially comic character, Gligoro’s music is usually lighter (“Disperasi é una gran pazzia”, act 1, scene 6), and Glauco sings lyrically, expressing his endless affection for Scylla (“Strana peripezia!”, act 1, scene 3). The ability of music to intensify the words is surely one of the aspects that attracted so many people to opera in the seventeenth century.

Ultimately, La Circe can be read as an entertaining, but cautionary tale that still has much to tell us today. In a world where voices from all sides often lead us to feel offended, insulted or wronged, it is all too easy to respond by descending into a space of anger, rage and vengeance. Recent tragic events provide examples too numerous to enumerate where people’s fury has become enflamed. Innocent lives like Scylla’s have even been lost senselessly, when cooler heads might have prevailed. Works like La Circe remind us that we still have much to learn about ourselves.