What's left of myth. Traces of Euripides in Alberto Savinio’s “Alcesti di Samuele”

Abstract

Analysis of the drama Alcesti di Samuele by Alberto Savinio, staged in 1950 at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler. It is the declination of the myth of Alcestis according to the existential pessimism of the author, who made the reflection on death one of the landmarks of his theater. The genesis of the drama, according the author himself, is to be found in a true story, happened in Vienna at the time of the Nuremberg racial laws: to an important music publisher was imposed the choice between work and divorce from his Jewish wife, and the latter, in order to prevent him from taking such a painful decision, killed herself. The play is set in Monaco, where Savinio lived, and Teresa-Alcestis dies by drowning in the river Isar. In the first part of the drama Savinio is concerned to emphasize the correspondences between myth and history (Teresa | Alcesti, Admeto | Paul, Eracle | the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, etc.), but, with the progress of the dramatic action, the distances from Euripides increase more and more, until the final reversal: Teresa returns to life just to bring Paul with her in death. The essay analyzes and comments the numerous echoes and allusions to Euripides (and their variations) that Savinio introduces in his rewriting.