Pietro Metastasio

Italian poet and playwright. Born on January 3rd in Rome to a merchant family. At the age of 10, his talent was discovered by Gian Vincenzo Gravina (1664-1718), then a member of the Arcadia Society. Under Gravina's strict guidance, he studied classical Greek, Latin and Renaissance literature and philosophy, and even changed his surname from Trapassi to the Greek-style Metastasio. He was ordained in 1714. In 1717, he published his first collection of poems. The following year, in 1718, he joined the Arcadia Society. In 1719, he moved to Naples, where he was treated well by upper class society and at the same time deepened his connections with the theater and music worlds. In 1723, he wrote the melodrama (musical drama, today's opera) Didone Abandoned, dedicated to the singer Marianna Bulgarelli, who was the most popular at the time. It premiered the following year with Bulgarelli in the lead role, and was a great success, immediately spreading Metastasio's fame throughout the Italian peninsula and beyond. He continued to write excellent scripts, such as Cato of Utica (1727) and Semiramis (1729), and reconstructed melodrama, which at the time had placed emphasis on music, into a literary work. However, in 1730, he was invited to the court of Vienna through the intermediation of his former guardian, Countess Marianna Pignatelli, and from then on, until his death on April 12, 1782, he served successive emperors, including Charles VI, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II, as the court poet of the foreign capital, which boasted absolute monarchy.

During his first ten years in Vienna, he produced an astonishing number of melodramas, including Demetrius (1731), The Olympian Games (1733), and The Clemency of Titus (1734). However, after this period of energetic creativity, he rapidly became less productive, as if his poetic spirit had dried up, and in his later years he devoted himself to writing treatises on poetry, looking back on his own poetry and theorizing it.

[Kyoko Washibira]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イタリアの詩人、劇作家。1月3日、ローマの商人の家庭に生まれる。10歳のころに、当時アルカディア学会員であったグラビーナGian Vincenzo Gravina（1664―1718）に才能をみいだされ、その厳格な指導のもとに、ギリシア、ラテンおよびルネサンスの古典文学と哲学とを修めて、姓も本来のトラパッシTrapassiからギリシア風のメタスタージオに改めた。1714年、聖職につく。17年、早くも処女詩集を出版。翌18年、アルカディア学会入会。19年、ナポリへ移住し、上流社会の厚遇を得て、同時に演劇界や音楽界との交流も深めていく。23年に、当時一世を風靡(ふうび)した歌姫マリアンナ・ブルガレッリに捧(ささ)げて、メロドラマ（音楽劇、今日のオペラ）『見棄(みす)てられたディドーネ』を執筆。その初演は翌年にブルガレッリを主役として行われたが、大成功を博し、メタスタージオの名声はただちにイタリア半島内外に広まった。その後も『ウーティカのカトー』（1727）、『セミラミス』（1729）など、優れた脚本を書き、当時は音楽に比重の置かれていたメロドラマを、文学的に再建させた。しかし30年に、旧来の後見人であった伯爵夫人マリアンナ・ピニャテッリの仲介によってウィーンの宮廷へ招かれると、以後は82年4月12日に没するまで、絶対君主制を誇る異国の都の宮廷詩人として、カール6世、マリア・テレジア、ヨーゼフ2世ら、歴代の皇帝に仕えた。

　ウィーンでの最初の10年間に、驚異的なまでに数多くのメロドラマを書き上げたが、代表作としては、『デメトリウス』（1731）、『オリンピア競技会』（1733）、『ティトゥス帝の慈悲』（1734）などがあげられる。しかし、この精力的な創作の時期が過ぎると、あたかも詩心が枯渇したかのように急速に寡作となり、晩年になると自らの詩作を振り返りつつ、それを理論化する詩論の執筆に専念した。

［鷲平京子］

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