Leitmotifs in Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra1

Abstract

Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, Op. 40, was commissioned by the Ford Foundation for the Metropolitan Opera to inaugurate the opening of its new facility at the Lincoln Center on 16 September 1966. Famed film director Franco Zeffirelli wrote the libretto, which he based on Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Barber wrote music for this opera combining the concept of the Verdian set piece—arias and so on—and Wagner’s music dramas with Leitmotifs recurring throughout the score for dramatic purposes. This chapter primarily traces Leitmotifs related to Cleopatra (e.g., “Salt Cleopatra”) and to her lover Marc Antony (e.g., “Antony fishes”), or Cleopatra’s own view of him (“my man of men”). The main plot of the opera deals with how these two characters relate to each other and how Leitmotifs elicit or demonstrate this relationship—for example, a “love theme” used in a principal duet and reprised in other circumstances. Some of these motives also relate to one another, by means of a close juxtaposition or in simultaneous presentations. The premiere of Antony and Cleopatra was considered a fiasco, not so much because Barber’s music was lacking but because Zeffirelli’s staging was, according to the composer, strangled by a costly, confusing, overloaded production. Therefore, although he did not need to do so, he revised his score, and in the process he altered certain aspects of the Leitmotif system. Moreover, he also added a completely new love duet, the Leitmotifs of which recur throughout the remainder of the opera. The second half of this chapter deals with some of these new relationships.