ORR232_ Book.qxd

Pauline Viardot
Text by Jean Racine
‘Scène d’Hermione’ from Andromaque [CD 1 Track 17]
(pub. 1887, possibly earlier)
ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI
IN THE 1840s and 1850s, there was a great revival of interest in Paris in the
plays of Jean Racine, principally because of the performances of the
tragedienne Rachel (1820-1859). In Andromaque, the Greek prince Pyrrhus is
betrothed to Hermione, but falls in love with the captured widow of Hector,
Andromache. In this scene, Hermione accuses her fiancé of loving the Trojan
widow. Rossini had set this play as an opera, Ermione, in 1819, which Viardot
no doubt knew of (but could never have seen). She also composed a setting of
a scene from Racine’s Athalie. When the poet Alfred de Musset was pursuing
Viardot, he was also smitten by Rachel, and wrote a double tribute to them,
‘O jeunes coeurs remplis d’antique poésie, Soyez les bienvenus, enfants aimés
des dieux!’
Je ne t’ai point aimé, cruel! I didn’t love you? How cruel!
Qu’ai-je donc fait? What did I do then?
J’ai dédaigné pour toi les vœux for you I spurned the princes of
de tous nos princes; my own country;
Je t’ai cherché moi-même au I sought you out, myself, in the
fond de tes provinces; depths of your lands;
J’y suis encore malgré tes infidélités, I’m still here, despite your faithlessness,
Et malgré tous mes Grecs and despite my Greek warriors,
–70–