Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

=== Opera and ballet ===
The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for [[libretto|librettists]] and composers of opera (see [[List of Orphean operas]]) and [[History of ballet|ballet]]. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a [[bass (voice type)|bass voice]], with the low [[vocal range]] representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in [[Claudio Monteverdi|Monteverdi]] and [[Ottavio Rinuccini|Rinuccini]]'s ''[[L'Orfeo]]'' (1607) and ''[[Il ballo delle ingrate]]'' (1608). In their ''[[ballo]]'', a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,<ref>Mark Ringer, ''Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi'' (Amadeus Press, 2006), pp. 34, 75, 103–104; Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' (Yale University Press, 2002), p. 95; [[Enid Welsford]], ''The Court Masque'' (Cambridge University Press, 1927), pp. 112–113.</ref> and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."<ref>Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' p. 81, quoting Follino, ''Compendio delle sontuose feste'' (1608), and p. 152.</ref>

[[File:Jean Raoux – Orpheus and Eurydice.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jean Raoux]]'s ''Orpheus and Eurydice'' (1718–20), with Pluto and Proserpina releasing the couple]]
The role of Pluto is written for a bass in [[Jacopo Peri|Peri]]'s ''[[Euridice (Peri)|Euridice]]'' (1600);<ref>George J. Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'' (Indiana University Press, 2004), p. 37.</ref> [[Giulio Caccini|Caccini]]'s ''[[Euridice (Caccini)|Euridice]]'' (1602); [[Luigi Rossi|Rossi]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Rossi)|Orfeo]]'' (1647); [[Antonio Cesti|Cesti]]'s ''[[Il pomo d'oro]]'' (1668);<ref>Kristiaan Aercke, ''Gods of Play: Baroque Festive Performances as Rhetorical Discourse'' (SUNY Press, 1994), p. 230.</ref> [[Antonio Sartorio|Sartoris]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Sartorio)|Orfeo]]'' (1672); [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]]'s ''[[Alceste (Lully)|Alceste]]'', a ''[[tragédie en musique]]'' (1674);<ref>Piero Gelli and Filippo Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'' (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2005, 2007), p. 36.</ref> [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier|Charpentier]]'s [[chamber opera]] ''[[La descente d'Orphée aux enfers]]'' (1686);<ref>Charpentier's Pluto is a [[bass-baritone]].</ref> [[Georg Philipp Telemann|Telemann]]'s ''[[Orpheus (Telemann)|Orpheus]]'' (1726); and [[Jean-Philippe Rameau|Rameau]]'s ''[[Hippolyte et Aricie]]'' (1733).<ref>Gelli and Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'', p. 625.</ref> Pluto was a [[baritone]] in [[Proserpine (Lully)|Lully's ''Proserpine'']] (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.<ref>James R. Anthony, ''French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau'' (Amadeus Press, 1997), p. 115.</ref> Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s satiric ''[[Orpheus in the Underworld]]'' (1858),<ref>Pluto does not have a singing role in [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s ''[[Orfeo ed Euridice]]'' (1762).</ref> in which a [[tenor]] sings the role of ''Pluton'', disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée ([[Aristaeus]]), a farmer.

Scenes set in Pluto's realm were [[orchestration|orchestrated]] with [[Instrumentation (music)|instrumentation]] that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' as two [[cornet]]s, three [[trombone]]s, a [[bassoon]], and a [[Regal (musical instrument)|régale]].<ref>Aercke, ''Gods of Play'', p. 250; Ringer, ''Opera's First Master'', p. 71.</ref>

Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from [[Francesco Cavalli|Cavalli]]'s opera ''[[Ercole amante]]'' ("[[Hercules]] in Love"), [[Louis XIV]] himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.<ref>Andrew Trout, ''City on the Seine: Paris in the Time of Richelieu and Louis XIV'' (St. Martin's Press, 1996), pp. 189–190; Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'', p. 160.</ref> Pluto appeared in [[Jean-Georges Noverre|Noverre]]'s lost ''La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers'' (1760s). [[Gaétan Vestris]] danced the role of the god in [[Florian Johann Deller|Florian Deller]]'s ''Orefeo ed Euridice'' (1763).<ref>Daniel Heartz, ''Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780'' (W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 488–492.</ref> The ''Persephone'' choreographed by [[Robert Joffrey]] (1952) was based on [[André Gide]]'s line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."<ref>Sasha Anawalt, ''The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company'' (University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 66.</ref>