Abstract

Apostolo Zeno’s libretti have many conventions in common with Calderón’s dramaturgy: «correlaciones», dreaming speeches, interventions «al acaso»... This is unexpected in such a detractor of Baroque as the rationalist reformer of opera seria. Though some of them can be shared with other authors, it is possible to hypothesize that Zeno had direct contact with Calderón’s work. In order to prove this, we have considered the coincidence of some plots and the presence of a volume of Calderón’s Autos in Zeno’s private library, but we have examined in particular his own libretti in search of these conventions which are parallel to Calderón’s. We may exclude hazard as an explanation: Zeno returns to certain elements of Calderón’s style which had proven their effectiveness, at least when they are not in contradiction with the main conditions of the rationalist reform of his time.