Pigmaliòn en Sicilia

By the end of 18th century three performances of “Pygmalion” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau are attested in Sicily, in Palermo (1777, 1797) and in Catania (1791), but every of them gives problems for their confirmation in coeval documents or for some other peculiarity. The most interesting is certainly the Catania's one attested by the libretto printed for the circumstance. There “Pygmalion” was performed in the original form of melodrama, but translated in Italian. The composer indicated on the libretto is Ch. W. Gluck but we can suppose that Gluck's work utilised in Catania, without informing the author, had been written for different purpose and intention. Somebody perhaps organised that performance to realise a Rousseau's presumed desire. But drawing a comparison between philosophical conceptions on which melodrama was idealised and Gluck's idea of opera's riforma, many disagreements and contradictions appear. So in that occasion more likely Rousseau's thought was betrayed.