ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates one particular libretto, L'Euripo, which allows people to assume a probable connection between Venetian musical theater and Spanish comedia aurea. Even though they are built on very different and heterogeneous materials, however, Giovanni Faustini's librettos are indeed quite homogenized in their structure, starting from certain fixed dramaturgical principles. The work in the Faustini-Francesco Cavalli collaboration, L'Euripo was performed in the 1648–49 season at Teatro S Moise, where Giovanni Faustini had been librettist and impresario since 1647. Even if Lope's plot is more complex and tangled than Faustini's, it contains a number of ingredients found, almost literally, in Euripo. Analogies between Euripo and La fuerza lastimosa are notable, even if some of Lope's sequences occupy a very different position in Faustini's plot. L'Euripo was written for the 1648–49 theatrical season, the same season for which Giacinto Andrea Cicognini prepared his Giasone.
