Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Auden, Wystan Hugh in N.Y.City. Rom, Sonntag, 5. Dezember 1965
author: Henze, Hans Werner
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Hans Werner Henze-Stiftung (Dr. Michael Kerstan). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Hans Werner Henze

Roma
Via S.Andrea delle Fratte, 36[^1]

[^1: Henze writes in his Autobiography, p. 209, that he had rented a small attic apartment in Via Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome because he would have to go to the Teatro dell'Opera daily to prepare the opera Der junge Lord, which was to be given its Italian national premiere on 18 December 1965, with Henze as conductor. See also Henze's letter to Paul Sacher on 20 October 1965.]

5th December, 1965

Mr
Wystan H. Auden
7, St.Marks Place
Greenwich Village / N.Y.City [This address is wrong, as the house number should be 77 and not 7. Auden corrects this in the next letter.]

Dear Wystan,

in a hurry:

Shortly before the Intermezzo, after the earthquake, Pentheus says to the Captain:

Yes, I know. I know. Take all your men. Pursue Them to Cytheron. Root them out Kill. Kill. Kill.[^2]

[^2: This sentence is pronounced by King Pentheus in Movement III, Part 1 of The Bassarids , immediately after the encounter between Pentheus and Dionysus disguised as the Stranger. An earthquake allows the Prisoners, followers of the cult of Dionysus, including Pentheus' mother Agave, his aunt Autonoe, Tiresias and a young slave girl with her daughter, to escape to Cytheron.]

It seems to me that the Captain is supposed to pursue his men to Cytheron, and that those men should root the Bassarids out.

If I’m right, than this meaning does not come out clearly, as the two them refer to two different groups of people. [The two groups of people to which Henze alludes are the captain’s men, on the one hand, and the prisoners, followers of Dionysus (i.e. Bassarids) escaping to the Cytheron, on the other.]

Please help me to get this straight, possibly by a return of mail.

All those other things we have discussed on the phone are being taken care of immediately.

Love,