Bougainville's experience of reaching Tahiti

We know from my earlier blogs that explorer Bougainville had seen a performance of a work by Metastasio (and similarly we know that Metastasio’s libretto was used by Haydn for the opera L’isola Disabitata) and that after Bougainville published his travel journals and probably influenced Metastasio, Bougainville’s experiences helped confirm Tahiti’s position in the world. I can now tell you that according to THE GREAT NAVIGATORS OF THE 18TH CENTURY authored by Jules Verne, Bougainville was in Rio Janeiro in June 1767 when he became aware of Metastasio’s work. I quote ‘Well received by the Count of Acunha, Viceroy of Brazil, the French had opportunities of seeing the comedies of Metastasio given at the opera by a Mulatto troupe’. Then Bougainville sailed on to Tahiti. On the 4th April 1768, ‘at sunrise the vessel reached Tahiti, a long island consisting of two peninsulas, united by a tongue of land no more than a mile in width. More than 100 pirogues hastened to surround their two vessels. They were laden with cocoa-nuts and many delicious fruits which were readily exchanged for all sorts of trifles. When night fell, the shore was illuminated by a thousand fires, to which the crew responded by throwing rockets. "The appearance of this shore," says Bougainville, "raised like an amphitheatre, offered a most attractive picture. Although the mountains are high, the land nowhere shows its nakedness, being covered with wood. We could scarcely credit our sight, when we perceived a peak, covered with trees, which rose above the level of the mountains in the southern portion of the island. It appeared only thirty fathoms in diameter, and decreased in size at its summit. At a distance it might have been taken for an immense pyramid, adorned with foliage by a clever decorator. The least elevated portions of the country are intersected by fields and groves. And the entire length of the coast, upon the shore below the higher level, is a stretch of low land, unbroken and covered by plantations. There, amid the bananas, cocoa-nut and other fruit-trees we saw the huts of the natives." The whole of the morrow was spent in barter. The natives, in addition to fruits, offered fowls, pigeons, fishing instruments, working implements, stuffs, and shells, for which they asked nails and earrings. Upon the morning of the 6th, after three days devoted to tacking about and reconnoitring the coast in search of a roadstead, Bougainville decided to cast anchor in the bay he had seen the first day of his arrival. "The number of pirogues round our vessels," he says, "was so great, that we had immense trouble in making way through the crowd and noise. All approached crying, 'Tayo,' friend, and offering a thousand marks of friendship. The pirogues were full of women, who might vie with most Europeans in pleasant features, and who certainly excelled them in beauty of form." Bougainville's cook managed to escape, in spite of all prohibitions, and gained the shore. But he had no sooner landed, than he was surrounded by a vast crowd, who entirely undressed him to investigate his body. Not knowing what they were going to do with him, he thought himself lost, when the natives restored his clothes, and conducted him to the vessel more dead than alive. Bougainville wished to reprimand him, but the poor fellow assured him, that however he might threaten him, he could never equal the terrors of his visit on shore. As soon as the ship could heave to, Bougainville landed with some of his officers to reconnoitre the watering-place. An enormous crowd immediately surrounded him, and examined him with great curiosity, all the time crying "Tayo! Tayo!" One of the natives received them in his house, and served them with fruits, grilled fish, and water. As they regained the shore, a native of fine appearance, lying under a tree, offered them a share of the shade. "We accepted it," says Bougainville, "and the man at once bent towards us, and in a gentle way, sung, to the sound of a flute which another Indian blew with his nose, a song which was no doubt anacreontic. It was a charming scene, worthy of the pencil of Boucher. Four natives came with great confidence to sup and sleep on board. We had the flute, bassoon, and violin played for them, and treated them to fireworks composed of rockets and serpents. This display excited both surprise and fear."

Bougainville and Haydn and Tahiti?

June responded to yesterday’s posting with a connection between Metastasio (who wrote the libretto which Haydn used for his opera ‘L’isola disabitata’) and discussions about literature and Tahiti. This prompted me to investigate connections between Haydn and Tahiti in a different way. An early explorer, the Frenchman Louis Antoine de Bougainville, visited Tahiti in April 1768. When Bougainville returned to France, he published an account of the voyage, 'Le Voyage autour du monde’. The book became a red-hot best seller, with passages such as the following, describing that first encounter: ‘…the girl carelessly dropt a cloth, which covered her, and appeared to the eyes of all beholders, such as Venus showed herself to the Phrygian shepherd, having indeed the celestial form of that goddess. Both sailors and soldiers endeavoured to come to the hatch-way. At last our cares succeeded in keeping these bewitched fellows in order, though it was no less difficult to keep the command of ourselves.’ Bougainville naturally drew on classical imagery, the source of most soft porn in 18th century Europe. He gave Tahiti the name of New Cythera, after the island of Cythera (now Kythera), the birthplace of Aphrodite. ‘Voyage autour du monde (A Voyage around the World)’ was a sensation because of its eroticism, but also because it seemed to confirm the idea of the Noble Savage, the Romantic notion that people in a state of nature were nobler and less corrupted than those in the civilized world. These ideas were already current when Bougainville left France. Remember Haydn composed his opera at the end of 1770s only a few years after Bougainville’s book was published in 1771. If Bougainville’s book was well-known and widely distributed Haydn would probably have known about it. The book was a sensation, especially the description of Tahitian society, which Bougainville depicted as an earthly paradise where men and women lived in blissful innocence, far from the corruption of civilisation. In L’isola disabitata, Haydn’s young Silvia certainly was happily living in blissful ignorance on the island. One other thing. Bougainville relates in his travels, that in St Salvador, the capital of the Portuguese possessions in America, he witnessed the performance of an opera by Metastasio. Perhaps Bougainville and Metastasio knew each other in Europe. Can we assume Haydn through his use of Metastasio’s libretto actually met the Metastasio? Is it conceivable that Metastasio would have related stories from Bougainville? Or is there some chance Haydn simply picked up Metastasio’s well-known libretto about an island because of popular interest in exotic remote islands?

Is there a connection between Tahiti and Haydn's L'isola disabitata opera?

Earlier this year, June and I both attended a performance of Haydn's opera L'isola disabitata from the Royal Opera House in London, at our local Theatre Royal. Afterwards we mused whether we would be able to find any connection between the deserted island theme and Tahiti. I am excited to say that maybe I have found it. A few facts. I found that, according to Engaging Haydn: Culture, Context, and Criticism edited by Mary Hunter, Richard Will which can be read at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=PrxN6PX7SHgC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=haydn++islands&source=bl&ots=UwwaRZrZ5J&sig=R7JcfHl1PBIVt45gjAUB3karLTk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EDfVUcXeFsiUiQeGz4GIDg&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=haydn%20%20islands&f=false, Haydn owned a 1784 edition of Cook’s travel diaries. Wow! How extraordinary. Here is a connection. Englishman Captain Cook sailed to Tahiti arriving in 1769. Haydn (1732-1809) lived almost entirely in Austria where this opera was premiered in 1779, except for two forays to London in the 1790s. Therefore Haydn had a few years to learn about Cook's travels and be inspired by the exoticness of islands. The questions that must be asked include, did Haydn acquire his copy of Captain Cook's journals when in London or earlier in Austria? Or is it possible that any or many of the Englishmen undertaking their Grand Tours on the continent could have informed him of Captain Cook's achievements, or carried a copy of the journal with them when they passed though Austria? Or maybe none of this is relevant. The 18th century started with Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719)and the public loved stories about abandonment on deserted isles. The text by Metastasio for Haydn's opera had been around for a long while (since 1753) but Haydn wasn't given permission to write freely by his employer until 1779 the year this opera was released. Was Haydn simply pursuing a popular trend for story?