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The gioco della cieca, or game of blind man's buff, of the third act is likely the most intricate scene in terms of composition and staging. The difficulties of the scene, with its integration of dance, song, and spoken verse and its irregular meters, likely played a part in the long string of failed attempts to perform Il pastor fido in northern Italy in the 1580s and 90s .
The beginning of the act shows Mirtillo hiding in the bushes, waiting for his beloved Amarilli and a group of nymphs to arrive. When they do arrive, they begin il gioco—a game of tag, whereby Amarilli is blindfolded and must catch the various nymphs. When Amarilli's eyes are covered, Mirtillo emerges from hiding and is deliberately caught in Amarilli's embrace while being mistaken for the short-haired Corisca. This is actually the second time that Mirtillo has snuck into a game to approach his beloved: in Act 2 we learn that he disguised himself as a girl to take part in a kissing contest between Amarilli and some nymphs. Mirtillo won for the best kiss and was crowned with the wreath he wears in the image to the left. At this point, it would seem that things are going very well for Mirtillo, except for the fact that later that afternoon Amarilli is supposed to marry another shepherd (Silvio). Even as Amarilli's feelings burn even stronger following her encounter with Mirtillo and his confession of his love after the gioco della cieca, Amarilli stands firm in her obligation to marry Silvio and save the Arcadian citizens. Once Mirtillo has gone, Amarilli exclaims: |
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O Mirtillo, Mirtillo anima mia, |
O Mirtillo, Mirtillo my soul, |
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In writing act three, Guarini initially wrote the dialogue of the scenes surrounding the gioco della cieca and left text for the game itself to be written later. The manner in which the scene was eventually composed went very much against convention.
As the game itself was to take the form of a ballo (dance) with insertions of dialogue from the main characters, Guarini first had the choreography designed by Leone de Somma. Then the music for the chorus sections of the gioco, which were to be sung in madrigal style by the group of nymphs, was composed by Luzzasco Luzzaschi. After the choreography and music were in place, Guarini composed the text of these choruses to accompany the dance—a complete reversal of the usual process whereby the text is written first and the music and choreography follow. The end result must have been quite complex, for the gioco della cieca was one of various reasons why many attempted productions of the play in Mantua, Ferrara, and elsewhere in the 1580s and '90s met with failure. |
 Mirtillo steals a kiss from Amarilli in the gioco della cieca |
After the gioco della cieca follows a series of exchanges between the characters in this love triangle—first Amarilli and Mirtillo (III,3), then a monologue by Amarilli (III,4) and a dialogue between her and Corisca (III,5), and finally Corisca and Mirtillo (III,6)—all of which are superimposed in the drawing shown above. These scenes, filled with strong expressions of emotion in the wake of the lovers' kiss, became a fertile source of texts for madrigal composers, including Mirtillo's partenza "Ah, dolente partita" that concludes scene 3, Amarilli's lament "O Mirtillo, Mirtillo anima mia" at the start of scene 4, and Mirtillo's doleful "Udite, lagrimosi" that begins scene 6. (The scene immediately preceding the gioco, a monologue by the eager Mirtillo as he hides in the bushes, also provided two very fashionable madrigal texts: "O primavera, gioventù de l'anno" and "O dolcezze amarissime d'amore.") Marenzio, Giaches de Wert, and Girolamo Belli were among the first composers to publish settings of these passages in 1593–95, and they were soon trailed by a flood of other composers, such as Claudio Monteverdi, Filippo de Monte, Salamone Rossi, and Benedetto Pallavicino. |
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