Volume 26, Issue 2, Supplement, June 2014, Pages S4
Analytical, Clinical and Forensic Toxicology International Meeting,10-14 June 2014, Bordeaux
Wednesday 11 June 2004
L1: Poisons in the opera: from love potions and witch ointments to deadly Solanaceae
Introduction
Scopolamine and hyoscyamine (atropine) are the main alkaloids of most Solanaceae
plants, which have been used within living memory as healthful,
hallucinogenic, and/or eroticizing, but also deadly drugs. These effects
have been described over the centuries in arts from ancient mosaics to
Dali, in literature from Homer to Goethe, and in operas from Vivaldi to
Gounod and Wagner.
Methods
Story
and music of operas were analyzed concerning action of drugs and
poisons in the context of drug-facilitated sexual assaults, driving
under the influence of drugs, crime scene reconstruction, suicide
assistance, and the eroticizing effect of Bordeaux vine.
Results
In
Antonio Vivaldi's opera Orlando Furioso, Alcina is attracted to the
knight Ruggiero and she uses her magic potion to make him forget
Bradamante and love her instead (similar to Siegfried in Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung, who forgot Brünnhilde and fell in love with Gutrune after consumption of her welcome potion). In Charles Gounod's Faust,
Faust and Mephistopheles fly to the Harz Mountains to get the love
potion to change his life without any fun. At the Walpurgis Night, he
got to know the three typical optical hallucinogenic effects of
scopolamine and hyoscyamine, imagination of flying, transformation into
animals, and eroticizing effects. In Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet, Hamlet reconstructs the homicide of his father by his uncle who dropped poison into his ear. In Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde,
Isolde's maid Brangane should give Tristan and Isolde the deadly potion
to atone for their fault, but she gave them the lower dosed love
potion. Thus, both fell again in love although she was engaged to
Tristan's king. Finally, in Gaetano Donizetti's L’elisir d’amore,
the poor Nemorino loves the beautiful Adina, but she torments him with
her indifference. When Adina is reading the book of Tristan and Isolde
to her friends, Nemorino decides to buy a love potion from the
travelling quack doctor Dulcamara. His name comes from the only Solanaceae (Solanum dulcamara) that contains no scopolamine and hyoscyamine…
Conclusion
The
effect of poisons inspired artists, writers and composers over the
centuries. With the view of a toxicologist, many effects can be related
and allow funny conclusions. Some of them will be presented during the
opening lecture at the Opera de Bordeaux (“lieu prestigieux oblige”).
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