Teseu: um homem prepotente e traído ou traído e desesperado?

Abstract

The family drama experienced by Theseus, Phaedra and Hyppolytus sheds some light on human incapacity to control what appears to be man’s most intimate and absolute characteristic: emotions. In spite of Theseus’s undeniable power, which is further backed up and made stronger through his contact with the gods (the journey to Pluto’s kingdom, the fulfilment of his requests by the deities), the events he goes  through at home bring him distress and perplexity. This awareness of power’s inanity achieves one of its most poignant expressions at the beginning of Act IV in Verdi’s opera Don Carlos.