This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, we examine two treatments of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, as recounted in Apuleius’ “The Golden Ass.”
Frequently interpreted as an allegory of the elevation of the soul through love, the union of Cupid and Psyche is a beautiful story which has much in common with the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. There is the prohibition against a maid looking upon her “captor,” her catty stepsisters who conspire to trip her up, and the revelation of the “beast” as a kind of prince – in this case, the god of love himself.
In the end, the protagonists pass through travails to triumph, as love conquers all – a nice change of pace, I think you’ll agree, from the usual classical story arc of being transformed into a stag and devoured by hounds, flying too close to the sun and being struck down by Zeus’ thunderbolt, or accidentally eating one’s own children in a meat pie.
We’ll hear music from César Franck’s “Psyche and Eros,” full of romance and ardor, and a completely different approach, which sounds more suited to a ballroom or even an amusement park, “Cupid and Psyche,” by Lord Berners.
Get Psyched for Valentine’s Day this week, with “Slings and Eros,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.