Vittorio Gnecchi also composed the music for a ballet, the Atalanta of 1923, performed the same year at the Politeama Genovese and at the Lirico di Milano, then revived in Salzburg in 1949.
This is the Greek myth narrating that the father of Atalanta wanted a boy, and at her birth, according to custom, abandoned Atalanta on Mount Pelio. Artemis then sent a bear who took care of nursing and raising her. Some time later Atalanta was found by a group of hunters who took her in.
Her propensity for hunting was soon manifested, when she faced and killed with her bow the centaurs Ileo and Reco who had tried to rape her. Later she asked to be part of the Argonauts and participated in the expedition, becoming the only woman to take part in the enterprise. Atalanta gave other proofs of dexterity in hunting by participating in the capture of the wild boar Calidonio which had wounded her. Meleager, as a sign of honor, gave her the pelt of the prey.
The echo of the enterprise made her so famous that her father finally recognized her. Her father’s insistence that she should marry met her opposition: in fact, an oracle had predicted that, once married, she would lose all her skills.
Atalanta, to satisfy her father, promised to marry only the man who would beat her in a running race. The stakes were very high: any suitor who did not beat her in the race would be killed.
No one was able to beat her until Melanione (or Hippomenes), deeply in love, decided to try asking Aphrodite to hel him. The goddess gave Melanion three golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides and he, following her advice, let them fall one by one during the race. Atalanta was irresistibly attracted to them and stopped every time to pick them up, losing precious ground and finally the race. So she married Melanione, with whom she was secretly in love.
Atalanta - Parte 1
Atalanta - Parte 2
Atalanta - Parte 3
