SOURCE: "A Night at the Opera: Concierto barroco and Motezuma," in Revista de Estudios Hispanicos, Vol. 21, No. 2, May, 1987, pp. 23-38.

[In the following essay, Bost asserts, "It is in Concierto barroco that Carpentier most imaginatively combines two of his principal concerns in his exploration of historical America: the play of fact with fictional exposition, and the role of music as a cultural force."]

Alejo Carpentier's fiction often describes watershed events of Latin American history and culture. Novels such as ¡Ecué-Yamba-O! and El reino de este mundo present vibrant images of the African impact in the Caribbean. El recurso del método portrays a dictatorship as a characteristically Latin American institution. Carpentier returns to the genesis of America in El arpa y la sombra, a novel about Columbus's first voyage to the New World and his contentious historical reception in the nineteenth century. Concierto barroco explores through the world of opera the fall of Aztec Mexico, one of the events that clearly gave Spain political and cultural hegemony in the New World during the sixteenth century. Viewed collectively, these examples of Carpentier's fiction form a thematic trilogy that symbolizes the historical evolution of Latin America: its discovery, conquest and colonization. These novels identify the critical historical strands that are interwoven throughout the tapestry of Latin American history. It is in Concierto barroco that Carpentier most imaginatively combines two of his principal concerns in his exploration of historical America: the play of fact with fictional exposition, and the role of music as a cultural force. Using Antonio Vivaldi's opera Motezuma as the centerpiece of the novel's exposition, Carpentier presents a hybrid fusion of documentary literature, opera, and fantasy in which textual sources become almost completely inseparable from the novel's narrative voice. Concierto barroco is both rigorously historical and unabashedly imaginative in its transformation of this material into fiction. In this sense, Concierto barroco is emblematic of Carpentier's last novelistic stage, a period in which he employs a bewildering number of literary styles and sources to create works that reflect a highly creative vision of Latin America's past. A trademark of Carpentier is to include brief commentaries in his novels that expose the textual sources that underpin the essential process of story-telling. Carpentier adds a note at the conclusion of Concierto barroco which explains how he came across the opera Motezuma, and how Charles de Brosses's Lettres italiennes suggested the atmosphere for the novel's presentation of Vivaldi's home, the Ospedale della Pietà. These remarks provide a code for deciphering a number of allusions to musicology and various travel diaries. In addition to the texts Carpentier mentions, there are references within the novel to such works as Silvestre de Balboa's Espejo de paciencia, Rousseau's Confessions, Edward Wright's narrative of his travels through France and Italy, and John Mainwaring's biography of Handel, among others. By drawing together these various texts into his story, Carpentier composes a sort of baroque concerto. The novel harmonizes an irregular, uneven set of sources and characters through a series of musical performances which range from an impromptu jam session in the Ospedale to the elaborate staging of Vivaldi's Motezuma. Music is the unifying force of Western culture for Carpentier, a power that transcends time, place and nationality. Motezuma, as both literary text and musical event, binds together people of different races, countries and tastes. In this sense, the opera functions as the heart of the novel, its microcosmic center. The principal characters ultimately interact by means of the composition, production, performance and reception of this opera. Concierto barroco is a novel with a congeries of historical sources and literary influences; Motezuma is the primary work of this text of texts.

Carpentier's choice of this Vivaldian opera is, at first glance, a curious one. Motezuma is by no means among Vivaldi's better-known choral works. Orlando Furioso and Griselda, for instance, have enjoyed a great deal more attention over the years from critics as well as production companies. It is also likely that these works, among others, achieved a higher degree of success during Vivaldi's lifetime than Motezuma. Girolamo Giusti, Motezuma's librettist, collaborated with Vivaldi on this opera only, and was relatively unknown when compared to more famous librettists Domenico Lalli, Pietro Metastasio and Grazio Braccioli. What separates Motezuma from the rest is that it deals solely with an American topic—the conquest of Mexico—some years before any other major European opera. So even though the music for Motezuma is lost and the libretto exists today only as an unedited manuscript, Carpentier has seen in the opera a special relevance. Carpentier assumes that Vivaldi shared his artistic vision when he writes in his concluding remarks:

Tanto parece haber gustado el Motezuma de Vivaldi—que traía a la escena un tema americano dos años antes de que Rameau escribiera Las Indias galantes, de ambiente fantasiosamente incaico—que el libretto de Alvise (otros lo llaman Girolamo) Giusti, habría de inspirar nuevas óperas basadas en episodios de la Conquista de México a dos célebres compositores italianos: el veneciano Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785), y el florentino Antonio Sacchini (1730–1786).

Motezuma thus represents for Carpentier a moment in the history of music when composers began gazing abroad to the New World for topics that would interest an audience steeped in classical culture. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were many operas in Europe and America that dramatized the key figures of the New World experiences: Columbus, Cortés, Pizarro, Atahualpa and Ponce de León, to name several. Motezuma marks the beginning of an increased tendency in European arts to use America as a foundational metaphor. The image of America from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, primarily a product of the European imagination, is one of wealth, natural beauty, and noble races, as Ruland has noted.

Carpentier creates an historical ambience in Concierto barroco that establishes a somewhat realistic context for the creation and production of Motezuma. The opera was first performed in Autumn of 1733 at the Teatro di Sant' Angelo in Venice, which was probably Vivaldi's favorite theater. The novel's main characters, the Indiano from Mexico and his black servant Filomeno, come to the Sant' Angelo to watch the dress rehearsal of Motezuma. Historically, Vivaldi had been absent from Venice for several years prior to this production. His return to this theater with this opera marks a moment of dramatic intensity in Concierto barroco, for it is here that the Indiano views the world's first opera of his country's violent history.

The festive mood of the visitors is highlighted by their celebration of the Venetian Carnival, a time when masks, merrymaking and costumes were commonplace. The Indiano and Filomeno fall easily into the atmosphere of revelry. Carpentier's portrait of this scenario corresponds fairly closely to several travel accounts of the period, as Müller-Bergh has demonstrated. His depiction of the Venetian world along these historical patterns creates a semblance of authenticity within the novel's more fictive occurrences. Carpentier as well as his historical sources seem most fascinated by the powerful mood of release that masks and disguises allow. Carpentier suggests that anonymity allows people to lose themselves in a joyous, if not totally pious, release of emotions: "Cada cual hablaba, gritaba, cantaba, pregonaba, afrentaba, ofrecía, requebraba, insinuaba, con voz que no era la suya…." The custom of masking has a strangely democratizing effect upon the populace, for the strict social barriers are hidden behind the façades: "En cuanto al pueblo, la marinería, las gentes de la verdura, el buñuelo y el pescado, del sable, y del tintero, del remo y de la vara, fue una transfiguración que ocultó las pieles tersas o arrugadas…." The English traveler Edward Wright observes that during the Carnival the Venetians could hide not only their social rank but also their gender: "For further variety, they sometimes change sexes; women appear in men's habits, and men in women's and so are now and then picked up, to the great disappointment of the lover." Carpentier's black humor twists this idea around as if to suggest that during Carnival nothing is as it seems: "… en tanto que los maricones, vestidos a la mitología o llevando basquiñas españolas, aflautaban el tono de proposiciones que no siempre caían en el vacío." When the Indiano finally sees a performance of Motezuma, he is scandalized to discover that a male historical character is a woman in the opera, that a woman has sung a male part, and that two of the women singers are off-stage lovers. The world Carpentier has created in Concierto barroco is topsy-turvy. The Indiano, initially sure of his own identity and values, eventually emerges through his experiences in the Carnival with a new set of perspectives and values concerning his nationality and the history of his own country.

The identity of the Indiano chooses for the festival is Montezuma. His exotic dress immediately captures the attention of the unmasked Fraile Pelirrojo, Antonio Vivaldi. The Indiano, between drinks and visits from Georg Friedrich Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, narrates the story of the conquest of Mexico. Vivaldi listens attentively to the tale of the daring Spaniards, bloodthirsty Indians and native temples. During the course of the Carnival, the Indiano tells and retells the history of Montezuma to an increasingly fascinated Vivaldi. The Indiano brings the story to life: "… llevado por el impulso verbal, dramatizaba el tono, gesticulaba, mudaba de voz diálogos improvisados, acabando por posesionarse de los personajes." The Indiano begins a creative process that Vivaldi ultimately continues and completes with his opera. Carpentier later reverses the role of performers and spectators when the Indiano watches the opera and sees what Vivaldi has done to his story. Vivaldi is cast in the novel as an enterprising impresario, a point of certain historical accuracy. Vivaldi is concerned not only with the music but also with the total dramatic possibilities: "… pensando, de pronto, en los escenarios de ingenio, trampas, levitaciones y machinas, donde las montañas humeantes, apariciones de monstruos y terremotos con desplome de edificios, serían del mejor efecto…." But what attracts Vivaldi most strongly to the Indiano's story is its freshness and novelty. Vivaldi suspects that his audiences will soon tire of the standard classical operatic repertoire and will want to see works based on other lands and traditions. Vivaldi senses a change in the artistic mood of Venice: "Soplan aires nuevos." Motezuma thus represents a new creative possibility for Vivaldi. He here has the chance to transform historical material about America into an imaginative expression of considerable originality. The audience will be able to turn away from the characters of classical mythology, the "pastores enamorados" and "ninfas fieles," and will look instead to the New World. But Vivaldi's choice of a historical topic never presents serious artistic limitations. The Indiano sadly learns that history, his nation's history, after all, is an extremely flexible creation capable of surprising mutations. He ultimately confronts the belief that the only truth about historical writing is its various interpretive possibilities.

The Indiano bases his objections to Vivaldi's treatment of history on his own reading of the Historia de la conquista de México, by Antonio de Solís, Vivaldi's source for Motezuma. It is not unusual that an educated subject of the Spanish Crown living in eighteenth-century Mexico would have a thoroughgoing knowledge of this historian. The Historia de la conquista de México is, in many regards, a literary elaboration of these famous historical events. Solís charts the early days of exploration and conquest, Cortés's initial negotiations with the Aztec nation, and his definitive triumph over the last defenders of the indigenous empire. The Historia de la conquista de México is more than a typical chronicle of events; it presents many of the customs, beliefs, and traditions of the native Mexicans. Solís's work was, in its day, the standard reference for the history of the Mexican conquest. By the time Motezuma was written and produced there were several Italian translations readily available to Giusti and Vivaldi.

Vivaldi and his librettist Giusti follow Solís's historical outline very loosely and broadly and focus on the last days of Montezuma's rule. The opera introduces new characters not present in the Historia de la conquista de México and changes the role of others. For example, in Motezuma, Cortés has a younger brother named Ramiro, and Teutile is not an Aztec general but Montezuma's daughter. Vivaldi uses many of the techniques that are commonplace in eighteenth-century operatic theater: a complex plot, characters hidden onstage, disguises and rapid changes in fate. The opening scenes of Motezuma present most of the conflicts that provide the opera's essential dramatic tension. Montezuma faces a critical dilemma: should he concede defeat to the Spanish and accept death, or should he fight on? His wife Mitrena encourages him to be strong and to search in his heart for courage: "Il corraggio, dov'è?" Teutile, too, must search for solutions to seemingly unresolvable problems. She has fallen in love with Ramiro, and because she frequently confided in him, she blames herself for the fall of the kingdom. Ramiro vacillates between his political and brotherly allegiance to Cortés and his obligations to Teutile. The younger soldier hides Montezuma, though his orders are to capture him. The Spaniards finally seize Montezuma and discuss his fate. Ramiro speaks on behalf of the Aztec ruler and implores his brother not to imprison him: "Dura legge mi par, e grave offesa." Fernando begins to suspect that Ramiro is struggling with a conflict between love and duty and begins to watch him more carefully. Montezuma, in chains, challenges Fernando to a fight, a defiance that Cortés cannot tolerate. In a series of highly improbable scenes the Aztecs and Spaniards reverse their fortune several times. The Indians manage to capture Cortés and imprison him in a tower. Meanwhile, Teutile, Mitrena and an Aztec general named Asprano have conferred with the priests and decide that the gods have demanded some sacrifices. They then burn the tower Cortés was placed in. But they don't realize that in the meantime Ramiro has saved Cortés and Montezuma has taken refuge in the same tower. Believed dead, Montezuma miraculously returns in the last few scenes only to find Cortés in full control, victorious over the remaining Aztecs. Cortés attempts to consolidate his power totally by announcing to the people that they now have a new king and a new religion: "Nuovo Re ad adorar, e nuovi Numi." The people accept this proclamation and the chorus, presumably made up of Spaniards and Aztecs, offers Cortés a cry of praise and support: "Viva il Monarca Ispan, Fernando Viva."

In spite of its creative liberties, Vivaldi's opera follows a principal theme found in the Historia de la conquista de México and in earlier official chronicles of the conquest. The Spaniards had a mission in the New World, and their warfare with the Indians was, in their mind, politically, economically and religiously justified. Mitrena, perhaps created in the historical shadow of Malinche, recalls the arrival of Cortés to their land and suggests that their nation was ready for salvation. The Spaniards offered a superior culture to the Aztec world of myth and superstition. Mitrena uses traditional imagery of shadows and blindness to describe her people's state of ignorance:

      Vivea frà l'ombre ancora
      Di natia cecità, fuori de Mondo,
      Ignobile, negletta,
      Questa vasta Region.

She continues her long recitative saying that the Aztecs suffered for centuries under a cloud of darkness before Cortés's arrival:

      Per secoli si lunghi
      Furo i populi miei cotanto idioti
      Ch'anche i proprj tesor gl'erano ignoti
      Ma rischiarar tal nube
      Un di alfin si dovea.

Mitrena repeats traditional Aztec mythology by saying that the arrival of the Spanish had been long anticipated. Cortés and his men were fulfilling a prophetic expectation:

      Questo era scritto
      Nei decreti del Ciel, ne si potea
      Tanto esequir, se la natura, e il Cielo
      Non apriva l'arcano, onde potesse
      Un seminume al Mondo
      La linea trapassar co 'suoi elletti
      Per incogniti mar fin or negletti.

Mitrena's praises, however, are misleading. Though she appears to be justifying the Spanish conquest, she adds that Cortés betrayed their trust. Carpentier remarks that at this point her similarity to Malinche vanishes: "Una civilización de hombres superiores se había impuesto con dramáticas realidades de razón y de fuerza…. Pero, por lo mismo (y aquí se esfumaba el malinchismo de Mitrena en valiente subida del tono), la humillación impuesta a Montezuma era indigna de la cultura y el poderío de tales hombres." Mitrena's recitative is thus a clever rhetorical strategy designed to trap Cortés in a web of praise and admiration. Cortés suspects insincerity and interrupts her by saying: "Sensi d'adulation poco veraci." Mitrena viciously turns on him and claims that he violated their peaceful accord and illegally usurped the throne rightfully held by her husband. Mitrena continues to oppose the Spanish until Cortés, finally victorious, pardons his enemies and sanctions the marriage of Ramiro and Teutile. In this way, Cortés symbolically binds together the new and old regimes in a strong political mestizaje.

The Indiano in Concierto barroco becomes enraged with Vivaldi's unrestrained adaptation of Solís. Yet when the Indiano attempts to demonstrate his superior knowledge of Mexican history to Vivaldi, the Italian surprises his guest with a small sample of his own scholarly virtuosity:

—"Pero … Nunca hubo tal emperatriz de México, ni tuvo Montezuma hija alguna que se casara con español."

—"Un momento, un momento—" dice Antonio, con repentina irritación—: "El poeta Alvise Giusti, autor de este 'drama para música,' estudió la crónica de Solís, que en mucha estima tiene, por documentada y fidedigna, el bibliotecario mayor de la Marciana. Y ahi se habla de la Emperatriz, sí señor, mujer digna, animosa y valiente."

—"Nunca he visto eso."

—"Capítulo XXV de la Quinta Parte. Y también se dice, en la Parte Cuarta, que dos o tres hijas de Montezuma se casaron con españoles."

Vivaldi clearly knows his historical source, but he nevertheless feels no obligation to present the facts accurately. His interests are purely artistic: "Lo que cuenta aquí es la ilusión poética." Vivaldi feels that in art there are fewer restrictions than in history. Vivaldi and the Indiano confront the same reality—the Historia de la conquista de México by Solís—but each emerges from his reading with a strikingly different response. Both characters have concretized this text in opposing manners. The Indiano's concerns are text-bound. He feels that truth and judgment inhere objectively in the literary or historical work. But Vivaldi dismisses such dogmatic views. Vivaldi easily relativizes the history of the conquest and thus disrupts the stability and control of the primary text. Vivaldi is far more interested than the Indiano in the adaptation and artistic reception of the Historia de la conquista de México. He justifies his numerous departures from historical accuracy by putting on a good show, telling a good story. He is an exponent of what Wolfgang Iser identifies as the esthetic pole of the literary work. Iser notes: "The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life when it is realized…." Motezuma is thus a textual realization (Konkretisation) of Vivaldi's reading of Solís. Iser writes that "one must also take into account not only the actual text but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to the text." Vivaldi has had considerable experience in converting literary responses into esthetic expressions. The Indiano apparently feels that the written word should remain unchanged. His critical view of literary experience is manifestly opposed to Vivaldi's. Yet Vivaldi effortlessly deconstructs the Indiano's position by turning his knowledge and faith in the historical source against him. Vivaldi must forcefully remind the Indiano that the work of the Sant' Angelo is not to deal in matters of historical accuracy: "No me joda con la Historia en materia de teatro."

Telling and listening to tales occurs elsewhere in the novel with similar consequences. Earlier the Indiano listens to Filomeno's story of his great-grandfather, a subject in Balboa's Espejo de paciencia. The Indiano exhibits the same degree of impatience with Filomeno as with Vivaldi. Filomeno's tale has many digressions; the Indiano instructs his young servant in the proper narrative style: "Prosigue tu historia en línea recta, muchacho—interrumpe el viajero—, y no te metas en curvas ni transversales; que para sacar una verdad en limpio menester son muchas pruebas y repruebas." The Indiano speaks these words with the Master Solís in mind; the historian also presents a strong case for clarity and order in historiography. Filomeno finishes his story and later suggests to the composers that they write an opera about his ancestor. Handel and Vivaldi laugh at his proposal, a response that provokes the Indiano to come to his servant's defense: "No lo veo tan extravagante: Salvador Golomón luchó contra unos hugonotes, enemigos de su fe, igual que Scanderbergh luchó por la suya." This is an important step for the Indiano. By interceding on behalf of Filomeno, he is in effect championing an American topic over a European one.

The Indiano is eventually drawn into a more relativized form of literary response when he discovers that he has had an unexpected reaction to Motezuma. The Indiano admits to Filomeno that he was carried away by the opera's action and characters, and was surprised to find himself identifying more with the Indians than the Spaniards. He discovers a conflict within himself that is profoundingly disturbing. He is a proud criollo whose grandparents came to America from Spain. Yet his sympathies are not with Cortés but with his antagonist. The Indiano is struggling with a nascent nationalistic consciousness. Since arriving in Europe he has felt out of place. He constantly compares the European sights, smells and sounds with America, which he ultimately prefers. He must view an Italian opera in Venice before he can make the following observation: "A veces es necesario alejarse de las cosas, poner un mar de por medio, para ver las cosas de cerca" (Carpentier's emphasis). He now sees he is from another world and does not belong in Italy or even Spain. Carpentier subtly presents a New World-Old World dichotomy throughout the novel. The Indiano's final posture implies that the Old World has exhausted itself creatively and must now look to America for inspiration. Europe is a parasite on America, a land of vitality that looks to the future, not the past. The Indiano concludes: "No entienden que lo fabuloso está en el futuro. Todo futuro es fabuloso." Motezuma allows the Indiano to see that his own destiny lies in the land of hope and promise—America.

The Indiano in Concierto barroco and Montezuma in Vivaldi's opera both experience moments of conversion. The Indiano ultimately accepts his American identity, while Montezuma finally admits that Mexico has changed forever. Each emerges from his ordeal with a new attitude concerning his country. The Indiano sees that his cultural formation is American: "Para mí es otro el aire que, al envolverme, me esculpe y me da forma." Montezuma, facing the irrevocable march of history, comes to view the Spanish faith more openly: "Ne vostri Dei gran verità si scorge…." Montezuma seems to be aware of his own historical and literary destiny when he says that his misfortunes will be the "Argomento felice a nuove storie." Carpentier cites this passage from the opera as if to suggest that he is fulfilling the fallen king's prophecy. Concierto barroco presents another performance of Motezuma and thus becomes a "nuova storia" of the emperor's defeat. Montezuma and the Indiano are therefore present at crucial but opposing moments of Mexican history. Montezuma lives (in the opera, at least) to see his subjects accept Spanish rule. Cortés, ever faithful to his king, announces to the Aztecs that he cedes his throne to Spain, therefore maintaining the traditional lord-vassal relationship. Consequently, they all become part of the Spanish empire:

      Quel Soglio ove m'assido
      Non è Soglio per me. Or che lo prendo
      Alla Spagna lo cedo, e lo diffendo.

The Indiano, however, recognizes that his bond to this kingdom has slowly diminished. He has begun to see cracks in the cultural wall that Spain built around its New World empire. He discovers that he and his Spanish ancestors have little in common anymore. He began his journey as an indiano, an entrepreneur who came to Europe to enjoy his new-found wealth. But he finds himself "deseando la ruina de aquéllos que me dieron sangre y apellido." He has no alternative but to return home. It is significant that at the end of the novel he is neither an indiano nor an amo. An indiano comes from America to Europe, a process he ultimately reverses. He also releases Filomeno, thereby extinguishing his rights as amo. He has turned his back upon much that he once held as sacred.

Carpentier's portrait of America is revealed through the new attitude of the Indiano. The Mexican knows that in his world new beginnings are possible; his land holds the hope of promise and perpetual renewal, as González Echevarrría has suggested. By contrast, Europe has grown old and decrepit: "… parecióle, de pronto, que la ciudad había envejecido enormemente." The Indiano's trip has given him the experience and perspective to realize that he cannot recover in Europe his sense of place and origin. Vivaldi's Motezuma has pointed him in the direction of Mexico, a land where he now knows he truly belongs. There is a hint of revolution in this moment of recognition, for it will not be long before the Mexicans begin to shake loose the harness of Spanish domination. Filomeno, who decides to stay in Europe, speaks openly and prophetically about such radical changes:

—"En París me llamarán Monsieur Philoméne, así, con P.H. y un hermoso acento grave en le 'e.' En la Habana, sólo sería 'el negrito Filomeno.'"

—"Eso cambiará algún día."

—"Se necesitaría una revolución."

This will occur in the centuries following the Indiano's return. His new consciousness concerning his identity marks the beginning of the political and social uprisings that characterized the wars of independence, the Mexican Revolution, and the Cuban Revolution, three of the most definitive events in Spanish American history.

Concierto barroco is a novel that celebrates historical, literary and artistic change. The Indiano's attitude toward Mexican history is reflected by his response to the operatic performance. The Indiano unexpectedly becomes a spokesman for change. The importance of his trip to Europe is that he has experienced an awakening to the value of his own culture. Carpentier uses the device of the trip in many of his novels, often for the same purpose. The characters embark on a period of exploration that allows them to return home with an expanded view of the nature of their society: "Es que mucho se aprende viajando." The voyage allows them an extended period of psychological introspection during which they examine, often painfully, their life purpose. The Indiano's character development is one of political as well as psychological change. His view of society is initially quite conservative. His sharp reactions to the historical deviations of Filomeno and Vivaldi indicate a conservative stance toward the stability of society. But his gradual movement toward their respective interpretations indicates a more liberal perception of historical process. Hayden White writes about the characteristics of such ideological implications: "… Conservatives are inclined to imagine historical evolution as a progressive elaboration of the institutional structure that currently prevails…. By contrast, Liberals imagine a time in the future when this structure will have been improved, but they project this utopian condition into the remote future…." Carpentier's repeated emphasis on the future suggests that the Indiano has abandoned his conservative ideals which venerated European society and ancestry. He now embraces a more liberal ideology which anticipates a world of immense social change.

From the point of view of character development, Motezuma is a powerful catalyst for change. The opera forces the Indiano to confront his anachronistic beliefs concerning his history. Though the Indiano is by no means a revolutionary at the end of the novel ("yo desconfío de las revoluciones"), he nevertheless has embraced a different set of values central to his life purpose. He now favors America over Europe; he comprehends the process of esthetic interpretation; and he anticipates (from a liberal posture) a time of radical changes in the world's economic structures. Carpentier dissolves all historical divisions in Concierto barroco by introducing symbols of an industrialized world: locomotives, electric guitars, and travelers' checks, icons of a new age.

Carpentier's interest in Concierto barroco is to examine the relationship between text and event. No one denies that history is an act of remembering, but it is also invention, as Vivaldi gladly demonstrates to his skeptical Mexican friend. Carpentier's oeuvre often critiques the uneasy symbiosis between history and fiction. His portrayal of Columbus in El arpa y la sombra, for example, wavers between the purely historical and the totally fictitious; the narrative depiction of this character incorporates the explorer's own words from his travel diary. Carpentier shares Vivaldi's attitude toward literary art spelled out in the prologue to Motezuma: "Tutto ciò, che di vero abbandono, e che di verisimile aggiongo è per adattarmi alla Scena…." Concierto barroco's adaptations to the scene evoke memories, future ones perhaps, of a uniquely Latin American context. Carpentier's text, as expected, negates the formation of a singular historical truth. Instead, he is more interested in exploring the dimensions of artistic truthfulness.