@cinturongazo hi! as someone who is *not* the person who originally tagged philip ii (of spain) on this post but who has been an avid fan of “of spain???” since it escaped containment, and who still thinks about it and was scrolling through the reblogs and realizing that i don’t think that anyone has still explained the possible reasoning behind that, voilà!:
so, friedrich schiller wrote a play called don carlos, an extremely fictionalized imagining of events surrounding the life of don carlos, infante of spain, son to philip ii of spain. it’s been a classic since.
in the 1860s, italian composer giuseppe verdi, who had by now become world-famous, was invited by the paris opéra to write a new opera for them (he had already written one other original opera for them, and before that had reworked at least two other originally-italian operas into french versions for the company). he ultimately settled on don carlos for his subject matter, and titled the opera as such. (however, the opera is more often performed nowadays in italian, with the title translated accordingly as don carlo, but that is neither here nor there.) the opera premiered in 1867, and while its popularity has fluctuated due to the subject matter and the staging demands involved, it is generally considered one of verdi’s best works.
“so what has this to do with this post?”
now while i do not fully understand exactly where this connection was made, i will say that the character web of the opera is…messy. there are six major characters (plus several more supporting roles) and basically all of them are in a game of messy alliances and relationships: don carlos is in love with élisabeth de valois (they were originally engaged and met in the woods and fell in love at first sight and so on), but due to political reasons the engagement is…reworked, and élisabeth is instead married off to carlos’ father, philip ii. awkward.
philip is pretty much immediately severely suspicious that his wife is cheating on him with his son, and he ends up enlisting rodrigue, the marquis of posa, to spy on them after being impressed by rodrigue’s boldness in discussions of political matters.
this is where the dynamic of the post comes in, because some of the lines that philip has about rodrigue are…interesting (all lines are from this english translation of the original french):
now for reasons that are too long-winded to explain here, rodrigue ends up in a bit of a pickle: he is firmly against the spanish government’s horrific treatment of the flemish protestants under philip and the spanish inquisition’s rule (in fact, it was rodrigue’s expressions of disapproval over this that got him talking with philip). in addition, he has also gotten carlos involved, and he firmly believes that carlos can save the flemish people. oh, and there’s so-heavy-it’s-practically-not-even-subtext insinuations that carlos and rodrigue are very much A Thing.
and rodrigue will do anything for carlos. but he also has this relationship with philip.
when carlos’ attempts to advocate for flanders go incredibly sideways in an incredibly public way, the spanish inquisition gets involved. and the grand inquisitor takes advantage of the situation to demand that the king have rodrigue straight up killed.
philip is not pleased. very much not pleased:
so philip, backed into a corner, ultimately has no choice but to acquiesce and allow rodrigue to be killed. rodrigue is shot while visiting carlos in prison and dies singing one of the most beautiful baritone arias ever written (seriously go check it out). shortly after this, philip arrives at the prison to announce that carlos is released, but takes the death of rodrigue…poorly:
i think that speaks for itself. (disclaimer: this section actually got cut for time reasons before the premiere, and is only very occasionally restored, but it’s GOOD FREAKIN FOOD.)
now i say all this with two very important points:
1. this is barely scratching the surface of the interpersonal entanglements (i didn’t even mention princess éboli, who is philip’s mistress and élisabeth’s gal pal AND is in love with carlos),
2. as in history, obviously philip ii is a terrible person who does many many horrible things that we DO NOT CONDONE. a person can be terrible and also fascinating.
i really sincerely hope this may clear something up for you. i realize this is a very confusing explanation but it is what it is, and i am sorry. thank you, OP, for the wonderful gift of “of spain???”.
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