Translated by: Tamara Török

In the last two years of his brilliant Venetian career, 1761-62, Goldoni wrote The Holiday Trilogy. The play is the story of a love quadrangle, a comedy of two misguided loves: the unfolding of romantic madness and its subsequent containment within the bounds of moral constraints, social rules, and common sense; jealousy, anxiety, and the struggle between a given word and passion. Alongside the lovers are the servants, who are shocked by their masters' behavior, a well-meaning but complicating father, a freeloading guest, a love-hungry, aging aunt, an unbearable benefactor—almost equal, significant roles, with complex, richly developed characters. The stories of the many couples participating in the holiday offer numerous variations and possibilities of desired and experienced love.

“The eternal adventure of human vacations, the adventure of departures and returns, the illusion of the seasons and of the bygone eras,” wrote Giorgio Strehler about the play. “If we can feel sadness in Goldoni's work, if there exists contemplative melancholy in this century, a melancholy that at its core is coupled with joy of life, delicacy, and moderation, then this sadness shows itself here in all its glory. There is something of the century's death in it, a more pronounced decline. That is why the Trilogy feels so contemporary in its mood.”