Dramatizations
The story is the basis of an opera, The Judgment of Paris, with a libretto by William Congreve, that was set to music by four composers in London, 1700-1701. Thomas Arne composed a highly successful score to the same libretto in 1742. The opera Le Cinesi (The Chinese Women) by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1754) concludes with a ballet, The Judgment of Paris, sung as a vocal quartet. Francesco Cilea's 1902 opera Adriana Lecouvreur also includes a Judgment of Paris ballet sequence.
Novelist Gore Vidal named his 1952 book, The Judgment of Paris, after this story.
The Judgment of Paris was burlesqued in the 1954 musical The Golden Apple. In it, the three goddesses have been reduced to three town biddies in smalltown Washington state. They ask Paris, a traveling salesman, to judge the cakes they have made for the church social. Each woman (the mayor's wife, the schoolmarm, and the matchmaker) makes appeals to Paris, who chooses the matchmaker. The matchmaker, in turn, sets him up with Helen, the town floozy, who runs off with him.
The Judgment of Paris is featured in the 2003 TV miniseries Helen of Troy. The event is rather short, and only Hera and Aphrodite offer bribes. All three goddesses are fully clothed. Aphrodite gives Paris a vision of Helen riding a horse, while Helen has a vision of Paris.
In the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys series, the contest is altered somewhat with Aphrodite and Athena entering but Artemis is the third goddess contestant instead of Hera (offering the one who chooses her the chance to be renowned as a great warrior). The Golden Apple appears as a gift from Aphrodite with the ability to make any mortal woman fall in love with the man holding it and to make a mortal man and woman soul mates if they simultaneously touch it. The other major differences beside the presence of Artemis and the role of the apple are the fact that it is Iolaus who is the judge and the goddesses appear in swimsuits and not nude.
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