Mozart in Opera History from 1781

Mozart's Role in the Opera's Development, the Vienna Years

Apr 13, 2008

Traces the role of Mozart in the opera's history from 1781, the year he moved permanently to Vienna.

From Mozart's early role in the opera's history, when he composed his first opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, aged 11, this article discusses the maturing Mozart, aged 25, decided to move to Vienna as a freelance musician.

By then, Mozart already premiered his Idomeneo, considered the greatest opera seria ever written.

Vienna from 1781

After an unhappy period of employment in the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Mozart settled in Vienna, determined to make his way in the world as a freelance musician.

Joseph II's wish for a cheerful opera in German was met by Mozart in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), premiered in Vienna, July 1782. It was a great success. In the same year, he married Constanze Weber.

Operatic Partnership with Da Ponte

Mozart's next venture was much more ambitious. In the mid-1780s Joseph II gave up his insistence on the German language for opera. Mozart collaborated with an Italian librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, adapting the most controversial play - Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro, subversive in its comedy at the expense of the aristocracy.

Joseph II forbade the performance of Figaro in Vienna, but Da Ponte was able to persuade Mozart to allow the opera to proceed. There was a slightly mixed reaction from the first audience in May 1786, but a production in Prague of the same year proved a success.

However, from 1786 onward, Mozart received fewer commissions. This was partly due to the pointed satire of the 1786 The Marriage of Figaro that he fell out of favor from those in power, and partly because war with the Ottoman Empire affected the economic conditions in Vienna.

When Mozart went to Prague in January 1787, he was delighted to find everyone humming the tunes of Le Nozze di Figaro. The Czechs loved his music. It was something new in opera, combining comedy and intense passion, while remaining in touch with everyday reality.

Following the success of The Marriage of Figaro, the Prague company commissioned a second opera. Don Giovanni opened to huge acclaim in October 1787 but was less successful in Vienna.

In 1789, Mozart and da Ponte had their third commissioned opera Così fan tutte (So Do All Women). It's the most cynical and unromantic of stories but with such beautiful and romantic music. Così is considered a masterpiece for opera buffa (comic opera).

Mozart's Singspiel and Mastery of Form

Mozart's last stage work, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), opened in Vienna in 1791. It is a tale of strange rituals and rough comedy, commissioned by a commercial impresario, Emanuel Shikaneder.

This anarchic and unconventional singspiel opera is as far as it is possible to be, from Idomeneo ten years earlier. The magic flute captures all the drama and pathos of one of the best known of all operas. Like the intervening masterpieces with da Ponte, Mozart is supremely inventive.

The Magic Flute would have made Mozart rich, but it opened less than three months before his death. Mozart gave his genius and his mastery of form.

Today, the popularity of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Così fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), and Don Giovanni continue to overwhelm that they are staged too frequently.