WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Overture to The Impresario, K. 486
It is easy to forget that Mozart was not only a performer and composer but also a man with a family who was constantly concerned with earning a living. After he settled down in Vienna in 1782, his music enjoyed a popularity that made him the third most published composer of his day (Pleyel and Haydn being first and second, respectively). This notoriety allowed him to earn phenomenal amounts of money. Mozart took advantage of his earning power by accepting commissions at a rate that taxed even his prodigious creative powers. Mozart composed his entire comic, Singspiel opera, Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario) between January 18 and February 3 of 1786, with the first performance occurring on February 7, 1786 at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Concurrently, he was writing three piano concertos for a Lenten concert series and was hard at work on The Marriage of Figaro. The strain of this workload is apparent in the numerous corrections and alterations to the manuscript of his c minor piano concerto which contains many passages that were merely sketched out. He set Der Schauspieldirektor to a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie.
Mozart was commissioned to Der Schauspieldirektor for a festival sponsored Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and honoring the Governor General of the Netherlands. He welcomed this commission as he was struggling to make a living in Vienna by teaching, performing, and composing. The competition was to pit a German singspiel against an Italian opera. The competing Italian entry was the opera buffa Prima la musica, poi le parole (First the Music, then the Words), by Antonio Salieri. There are only four vocal numbers in the score, and the musical content (about 30 minutes, including the overture) is surrounded by much spoken dialogue which was topical in its day. In modern times, the text is typically completely rewritten. The plot concerns the woes of an impresario who must put together a company of actors and singers while dealing with their whims, rivalries, and pretensions. In the end, the singers and actors determine that art can thrive only through the peaceable cooperation of all their strengths.
Although the opera itself is not one of Mozart’s most famous works in that genre, the Overture is frequently performed in the orchestral literature. It is a short and vivacious work in the key of C Major featuring two distinct thematic elements – a rhythmic first theme and a beautiful, lyrical second.
| MOZART Impresario Overture