Mozart on the Stage John A

Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-01661-2 - Mozart on the Stage John A. Rice Frontmatter More information

Mozart on the Stage

Presenting a fresh approach to Mozart’s achievements as a composer for the stage, John A. Rice outlines the composer’s place in the operatic culture of his time. The book tells the story of how Mozart’s operas came into existence, following the processes that Mozart went through as he brought his operas from commission to performance. Chapters trace the fascinating series of interactions that took place between Mozart and librettists, singers, stage designers, orchestras, and audiences. In linking the operas by topic, Rice emphasizes what Mozart’s operas have in common, regardless of when he wrote them and the genres to which they belong. The book demonstrates how Mozart’s entire operatic oeuvre is the product of a single extraordinary mind and a single pan-European operatic culture.

john a. rice has taught music history at the University of Washington, Colby College, the University of Houston, the University of Texas, and the University of Alabama (where, in 2005, he occupied the Endowed Chair in Music). He is the author of W. A. Mozart: La clemenza di Tito (1991), Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera (1998, winner of the American Musicological Society’s Kinkeldey Award), Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court, 1792–1807 (2003), and The Temple of Night at Sch¨onau: Architecture, Music, and Theater in a Late Eighteenth-Century Viennese Garden (2006).

Adriana Ferrarese, who portrayed Susanna in the 1789 revival of Le nozze di Figaro and created the role of Fiordiligi in Cos`ı fan tutte. This portrait pays tribute to her performances in London in 1785–86, where she sang in both serious and comic opera, winning applause (as the poem attests) for her acting as well as her voice. Engraving by Allanesi. New York Public Library, Muller Collection.

Mozart on the Stage

john a. rice

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜ao Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb28ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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c John A. Rice 2008

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First published 2008

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Rice, John A. Mozart on the stage / John A. Rice. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-81634-2 (hardback) – isbn 978-0-521-01661-2 (pbk.) 1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756–1791. Operas. 2. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756–1791 – Criticism and interpretation. 3. Opera – 18th century. 4. Opera – Production and direction – History – 18th century. 5. Opera – Stage-setting and scenery – History – 18th century. I. Title. ml410.m9r538 2008 782.1092 – dc22 2008033466

isbn 978-0-521-81634-2 hardback isbn 978-0-521-01661-2 paperback

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For Daniel Heartz on his eightieth birthday

contents

List of illustrations viii List of abbreviations x Preface xi

1 Mozart in the theater 1 2 Mozart’s operas: function, genres, archetypes 19 3 Commissions, fees, and the origins of Mozart’s operas 39 4 Mozart and his librettists 73 5 Composition 91 6 Mozart and his singers 113 7 Rehearsal, revision, and promotion 135 8 Theaters and stage design 161 9 The audience 195 10 Performance and reception 213

Notes 238 Bibliography 261 Index 270

illustrations

Frontispiece Adriana Ferrarese, who portrayed Susanna in the 1789 revival of Le nozze di Figaro and created the role of Fiordiligi in Cos`ı fan tutte. page ii 2.1 The stage and part of the auditorium of the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice 24 2.2 Ball in the Regio Ducal Teatro, Milan (1747), in celebration of the birth of Archduke Peter Leopold 25 2.3 Ball in the Nostitz Theater, Prague 26 2.4 Carnival ball (14 January 1765) on the stage of the Cuvilliés Theater, Munich 27 2.5 Audience in the Cuvilliés Theater, Munich, dressed as if for a Carnival ball 28 2.6 Mid-eighteenth-century Italian operatic performance, probably Giuseppe Carcani’s Tigrane in the Regio Ducal Teatro of Milan during Carnival 1750 29 5.1 Continuity sketches for two arias in Le nozze di Figaro, act 3 93 5.2 Cos`ı fan tutte, act 1, scene 11 107 5.3 Cos`ı fan tutte, act 1, scene 4 108 5.4 “Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo,” mm. 1–8 and 19–25 109 5.5 Cos`ı fan tutte, act 2, scene 12 110 5.6 Cos`ı fan tutte, act 1, scene 2 111 7.1 Playbill for the first performance of Le nozze di Figaro 157 7.2 Playbill for the first performance of Cos`ı fan tutte 158 7.3 Playbill for the first performance of Die Zauberflöte 159 8.1 Theater am Salvatorplatz (Salvatortheater), Munich (1686) 162 8.2 Theater am Salvatorplatz, Munich. Proscenium framing a design by Domenico and Gasparo Mauro for a nocturnal scene in Agostino Steffani’s Servio Tullio (1686) 163 8.3 Longitudinal section and plan of the Regio Ducal Teatro, Milan 164 8.4 Interior of the Cuvilliés Theater, Munich, Gustav Seeberger (1867) 165

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List of illustrations ix

8.5 Part of the Michaelerplatz, Vienna, with the Burgtheater on the right 166 8.6 Longitudinal section and plan of the Nostitz Theater, Prague 167 8.7 Plans of five theaters for which Mozart wrote operas, reproduced at the same scale: (a) Regio Ducal Teatro, Milan (b) Cuvilliés Theater, Munich (c) Burgtheater, Vienna (d) Nostitz Theater, Prague (e) Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna 168 8.8 Longitudinal section of the Cuvilliés Theater, Munich 170 8.9 Emanuel Schikaneder as Lubano in Der Stein der Weisen, act 1, scene 14, as performed in the Theater auf der Wieden 171 8.10 Nostitz Theater, Prague. Section showing the proscenium and stage 172 8.11 Luigi Marchesi and Caterina Cavalieri in Sarti’s Giulio Sabino in the Kärntnertortheater (August 1785) 177 8.12 Interior of a theater, probably the Burgtheater, Vienna 178 8.13 “Sala terena destinata per le publiche udienze.” Stage design by Pietro Travaglia 182 8.14 Stage design by Pietro Travaglia, possibly intended for La clemenza di Tito, act 1, scenes 4–5 and 11–14 183 8.15 Travaglia’s drawing of a “Sala terena destinata per le publiche udienze,” completed digitally and by hand 184 8.16 Fabrizio Galliari, stage design for act 1 of Lucio Silla 185 8.17 Speculative distribution of the elements of Fabrizio Galliari’s set design among six wing flats 185 8.18 Fabrizio Galliari, stage design for act 1 of Lucio Silla 186 8.19 Luigi Bassi, who created the role of Don Giovanni in Prague 188 8.20 Stage design by Joseph Platzer 189 8.21 Medard Thoenert’s engraving of Luigi Bassi in the role of Don Giovanni superimposed on Norbert Bittner’s engraving of a stage design by Joseph Platzer 190 8.22 Emanuel Schikaneder as Lubano, Barbara Gerl as Lubanara, and Franz Gerl as Eutifronte in Der Stein der Weisen, act 1, scene 14 192 8.23 Speculative reconstruction of the stage of the Theater auf der Wieden, as arranged for Der Stein der Weisen, act 1, scenes 7–14 193 10.1 Mozart at a performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Berlin on 19 May 1789 232

abbreviations

Anderson The Letters of Mozart and His Family, trans. and ed. Emily Anderson, 3rd edn., New York, 1985 Deutsch Mozart: A Documentary Biography, ed. Otto Erich Deutsch, trans. Eric Blom, Peter Branscombe, and Jeremy Noble, 2nd edn., London, 1966 Eisen New Mozart Documents: A Supplement to O. E. Deutsch’s Documentary Biography, Stanford, CA, 1991 MBA Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Wilhelm A. Bauer, Otto Erich Deutsch, and Joseph Heinz Eibl, expanded edn., 8 vols., ed. Ulrich Konrad, Kassel, 2005 MDL Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, ed. Otto Erich Deutsch, Kassel, 1961 MDL,AC Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, Addenda und Corrigenda, ed. Joseph Heinz Eibl, Kassel, 1978 MDL,ANF Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, Addenda, Neue Folge, ed. Cliff Eisen, Kassel, 1997

preface

What possible justification can there be, in the aftermath of Mozart’s two- hundred-and-fiftieth birthday in 2006, for adding to the large number of books, many of them first rate, that have been written about his operas? Most books on the subject, including Edward J. Dent’s Mozart’s Operas and János Liebner’s Mozart on the Stage, follow a chronological plan, with one or more chapters devoted to each opera. Charles Osborne’s The Complete Operas of Mozart and William Mann’s The Operas of Mozart subject each opera to a scene-by-scene description and analysis of its music and plot. Rudolph Angermuller’s¨ Mozart’s Operas is a richly illustrated, chronologically ordered survey. Carolyn Gianturco, in Mozart’s Early Operas, uniquely limited herself to the works written before Idomeneo (1781); many other books focus on the later operas, beginning with Idomeneo or, more rarely, with La finta giardiniera (1775). Daniel Heartz’s Mozart’s Operas begins with Idomeneo, Stefan Kunze’s Mozarts Opern relegates the operas written before Idomeneo to a single opening chaper, while Nicolas Till’s Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas presents a chronological discussion of the operas from La finta giardiniera onward, interspersed with biographical and contextual essays. Another approach favored by writers on Mozart’s operas has been to direct their attention to some but not all of the operas written after Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782). In Mozart the Dramatist, Brigid Brophy was largely concerned with Figaro, Don Giovanni,andDie Zauberflöte, while Andrew Steptoe, in The Mozart–Da Ponte Operas, discussed the three last opere buffe and their cultural context. Wye Jamison Allanbrook’s Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni subjects two of the late operas to a stimulating critical examination. All the operas from Idomeneo on are the subject of individual books. Mono- graphs on Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte alone could fill whole shelves.

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The anniversary year saw the publication of several fine books on Mozart’s operas. David Cairns, in Mozart and His Operas, followed Stefan Kunze in presenting,inchronologicalorder,chaptersonallthemajoroperasfromIdomeneo on after an introductory chapter that quickly covers the operas written before Idomeneo. Jessica Waldoff’s Recognition in Mozart’s Operas examines closely a theme of central importance to Mozart and his librettists as they treated it in several operas, from La finta giardiniera to Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito (mostly in the order in which they were written). Kristi Brown-Montesano’s Understanding the Women of Mozart’s Operas explores the female characters in four of the late operas (Don Giovanni followed by Die Zauberflöte; Figaro followed by Cos`ı fan tutte), using a broadly chronological framework. Idonotcallintoquestionthevalueof anyof thesebooks,orsuggestthatthis one will make any of them less useful. On the contrary: it is the effectiveness with which they have covered their chosen ground that has made this book possible. My predecessors have given me both the freedom and the obligation to do something different. Only twenty-seven years separated Mozart’s momentous encounter, at the age of eight, with opera seria in London and his death in Vienna in 1791. Only twenty-one years separated the first performances of Mitridate in Milan (1770) and of Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito in Vienna and Prague (1791). The brevity of Mozart’s life means that the operatic culture that he entered as a child in the 1760s resembled in many ways the one to which he contributed the masterpieces of his final decade. Mozart was not only tragically short lived but amazingly precocious. While we might justifiably ignore the teenage works of great operatic composers whose musical development took place at a more normal rate, the experience and skill that the teenage Mozart brought to the composition of his early operas should discourage us from dismissing them as juvenilia. As opera lovers we might legitimately prefer Tito to Lucio Silla (1772). But as historians and readers of history we should find the earlier work and its context as interesting and as revealing of Mozart’s approach to operatic composition as the later one. The letters of Mozart and his father constitute one of the greatest sources of information about eighteenth-century operatic aesthetics and practices. Many of these letters deal with the early operas. They tell us much more about

Preface xiii

the composition of Mitridate, Ascanio in Alba,andLucio Silla than we know about the composition of Don Giovanni, Cos`ı fan tutte,andDie Zauberflöte.Only by paying close attention to the early operas can we make full use of what the letters say about Mozart’s operatic ideas and working methods. It is with these thoughts in mind that I propose what anthropologists might call a “synchronic” study of Mozart as a composer of operas: a book organizednotchronologicallyorbyindividualoperas,butbytopicsasrelevant to the early operas as to the late ones. In doing so I hope to emphasize what Mozart’s operas have in common, regardless of when he wrote them and the genres to which they belong. I intend to play down some of the more obvious differences between opera seria, opera buffa, and Singspiel, in order to show how Mozart’s entire operatic oeuvre is the product of a single extraordinary mind and a single pan-European operatic culture. Having rejected an approach based on the chronology of Mozart’s life, I have adopted another kind of temporal organization, following the process thatmanyeighteenth-centurycomposerswentthroughastheybroughtoperas from commission to performance. This book shows how Mozart – whether he was thirteen or thirty, in Milan or Vienna, writing a Singspiel or an opera buffa – put an opera together in a series of interactions with a libretto (and sometimes – but not always – a poet who wrote or revised the libretto), singers, a stage designer, an orchestra, and an audience. The chronological framework suggested by the titles of the following chapters is simpler and more rigid than the actual calendar of activities that Mozart faced when he wrote an opera. Many of those activities overlapped. Most if not all of the operas that he wrote from Idomeneo on benefitted from close collaboration between him and a librettist, which in some cases took place at more or less the same time as composition. The librettist’s work, moreover, was not finished when he completed the text; he often played an important role in staging. In composing arias Mozart normally worked directly with the singers who were to perform them; that collaboration often involved a combination of composition, rehearsal, and revision. Later rehearsals, espe- cially those involving the orchestra, were often attended by members of the court and nobility. Mozart hoped these influential audiences, impressed by what they saw and heard, would spread positive news about the opera that would enhance its effect before the general public. Rehearsals, serving as the

xiv Preface

eighteenth-century equivalent of theatrical previews, are thus part of the history of an opera’s reception. I have tried to do justice to the complexity of the interaction of people and activities that produced Mozart’s operas, while at the same time showing how these activities followed a roughly chronological pattern. This book had its origins in a suggestion made to me in 2000 by Victoria Cooper, Music Editor at Cambridge University Press, to whom I am most grateful for her patience and her continued interest. It includes material that I presented first in the form of lectures given, for the most part, between 2002 and 2006, and I thank those who made those lectures possible. Margaret Butler, formerly of the University of Alabama, invited me to occupy that university’s Endowed Chair in Music during November 2005; Christine Getz and Roberta Marvin arranged for me to address the Opera Studies Group at the University of Iowa; and David Buch asked me to give two colloquia at the University of Northern Iowa. To them and to their colleagues and students, with whom I enjoyed many stimulating conversations, I am most grateful. I read earlier versions of the first chapter at the conference “Der junge Mozart,” given by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg in December 2005, and at a session devoted to Mozart during the annual meet- ing of the American Philosophical Society in San Francisco during November 2006. I thank Christoph Wolff, who helped to organize both meetings, for inviting me to take part in them. The discussion of Antonio Baglioni, who created the roles of Don Ottavio and Tito, is based on a talk I gave in Prague in October 2006, at a conference memorably framed by performances of Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito in the theater for which they were written. I am grateful to Milada Jonáˇsová for organizing that conference and for asking me to participate in it. This book has benefitted from discussion and correspondence with many colleagues other than those I have mentioned already. Mario Armellini, Evan Baker, Karl Bohmer,¨ Daniel Brandenburg, Bruce Alan Brown, Paul Corneil- son, Sergio Durante, Dexter Edge, Daniel Heartz, Dorothea Link, Michael Lorenz, and Michel Noiray have generously given me information and advice. Final and special thanks go to Margaret Butler, Daniel Heartz, and Simon Keefe for reading and correcting the manuscript and giving me many sugges- tions for improving it, and to Bruce Alan Brown for reading the proofs.

Preface xv

In the many quotations throughout this book from the letters of Mozart and his father and from documents related to Mozart I have translated some passagesfromtheoriginalsmyself.OthersIhaveborrowedfromEmilyAnder- son’s elegant, lively, and idiomatic translations of the letters – familiar to all English-speaking students of Mozart – and from the translations of the documents by Eric Blom, Peter Branscombe, Cliff Eisen, and Jeremy Noble. I have always checked these translations against the originals, as published in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen and Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, and have made changes whenever I thought it might be possible to render the meaning more accurately. rochester, minnesota March 2008