1780 – 1803 Haydn and Mozart

1780 Death of Maria Theresa, Austria
1781 Mozart moved to Vienna
1786 Death of Frederick the Great, Prussia
1789 French Revolution

This was the generation of Mozart's maturity, Haydn's late style and Beethoven's first style period.

Opera seria

The mature operas of Mozart followed the established forms of his day and included two opera seria, Idomeneo (1781), considered his best in this form, and La Clemenza di Tito (1791) on a libretto by Metastasio.
 

Opera seria	Opera buffa	Opéra-comique & Singspiel	Reform opera
Secco and accompagnato recitative	Secco recitative	Spoken dialogue (melodrama)	Orchestral recitative
Arioso, da capo arias, ornamentation	Flexible arias	Popular songs	Flexible arias, less ornamentation
Little chorus or ensemble	Ensemble finales	Singspiel:  ensembles and choruses	chorus
No ballet	No ballet	No ballet	Ballet

This aria from La Clemenza di Tito is shockingly performed with spoken Italian dialog instead of recitative, something that is completely unheard of.

Opera buffa

Mozart composed his best operas in this form on librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838): Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), considered a dramma giocoso (including elements of both seria and buffa), and Cosi fan tutte (1790). Elements of his style included characterization through music, even in the complex ensemble finales, and elaborate orchestration which made the orchestra equal in importance to the voices. Other important opera buffe were Giovanni Paisiello's (1740-1816) Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1782), on the same libretto as Rossini's famous opera (Mozart's Figaro may be considered a sequel), and Il Matrimonio segreto (1792) by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801).

Singspiel

This was the third type of opera composed by Mozart, including Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), Der Schauspieldirektor (1786), and Die Zauberflöte (1791). Except for the use of spoken dialogue, Mozart's style resembled his opera buffa. Other popular examples were Doktor und Apotheker (1786) by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-99) and Der Dorfbarbier (1796) by Johann Schenk (1753-1836).

French Opera

Operas in French continued in the heroic style of Gluck, including Piccinni's Atys (1780) and Didon (1783), Luigi Cherubini's (1760-1842) Lodoiska (1791), Médée (1797) which used melodrama, Les Deux Journées (1800), an early rescue opera, and Antonio Salieri's (1750-1825) Les Danaïdes
(1784). The first rescue opera was Richard Coeur de Lion (1784) by Gretry.
 

Oratorio

Influenced by Handel after trips to England in 1791-2 and 1794-6, Haydn composed the important oratorios The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1800) on texts translated into German by Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1737-1803). He used simpler arias than Handel, but added a symphonic overture and descriptive orchestral passages. At this time Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed his Christus am Ölberg (1800).

Second Berlin Song School

Influenced by Goethe and Klopstock, an important early collection was Lieder im Volkston (1782) by J.A.P. Schulz (1747-1800). The composers, including Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814) and Carl Zelter (1758-1832), self-consciously imitated folk style in strophic songs with subordinate accompaniment. A new form was the ballade, usually through-composed songs on narrative poems by Johann Zumsteeg (1760-1802).

Opera Overture

Mozart's opera overtures were usually in first movement sonata-allegro form.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Standard opera repertoire, the operas you are most likely to see, begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791).  Mozart lived most of his life in Austria, first Salzburg and later Vienna.  He was a famous child prodigy who spent his childhood in the important centers of Europe.  He learned about Italian opera in Italy and French music in Paris.  He was personally acquainted with Emperor Franz Joseph and Maria Teresa of Austria.  And of course he knew Haydn. Thus the scope of his musical compositions covered all of the important styles and forms of his time. He took these materials and combined them into something new and wonderful.

He is most famous in opera for three operas which he composed with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, a fascinating man who was a jew, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, an opera librettist and finally a teacher of Italian literature at Columbia University in New York City.  Mozart's three Da Ponte operas are Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte, all operas about relationships between men and women.

Mozart wrote a lot of other operas in other formats.  He wrote operas in German, most notably Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic flute).  Towards the end of his life he wrote the magnificent opera seria La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus).  

These are Mozart's operas in date order:

• Bastien und Bastienne  (2 October 1768) German Singspiel
• La finta semplice (1 May 1769) Italian opera buffa
• Mitridate, re di Ponto (26 December 1770) Italian opera seria
• Ascanio in Alba (17 October 1771) Italian
• Il sogno di Scipione  (1 May 1772) Italian Serenata drammatica
• Lucio Silla  (26 December 1772) Italian Dramma per musica
• La finta giardiniera #87 (13 January 1775) Italian Dramma giocoso
• Il re pastore (23 April 1775) Italian Serenata
• Zaide  (27 January 1866) German Singspiel
• Idomeneo, re di Creta #45 (29 January 1781) Italian Dramma per musica
• Die Entführung aus dem Serail #21 (16 July 1782) German Singspiel
• Der Schauspieldirektor (7 February 1786) German Comedy with music
• Le nozze di Figaro #5 (1 May 1786) Italian Opera buffa
• Don Giovanni #7 (29 October 1787) Italian Dramma giocoso
• Così fan tutte #11 (26 January 1790) Italian Dramma giocoso
• Der Stein der Weisen (11 September 1790) Singspiel 
• La clemenza di Tito #52 (6 September 1791) Italian Opera seria
• Die Zauberflöte #1 (30 September 1791)  German Singspiel'

Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro #1

The Opera

What is this opera about?

This is an early Upstairs/Downstairs story.  Count Almaviva is now bored with his Rosina, the girl he courted and married in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and seeks his pleasure elsewhere.  The pleasure he seeks is with the fiance of his servant Figaro who helped in the count's courtship of Rosina.  Figaro is betrayed, but can do nothing.  It is the women who save the day. To keep the plot moving there are plenty of side romances.

More Information

First performed in 1786, the music is Viennese Classical with recitative.
The plot is Lorenzo da Ponte domestic comedy.

At the time Mozart wrote Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Paisiello had already composed a very popular opera called Il barbiere di Siviglia which was in turn based on a play by Beaumarchais.  Mozart was in step with his era which apparently enjoyed raunchy French comedies.  He and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte were two souls with one mind.

Mozart's famous operas were all written in the final quarter of the 18th century in a style that included the Italian coloratura found in composers like Paisiello and Salieri, but with a focus on the orchestra that can only be found in Germany.  I think this is the reason that our modern idea of opera generally begins here.  It is easier to hear Baroque operas now, but only Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto is in the top 100 most frequently performed operas.

The Story

Act I

We find ourselves in a storage room in a palazzo where Figaro is measuring the space for a bed.  His fiance Susannah is showing off her veil she has made for the wedding.  The master, Count Almaviva, has promised they will be married.

Cherubino shows up to complain that he falls in love with every woman.  Susannah sympathizes and he makes a pass at her.

Hit Tune

This brief clip is from a recent season at the Metropolitan Opera and features Isabel Leonard as Cherubino.

Mozart Don Giovanni #3

The Opera

First performed in 1787 in Prague, the music is Viennese Classical with recitative.
The plot is by Lorenzo da Ponte, modeled after the legendary Don Juan.  It is called a dramma giocoso and is somewhere between a comedy (opera buffa) and a tragedy (opera seria).  Structurally it is far closer to a buffa than to an opera seria. Throughout the nineteenth century Don Giovanni was considered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's greatest opera.  In Prague at the time it was composed there was a vogue for Don Juan stories.

The title character in Mozart's Don Giovanni is probably modeled on the legendary Don Juan, or perhaps even the great real life Venetian seducer Giacomo Casanova.  Though everyone seems always to be angry with him, the Don is most reasonably seen as a seducer.  It is not directly stated in the libretto, but many believe that he was only able to seduce Donna Elvira by actually marrying her.  Leporello does his best to dissuade her.

What is this opera about?

This is the original scent of a woman story.  If there are women around, Don Giovanni can smell them.  He seems to be completely cosmopolitan in his taste.  Donna Anna is a noble woman living in her father's house while Zerlina is clearly lower class and on the verge of marriage.  He meets them, attempts to seduce them, succeeds or fails, and moves on.  The libretto seems to condemn him soundly and ends by sending him to hell.  I would imagine that in our time this was far too common for us to react with so much anger. The only woman who may seem to deserve our pity is Donna Elvira who clearly loves the Don.

This opera is very hard to stage due to the many scenes and constant changing of locale.  Recently there was a production from Salzburg which set the opera in a hotel lobby where people of all classes naturally come and go, weddings are held and parties, there's a bar, etc.  This solves everything.

The Story

Act I

Scene 1

While Leporello (buffo bass) stands guard, Don Giovanni (baritone) is inside the home of the Commendatore (bass) and his daughter Donna Anna (spinto soprano) trying we have to assume unsuccessfully to seduce the daughter.  Donna Anna screams for help and goes off while the Don and the Commendatore fight.  Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore and escapes.  Anna finds her fiance Don Ottavio (Mozart tenor) and laments the death of her father.

Scene 2

Donna Elvira (soprano) has followed Don Giovanni to yet another city.  He sees her and at first he does not recognize her.  Instinctively he begins to pay suit, but then sees who it is, that the unfaithful lover is himself.  After Giovanni flees, Leporello sings the Catalog Aria. with its long list of conquests.   "And in Spain there are 1003."

Hit Tune

Luca Pisaroni sings "Madamina."

 

Apparently they are all written down.

Scene 3 

This scene is in the country at the wedding of Zerlina (soubrette) and Masetto (baritone).  Undeterred by her imminent nuptials, Don Giovanni pays suit to Zerlina.

Scene 4

Hit Tune

Scene 5

Act II

 

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

 

Complete Film

Don Giovanni - Cesare Siepi, Leporello - Otto Edelmann, Donna Anna - Elisabeth Grümmer, Don Ottavio - Anton Dermota, Donna Elvira - Lisa della Casa, Zerlina - Erna Berger, Masetto - Walter Berry, Il commendatore - Dezső Ernster, Conductor - Wilhelm Furtwängler