Operas
KV 366: Idomeneo, Re di Creta ossia (or) Ilia ed Idamante
Dramma per musica in 3 acts
Text by Giambattista Varesco after a libretto by Antoine Danchet for Idomenee by AndrŽ Campra (1712)
First performance:
First version: 29.1.1781, Hoftheater (CuvilliŽsheater), Munich
Second version: 13.3.1786, Auersperg-Palais, Vienna
Characters:
Idomoneo, King of Creta, tenor
Idamante, his son, mezzo-soprano (Castroto)/tenor
Ilia, Trojan princess, soprano
Elettra, princess, AgamemnonÕs daughter, King of Argos, soprano
Arbace, the KingÕs confident, tenor
PoseidonÕs hight priest, tenor
PoseidonÕs voice, basso
Choirs: Priests, Trojans, Prisoners, Cretans, ShipÕs crew
Action: In Sidon, the capital of Creta
Resume: Ilia, who was the CretanÕs prisoner, loves Idamante but thinks that he is in love with Elettra.
The latter, on the other hand, is jealous about Ilia. In fact, Idamante really likes Ilia. Idomeneo
returns from the Trojan war; during a horrible tempest, he swore to Poseidon that he would in case of
survival, sacrify the first human beeing whom he would meet on land. Idamante greets him happily but
the King can only turn away with remorse. Arbace, who knows Idomeneos horrible secret, advises to send
Elettra and Idamante to Argos. When Idamante and Elettra try to start, a monster comes out of the sea.
Despite of the declared love of Ilia and Idamante, Idomeneo wants Idamante never to return.
In the middle of the misery the monster produced, Idomeneo confesses his vow to Poseidon in
public; he is advised to take his promise. Idamante kills the monster, ready to be sacrified,
but Ilia wants to be the victim in his place. Now PoseidonÕs voice sounds: Idomeneo shall abdicate
in favour of Idamante.
KV 384: Die EntfŸhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)
Singspiel in 3 acts
Text by Johann Gottlieb Stephanie jr. after Christoph Friedrich BretznerÕs Belmonte and Constanze (1780)
First performance: 16.7.1782, Burgtheater, Vienna, conducted by Mozart
Characters:
Konstanze, noble Spanish lady, soprano
Blonde, KonstanzeÕs maid, English woman, soprano
Belmonte, Spanish aristocrate, tenor
Pedrillo, his servant, tenor
Bassa Selim, speaking role
Osmin, attendant of the latterÕs harem
Choir: Turks (Janitscharen), Women, Guards
Action: At and near the palace of Bassa Selim in Turkey
Resume: Belmonte searches for his mistress Konstanze. He arrives at the palace of Bassa Selim.
Despite of the sullen OsminÕs trying to drive him away, he succeedes in meeting Pedrillo which
has already thougt out plans how they could liberate Konstanze and Blonde from the harem.Pe-
drillo introduces Belmonte to Bassa Selim as a famous architect.In follow of that he succeedes
in entering into the palace. Up to now Konstanze has steadfest repulsed the advances of Bassa Selim.
For make easier the escape,Pedrillo makes Osmin drunken. But the refugees are nevertheless
arrested and escorted before the Bassa Selim which blesses generously the four refugees,
although he is told that Belmonte is the son of his greatest ennemy.
KV 492: Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
Opera buffa (Commedia per musica) in 4 acts
Text by Lorenzo da Ponte after Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
First performance: 1.5.1786, Burgtheater, Vienna, conducted by Mozart
Characters:
Figaro, valet of the Count, batitone or basso
Susanna, lady-in-waiting of the Countess, soprano
Bartolo, doctor from Sevilla, basso
Marcellina, housekeeper in the CountÕs castel, mezzo-soprano
Cherubino, page of the Count, mezzo-soprano (trouser-role)
Count Almaviva, batitone
Don Basilio, music teacher,tenor
Countess Almaviva, soprano
Antonio, gardener of the Count, basso
Don Curzio, judge, tenor
Barbarina, AntonioÕs daughter, soprano
Choir: Peasants
Action: At the CountÕs castel in Aguasfrescas near Sevilla
Resume: Figaro and Susanna are involved in their wedding preparations.The CountÕs advances on Susanna put
a damper on their happiness, but Figaro is determinated to eliminate Almaviva.
Bartolo and Marcellina enter: He wants to take reveange on Figaro, she is terribly jealous about
Susanna.Next appears Cheruino which, in his youth, is in love with all the women, espacially the Countess.
He hides behind an easychair when the Count appears, and observes him while this one demands a date from
Susanna.But then the Count must hide himself because Don Basilio enters. The latterÕs speaking calls
the Count which discovers also Cherubino.Figaro returns with a group of peasants and demands the CountÕs
bless to his marriage with Susanna. The Count hesitates but declares that he intens to send Cherubino to
the military. The unfortuneatly Countess is unhappy about the slacking interest of the Count.She and
Susanna want to outwit him.They plan to disguise Cherubino as Susanna and to send him to a secret date
with the Count. When they are just disguising Cherubino, the Count wants entering. Although Cherubino
succeedes in locking himself up in the next room, the Count becomes suspicious and takes with him the
Countess to fatch implements to open the closed door.During their absence, Susanna locks herself up after
have helped Cherubino to escape through the windows.
When the Count finds Susanna, he apologizes, but then comes Antonio and complains that somebody has
jumped through the window and so destroyed his flowers.Figaro tries to save the situation and declares
that he was the jumper but that does not convince Almaviva and his suspicion becomes stronger when Antonio
shows the officer patent that lost Cherubino in the stress.Bartolo, Marcellina and Basilio enter in the
finale of the second act and claim that Figaro has to marry Marcellina because of an old promise.
Figaro discovers that Marcellina is his mother but more stranger is that Bartolo appears as his father.
The Countess and Susann sketch a letter adressed to the Count in which Susanna (in fact the
disguised Countess) wants to meet him in the garden.During the wedding pomps Susanna slippes Almaviva
the letter. In the garden Barbarina searches for the needle which she lost. The Count wants her to
give Susanna that needle as a confirmation for the planed date.Figaro becomes terribly jealous when
he discovers the reason of BarbarinaÕs searching.He sees him involved in that confusion play of
wrong identities that becomes more and more complicated with the entering of the other principal
characters.When everything becomes exposed and clear, the Count has no other possibilities than demand
for forgiving.
KV 527: Il dissoluto punito (The Punished Dissolute), ossia (or) Don Giovanni
Dramma giocoso in 2 acts
Text by Lorenzo da Ponte
First performance: 29.10.1787, Nationaltheater, Prague
Characters:
Don Giovanni, an extremly dissolute young nobleman, baritone or basso
Commander, Donna AnnaÕs father, basso
Donna Anna, Don OttavioÕs fiancŽe, soprano
Don Ottavio, tenor
Donna Elvira, lady from Burgos, left by Don Giovanni, soprano
Leporello, servant of Don Giovanni, basso or baritone
Masetto, peasant, basso
Zerlina, peasant, MasettoÕs bride, soprano
Choirs: Peasants, Servants and Devils
Action: In the 17th centuryÕs Sevilla
Resume: In the first act Don Giovanni gets urged to a duel with the Commander, Donna AnnaÕs father,
after a seduction try in her house.Don Giovanni kills the Commander.In the attention of
searching for affairs as usual, he meets Donna Elvira who wants to ÇsaveÈ him, and Zerlina, which is
fascinated although she gets married soon to Masetto; nevertheless Don Giovanni
is extremly careful.At the end of the first act he gets at the party, which everybody is invited to,
publicy accused by the women, which as also Don Ottavio and Masetto are determinated to take
the rake to task.
In the second act he succeedes in escaping, and also for Leporello it was a close shave, which, on
GiovanniÕs order, disguised like him, seduced Elvira.Master and servant are meeting them on the
cementery, where the statue of the Commander is joining in their conversation.Giovanni
remains unimpressed, even when the statue accepts his invitation to a banquet.In the finale appears
the statue, after Don GiovanniÕs rejection of ElvirasÕs desperate try to turn him back.
Don Giovanni who has no remorses, gets pushed in the hell by the spirits of the underworld.In
the epilogue the other characters are preparing them for the future, and in the finishing final
sextet they explain the morals of the story.
KV 588: Cos“ fan tutte (So everybody does), ossia (or) La scuola degli amanti (The School of the Lovers)
Opera buffa (Dramma giocoso) in 2 acts
Text by Lorenzo da Ponte
First performance: 27.1.1790, Burgtheater, Vienna, conducted by Mozart
Characters:
Ferrando, officer, DorabellaÕs lover, tenor
Guglielmo, officer, FiordiligiÕs lover, baritone
Don Alfonso, an old philosopher, baritone or basso
Fiordiligi, lady from Ferrara, soprano
Dorabella, her sister, mezzo-soprano
Despina, lady-in-waiting of the ladies, soprano
Choir
Action: In the 18th centuryÕs Napoly
Resume: The two officers are making bets with Don Alfonso that their fiancŽes could never become disloyal.
Don Alfonso is convinced that he can prove the opposite; they prmise him to do what he asks them.Their
fiancŽes are shocked when Don Alfonso tells them that both men
immediately have to sett off for the war.After a tearful farewell, the ladies are outraged when Despina
explains that it makes no sense to mope and that they do better looking for new lovers.
Alfonso tells Despina the secret, andboth bring Ferrando and Guglielmo diguised as ÇAlbanesesÈ
back to the house.When the girls ignore the men, they pretend to take poison.Despina, disguised
as a doctor, raises the men from the death with a mesmer-magnet, but she wants the ladies to help her
energically.
The girls are flattered bit by bit by the AlbanianÕs attention.Dorabella takes pleasure in the change and
takes care of the dark-haired one-Guglielmo.When she is alone with him, he seduces her and she accepts a
gift, a medaillon.Fiordiligi, on the other hand,which has to fight with her conscious,
resists Ferrando.He is hard hit when he has to hear GuglielmoÕs report about DorabellaÕs capitulation,
and returns to Fiordiligi which finally can no longer resist. Don Alfonso, not lazy, arranges a
double wedding, where Despina figures as the notary.The marriage contract is hardly signed when
soldiers make noise in the distance.The men disappear to return as soldiers.Don Alfonso triumphs;
the four lovers was given a salutary lesson.
KV 620: Die Zauberflšte (The Magic Flute)
Singspiel (gro§e Oper) in 2 acts
Text by Emmanuel Schikaneder
First performance: 30.9.1791, Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna
Characters:
Tamino, a foreign prince, tenor
Papageno, bird catcher, baritone
Queen of the night, soprano
Pamina, her daughter, soprano
Sarastro, priest of the sun, basso
Three ladies, soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto
Three genious, sopranos
Speaker, basso
Three priests, speaking role, tenor, basso
Monostatos,tenor
Papagena, soprano
Three slaves, speaking roles
Two men in armour, tenor and basso
Choirs: Priests, Slaves, Entourage
Action: In the ancient Egypt
Resume: Tamino gets saved by three ladies from a furious snake and told by the Queen of the Night
to save, together with Papageno, Pamina, her daughter, which is SarastroÕs prisoner.
Armed with a magic flute and a glockenspiel they sett off.Three genious shall show them the right way.
Papageno succeedes in forging ahead to Pamina, when she is for one time not guarded by Monostatos.He
convinces her to sett off, together with him, to Tamino.Tamino detects that the Queen of the Night is
on the side of the evil, not Sarastro, the hight priest of the temple of wisdom. Sarastro wants that
Tamino, accompanied by Papageno gets free entree for the initiation into the temple. After have Tamino
tested in admission ceremonies-darkness, silence and together with Pamina fire and water-, he gets
unified with Pamina, Papageno finds his loved girlfriend -Papagena-, and the bad Queen of the Night
gets destroyed by the forces of the good.
KV 621: La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus)
Opera seria (Dramma serio per musica) in 2 acts
Text by Caterino Tommaso Mazzolˆ after Pietro Metastasio
First performance: 6.9.1791, Nationaltheater, Prague
Characters:
Vitellia, daughter of the released emperor Vitellius, TitoÕs mistress, soprano
Tito, emperor of Rome, tenor
Sesto, TitoÕs friend, VitelliaÕs lover, mezzo-soprano (Castrato)
Annio, SestoÕs friend, ServiliaÕs lover, mezzo-soprano (trouser-role)
Servilia, SestoÕs sister, AnnioÕs lover, soprano
Publio, prefect of the Pretorians, basso
Choirs: Senators, Ambassadors, Lictors, Guards, People
Acton: In Rome, 79-81 a. Chr.
Resume: Vitellia convinces Sesto to plot with her against Tito, which dos not reciprocate her love.
Tito wants to marry Servilia, but leaves her when he finds out that she loves Annio.Publio lets
Vitellia know that Tito wants marry her after all.But she has already sent Sesto to set on fire the
Capitol (which he does) and to kill Tito ( which he does not).Tito discovers the conspiracy.
Annio tries to convince Sesto to flee, but he gets arrested by Publio and condamned to death.
Tito destroyes the death sentence.Although Vitellia confesses her participation in the plot, Tito
forgives the conspirators, and the opera ends happily.