Prima la musica e poi le parole
- The musician (tenor )
- The poet (baritone )
- Donna Eleonora (soprano )
- Tonina (mezzo- soprano)
Prima la musica e poi le parole (German Only the music and then the words ) is a divertimento teatrale (also a quattro voci Operetta ) in an act of Antonio Salieri to a text by Giovanni Battista Casti. The correct title is Prima la musica, poi le parole, on one of the manuscripts is also " Prima la musica, dopo le parole"
Formation
Salieri's one-act opera was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II for a " Spring Festival on a winter day ." On the same occasion, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the music for the musical comedy The Impresario KV 486 However, the two pieces should not - as is often claimed - the competition between the two composers and their librettists stoke, but the dramaturgy and ensembles of the "German National - Singspiel " and the Hofoperisten to have in a piquant competition. The premiere took place at the Orangery of Schönbrunn Palace on February 7, 1786.
Content and form
The piece appears in the guise of a classical theater satire, numerous customs and bad habits of music theater operation time are being targeted, also appear as a parody of opera seria some quotes from Giuseppe Sarti's successful opera Giulio Sabino, 1785 in Vienna with the famous castrato Luigi Marchesi was given in the title role. In the final quartet Salieri offers on all of his compositional sophistication and leaves the two rival singers Tonina (soprano) and Donna Eleonora (mezzo- soprano) at the same time (!) Rehearsing their arias.
The overture of the small work took Salieri later be by Lorenzo Da Ponte sealed Dramma tragicomico Il pastor fido, which had on February 11, 1789 the Burgtheater in Vienna premiere.
Performance history
The work was published in 1972 as a critical first opera by Salieri by Friedrich Wanek and Josef Heinzelmann and translated by Josef Heinzelmann. This edition saw as a pioneer of the then Peter Shaffer's Amadeus (1979) and the film of the same -driven rehabilitation Salieri's numerous performances, usually as at the first performance in the coupling with Mozart's Impresario: 1973 in Dubrovnik by the National Theatre of Zagreb and in Turin, the 1974 Caramoor Festival and the Spoleto, and subsequently in Trier, Warsaw, Boston, Lisbon, Rome, Metz, Tokyo, Houston, Amsterdam, Lyon, Graz, Berlin ( German State Opera ), Frankfurt, Potsdam, Hanoi, Bangkok, Liege, Seoul, etc. Further, there have been countless productions at conservatories and by small forces.
A concert performance in The Hague under Nikolaus Harnoncourt course, was published only in fragments on disk and CD ( with Robert Holl, Thomas Hampson and Roberta Alexander). Harnoncourt again conducted the work in concert at the Salzburg Mozart weeks in 2002, and in 2005 in Vienna. In April 2007, edited by musicologist Thomas Betzwieser new critical edition of the work was presented at the 13th Bayreuth Easter Festival. The translation of the original Italian text got Stefan A. Troßbach.
The title of Salieri's four-person piece has become a household word. It 's not about the primacy of music in front of the text rather than a nonsensical chronological order, because a routine composer of a Provinzlibrettisten be here later Write new lyrics to already existing musical numbers. Salieri had - far more than his colleague Mozart - opera reform of Christoph Willibald Gluck connected, preaches in search of dramatic truth of the primacy of the word in front of the music.
It is often mentioned that Richard Strauss' should be underpinned conversation piece in music Capriccio large part to Castis libretto. It says: " Prima la musica, dopo le parole". In reality, the story has no references to Salieri and Casti, but rather the foreplay to Ariadne auf Naxos.