The Magic Flute, K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled The Magic Flute Part Two.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is a singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Constanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting.
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian-language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany.
La clemenza di Tito, K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Pietro Metastasio. Mozart began the work while he was finishing Die Zauberflöte, the last of his principal operas. La clemenza di Tito premiered on 6 September 1791 at the Estates Theatre in Prague.
Lo sposo deluso, ossia La rivalità di tre donne per un solo amante is a two-act opera buffa, K. 430, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart between 1783 and 1784. However, the opera was never completed and only a 20-minute fragment from act 1 exists.
L'oca del Cairo is an incomplete Italian opera buffa in three acts, begun by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in July 1783 but abandoned in October. The complete libretto by Giambattista Varesco remains. Mozart composed seven of the ten numbers of the first act, plus some recitative, as well a sketch for a further aria; the extant music amounts to about 45 minutes.
Zaide is an unfinished German-language opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing German opera. One condition required of the composer to join this company was that he should write a comic opera. At Salzburg in 1779 Mozart began work on a new opera. It contains spoken dialogue, which also classifies it as a Singspiel. Only the arias and ensembles from the first two acts were composed. Missing are an overture and third act.
Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, K. 35, is a sacred musical play composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1767 when he was 11 years old. It is Mozart's first opera or, more specifically, sacred drama, as is suggested by the name. The libretto is now attributed to Ignatz Anton von Weiser, although Johann Adam Wieland or Jakob Anton Marianus Wimmer had been suggested earlier. Only the first part of the opera was composed by Mozart; the second and third parts were contributed by Michael Haydn and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser respectively. However, these other two parts have not survived. Part 1 of the opera was first performed on March 12, 1767, in the Knight's Hall of the Palace of the Archbishop, the Salzburg Residenz. Part 2 was performed on March 19, and part 3 on March 26.
Maria Aloysia Antonia Weber Lange was a German soprano, remembered primarily for her association with the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Emanuel Schikaneder was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer, and composer. He wrote the libretto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute and was the builder of the Theater an der Wien. Peter Branscombe called him "one of the most talented theatre men of his era". Aside from Mozart, he worked with Salieri, Haydn and Beethoven.
Bastien und Bastienne, K. 50 is a one-act singspiel, a comic opera, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
La finta giardiniera, K. 196, is an Italian-language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it in Munich in January 1775 when he was 18 years old and it received its first performance on 13 January at the Salvator Theater in Munich. There is debate over the authorship of the libretto, written for Anfossi's opera the year before. It is often ascribed to Calzabigi, but some musicologists now attribute it to Giuseppe Petrosellini, though again it is questioned whether it is in the latter's style.
"O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" is the first aria performed by the Queen of the Night in Mozart's singspiel The Magic Flute . It is not as well known as the Queen's second aria, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen", though no less demanding; the aria requires a soprano coloratura with extremely high tessitura and great vocal flexibility.
Prima la musica e poi le parole is an opera in one act by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Giovanni Battista Casti. The work was first performed on 7 February 1786 in Vienna, following a commission by the Emperor Joseph II. The opera was first performed at one end of the orangery of the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna by an Italian troupe; simultaneously, Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor was staged at the other end.
Der krumme Teufel, Hob. 29/1a, was Joseph Haydn's first opera. This German-language comic opera in the genre of Singspiel was commissioned by its librettist, leading comic actor Joseph Felix von Kurz. It was forbidden after two acclaimed performances in Vienna due to "offensive remarks in the text", but later revived and probably revised as Der neue krumme Teufel, Hob. 29/1b. The music is lost, though a libretto survives for each version.
Martin Pearlman is an American conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and early music specialist. He founded the first permanent Baroque orchestra in North America with Boston Baroque in 1973–74. Many of its original players went on to play in or direct other ensembles in what became a growing field in the American music scene. He later founded the chorus of that ensemble and has been the music director of Boston Baroque from its inception up to the present day.
Alceste is an opera in German in five acts by Anton Schweitzer with a libretto by Christoph Martin Wieland. It was commissioned by Abel Seyler for the Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft, and premiered on 28 May 1773 at the Hoftheater Weimar. Considered a milestone of German opera, it was revived in Weimar and recorded in 1999.
Der Stein der Weisen, oder die Zauberinsel is a two-act singspiel jointly composed by Johann Baptist Henneberg, Benedikt Schack, Franz Xaver Gerl, Emanuel Schikaneder, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1790. The libretto was written by Schikaneder.
Margot Guilleaume was a German operatic soprano, a member of the Hamburg State Opera. She was an academic teacher at the Musikhochschule Hamburg from 1950 to 1978, and was known beyond Germany as a singer in oratorio and concert.
