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• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

Mozart had long admired the inspired synthesis of French and Italian opera in Gluck’s ‘reform’ works. His greatest opera seria, Idomeneo, premiered in Munich on 29 January 1781, draws much from Gluck, especially the hieratic scenes of Alceste (another opera concerned with human sacrifice). Yet its harmonic daring, orchestral richness and lyrical expansiveness are entirely Mozart’s ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

, though, is no mere oriental romp, and the music for Belmonte and Konstanze has a power, poignancy and lyrical beauty unprecedented in a Singspiel. As in Idomeneo, the sheer richness of musical invention occasionally threatens the drama, above all in the gargantuan introduction to Konstanze’s aria of heroic defiance, ‘Martern aller Arten’ – magnificent ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

for King Thoas and his Scythian followers, while the serene, luminous choruses for Iphigénie’s priestesses are the quintessence of Gluck’s ‘beautiful simplicity’ and left their mark on Mozart’s Idomeneo (1781) and Die Zauberflöte (1791). Composed: 1779 Premiered: 1779, Paris Libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard, after Guymond de la Touche and Euripides Background Iphigénie, daughter of Agamemnon and ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

‘Titus’ Clemency’ Premiered in Prague on 6 September 1791, Mozart’s last opera is based on an old Metastasio libretto, updated (with added ensembles and choruses) for contemporary taste. Popular in the early nineteenth century, it then went into eclipse. Nowadays, though, La clemenza di Tito is valued on its own terms rather than as a pale ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

director of the Académie Française. Voltaire commented that Danchet’s operas were less bad than his spoken plays. He is best known for having written the French libretto upon which Mozart’s Idomeneo is based, although his original contained a much stronger supernatural element. Introduction | Late Baroque | Opera Personalities | Margherita Durastanti | Late Baroque | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

Mozart first heard Raaff he was not impressed, but changed his mind and wrote an aria especially for him. Raaff returned the compliment and asked the elector to commission Idomeneo from Mozart. Idomeneo was produced in Munich in 1781, and Mozart wrote the title role with Raaff’s vocal qualities in mind. One rare quality Raaff’s voice possessed was longevity: ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

1918–2005 Swedish soprano Nilsson made her debut as Agathe (Der Freischütz) in Stockholm in 1946. She sang many German and Italian roles there before her Glyndebourne debut as Mozart’s Elettra (Idomeneo) in 1951. In the 1950s she became known as a Wagner specialist, singing regularly at Bayreuth 1957–70. She frequently appeared at Covent Garden from 1957, singing Turandot, ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

Mercy’), which was staged in 1778. While in London in 1764, Johann Christian met the eight-year-old prodigy Mozart, and his influence was later evident in Mozart’s own operas Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito. Introduction | Classical Era | Opera Personalities | Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais | Classical Era | Opera ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

Tictatschek created two important title roles for Wagner, in Rienzi and Tannhäuser. In total contrast, Tichatschek was also adept at Mozart roles. He sang the title part in Idomeneo and the Javanese prince Tamino in Die Zauberflöte. Introduction | High Romantic | Opera Personalities | Giuseppe Verdi | High Romantic | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

1935–2007 Italian tenor After winning the international competition at the Teatro Reggio Emilia in 1961, Pavarotti made his debut there as Rodolfo (La bohème), the role of his Covent Garden debut in 1963. In 1964 he sang Idamante (Idomeneo) at Glyndebourne. His many roles at Covent Garden included Tonio in La fille du régiment (‘The Daughter of the Regiment’), Verdi’s ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

summer of 1780, however, his frustrated operatic ambitions were finally fulfilled when he received a commission to write an opera seria for Munich. The opera in question, Idomeneo, was a work of unique power and splendour, and Mozart’s first unqualified stage masterpiece. Following his dismissal from the Archbishop of Salzburg’s service in 1781, Mozart quickly ...

• Opera
• Classical Era

, drama, poetry, lighting and stage design. Gluck’s reforms never went that far, but they did exert strong influence, for instance on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–91) Idomeneo (1781) or L’anima del filosofo (‘The Soul of Philosophy’, 1791) by Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). In the event, opera seria was overtaken less by Gluck’s reforms and more by two ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

fashion, with much information on Mozart’s own music and performances, on musicians and musical events more generally, day-to-day happenings, events in Salzburg and much else besides. Idomeneo Mozart again dawdled on his way home, pausing at Mannheim and Munich – to which, after the War of the Bavarian Succession, the Mannheim court had moved. ...

• Techniques
• Classical Era
• Opera

All Mozart’s operas, from Idomeneo to La clemenza di Tito, are touched by a Shakespearean wisdom and compassion. In the spirit of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation lie at the heart of each of these works, sometimes encapsulated in music of sublime, transfiguring stillness. The hushed reflections on forgiveness in the two finales ...