Singspiel

Paris, May 1, 1778 114.

How popular I would be if I were to lift the national German stage to recognition in music! And this would surely happen, for I was already full of desire to write when I heard the German Singspiel.

Munich, October 2, 1777.

A Singspiel is a German opera with spoken dialogue.

H.E.K. 115.

If there were but a single patriot on the boards with me, a different face would be put on the matter.

If we Germans should once begin to think German, act German, speak German, and even sing German.

Vienna, March 21, 1785, to the playwright Anton Klein of Mannheim.

Die Entführung aus dem Sarai The composer was probably delighted to have the chance to place on the stage a character named Constanza, and in the summer and autumn of 1781 he began the music of his next major opera, Belmont und Constanza, or Die Entführung aus dem Sarai, The Abduction from the Seraglio.

This Singspiel, the book of which was originally the work of Christian Friedrich Brezner, had been presented a year earlier in Germany with a score by Johann André.

Under Wolfgang's careful supervision, the three-act piece underwent dramatic and textual modifications by Christian Gottlob Stefani, the younger.

mozart had written his father the book is good the subject is turkish and is called the abduction from the seraglio rehearsals did not start till june seventeen eighty two and on july sixteenth of that year the work was produced in vienna with extraordinary success the stimulus back of stephani's revisions was unquestionably the penetrating theatre sense of the composer himself into the love songs of the tenor Mozart poured all his tender feelings for Constanze Weber, whom he was shortly to lead to the altar.

He took the term for a play with songs, Zingspiel, and in 1788 established the National Zingspiel for the express purpose of creating operas that were in German, plus ditching the Italian recitative, that is, sung dialogue with very simple and frequently improvised harpsichord accompaniment, with spoken dialogue.

thus the opera form now known as Singspiel.

When Mozart moved to Vienna permanently in 1781, one of the first things he did was lobby Gottfried Stefani, who ran the National Singspiel for the Emperor for an opportunity to write an opera.

without too much prompting he was given the opportunity and as was the practice the libretto was provided by and indeed in this instance adapted by gottfried stephanie himself from another work this was the abduction from the seraglio or in the original german die entführung aus dem The opera was inspired by contemporary interest in the exotic culture of the Ottoman Empire, which had only recently ceased to be a military threat to Austria-Hungary.

It also fed a frankly disturbing fascination with the idea of a harem, which is what a seraglio is.

I hope you have enjoyed this Mozart Opera Overtures episode of Classical for Everyone.

And if you want to get in touch, then you can email info at classicalforeveryone.net. All right, to finish this episode, I have the overture to what would be Mozart's final opera, Die Zauberflöte, The Magic Flute.

Whilst it has come to be put into the category of Singspiel, Mozart just called it an opera in German, which it certainly is, with words written by the actor and producer Emanuel Schikaneder.