Mozart's Women

by Glover, Jane

  However much Schikaneder’s natural inclination was to present the serious classical repertoire in his theatre, he had long since found it necessary to balance this with magic rescue operas and comic singspiels. He had created the character of ‘Dummer Anton’, a development of the Punch-like Hanswurst of popular Viennese theatre, and initiated a series of seven singspiels around him, beginning indeed with Der Dumme Gärtner. As an impresario, he insisted on presenting true visual grandeur, and his productions were famously elaborate, with opulent scenery, live animals, spectacular lighting and many magic effects. All these aspects of Schikaneder’s work would find their way into his new collaboration with Mozart. But its most crucial and defining ingredient was the fact that both he and Mozart were Freemasons. At the time, Masonry was rather in need of a helpful boost, since its activities were deeply mistrusted by the new Emperor. The multidimensional production that Schikaneder and Mozart devised together would therefore not only combine elements of ‘Dummer Anton’-type pantomime (a sympathetic comic character, and archetypal good and evil characters) with those of a rescue opera in the tradition of Die Entführung (a young prince would rescue an abducted girl), and include some alluring magic tricks (a queen would appear out of a mountain, an old woman would change into a young one, bread and wine would be turned into stones and water). It would also, in effect, present an allegorical justification and clarification of the whole movement of Freemasonry, depicted in all its recognizable symbols as a force for good, overcoming those of evil.

  The details of the plot and its whole structure would undergo many shifts and changes as Schikaneder and Mozart created their new singspiel. But eventually they settled on a narrative wherein a young prince, Tamino, is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter, Pamina, from the clutches of a High Priest, Sarastro. He is given the birdcatcher Papageno as a reluctant companion, a magic flute to help him, and three young boys as occasional guides. But Tamino becomes convinced that Sarastro in fact is benevolent and wise, and, together with Pamina, he himself undergoes various trials in order to become accepted into Sarastro’s order. Meanwhile Papageno has been seeking his own companion (a Papagena), and he too is rewarded. The Queen of the Night and her entourage are overcome by the power of the sun, and the work ends with a hymn of praise for the gods Isis and Osiris.

  So at last Mozart was again in his element, collaborating with a brilliant and theatrically vital colleague on subject-matter that was of the utmost importance to both of them, and writing too for a highly gifted group of performers whom he knew well and loved deeply. Schikaneder erected a little wooden summerhouse in the courtyard of the Freihaus-Theater premises, and in June and July of 1791 Mozart was most often to be found there, working on Die Zauberflöte.

  But it was while he was submerged in this major labour, and contemplating too his bizarre commission for Count Walsegg’s Requiem Mass, that Mozart was visited again by Domenico Guardasoni from Prague. The new Emperor, Leopold II, was determined to appear concerned with all parts of his Empire, and, in contrast to his brother Joseph II before him, to respect therefore his ties with Hungary and Bohemia. For this reason he had followed his coronation in Frankfurt, in September 1790, with another in Hungary two months later. Now, after almost a year, he proposed to have yet a third coronation, in Prague at the end of August 1791. As late as July that year, Guardasoni was instructed by the Bavarian Estates to provide a new coronation opera; and, although he had only recently returned to Prague after taking his company to Warsaw, he hurried at once to Vienna to ask the Emperor’s Court composer, Salieri, to provide it. When Salieri declined the invitation, Guardasoni naturally turned to Mozart, who accepted with alacrity. He was of course already heavily laden with work, but he was anxious at last to write something for the new Emperor, especially having been so humiliatingly ignored in all the celebrations of the previous year. And he was always keen to work in the National Theatre in Prague. But he would have little say in either the subject-matter or even the casting of this coronation opera: he was told that the libretto should be a reworking of an old opera seria text by Metastasio, La clemenza di Tito, originally written for Caldara over fifty years previously, in 1734. Furthermore, two principal singers from Italy, a soprano and a castrato, had already been cast in the major roles. Mozart knew nothing about either of them.

  If Mozart had no time at all to worry about these departures from his by now accustomed creative practice, he did probably have some input into the actual shaping of the antiquated libretto. Since Da Ponte’s ignominious departure from Vienna, his position as Court Poet had been temporarily held by another Venetian, Caterino Mazzolà, and it was he who modernized Metastasio’s text, restructuring it from three acts into two, eliminating several sections, and turning many solo numbers into ensembles. In the few weeks that Mozart had between receiving his commission from Prague and actually going there, he would have divided his time between meetings with Mazzolà at Court, and with Schikaneder in their little summerhouse. When he left for Prague at the end of August, together with Constanze, his pupil Süssmayr and the clarinettist Anton Stadler, he had by no means completed his opera. And yet, nine days after they arrived, it received its first performance. The theatrical world is accustomed to apparently miraculous occurrences, whereby what seems to be lamentably unready for an opening night somehow undergoes an astonishing transformation in its final hours of preparation. The premiere of La clemenza di Tito was unquestionably one of these.

  Mozart’s second Prague opera is, however, decidedly different from his three great collaborations with Da Ponte, and from the growing masterpiece that he left behind in Vienna. It is relatively short; and within it the individual arias and ensembles too are short, with no major accumulative sweep of musico-dramatic energy such as he had developed so thrillingly with Da Ponte. After the manner of opera seria, every number is driven by a single affect, and even the few ensembles leave little room for the development of plot. But the most severe difference between La clemenza di Tito and its predecessors is that Mozart did not have time to write the recitatives. It was the faithful Süssmayr who composed these; and he diligently added serviceable music to Mazzolà’s text. Without a doubt, this competent work was a major factor in getting the opera on stage at all. But its total lack of that touch of genius, which makes all Mozart’s own recitatives as riveting as the orchestral numbers that they so seamlessly link, gives the score a real unevenness. For this reason it is likely that, in his heart of hearts, Mozart considered La clemenza di Tito to be among his failures. Like his never-finished C minor Mass for Constanze, and indeed the Requiem that also awaited him back in Vienna, La clemenza di Tito is greatly uplifting, and thought-provoking, and affords intense musical satisfaction. But it is only a glorious torso, lacking limbs.

  All but one of the singers for Leopold II’s coronation opera were new to Mozart. He would have been delighted that the title role of the Emperor Tito, who shows saintly clemency as he forgives his potential assassins, was to be sung by Antonio Baglioni, the creator of Don Ottavio in 1787. Tito’s great friend but would-be murderer, Sesto, was to be sung, in the tradition of Idamante, by the Italian castrato Domenico Bedini, who had enjoyed a steady career in Italian opera houses since 1770. He cannot have been altogether in his prime, and it is possible that Mozart was dismayed by him, for, in an article by Niemetschek in 1794, Bedini was described as having been ‘wretched’. (After the great Rauzzini, Mozart seems never to have had much luck with his castrato singers.) Sesto’s music is often very demanding, and was quite possibly beyond Bedini. But Mozart did have the good idea of transferring some of his virtuosity to the orchestra, and specifically to his great friend Stadler’s clarinet. Sesto’s most magnificent aria, ‘Parto, parto’, towards the end of the first act, has a superb part for obbligato clarinet; and though in the final section of the aria it is necessary for the voice and clarinet to share dazzling twists and turns, the deployment of one brilliant performer could perhaps mask the presence of a
mediocre one. Stadler was already involved as an obbligato soloist in an aria, ‘Non più di fiori’, which Mozart had probably written long before he got his commission for La clemenza di Tito (it appears in the manuscript score on different paper), but which could serendipitously be used for the character of Vitellia towards the end of the opera. And, like all excellent wind-players, Stadler would have been keen to have as many prominent and challenging solos as possible.

  Also in the cast for La clemenza di Tito were three sopranos and a bass. Little is now known of two of the sopranos, Carolina Perini, who in the travesty tradition of Cherubino played the role of Annio, and a Signora Antonini who sang Servilia, Sesto’s sister, and Annio’s lover. The Roman prefect Publio was sung by Gaetano Campi, whose greater claim to fame resided in his marriage that year to the eighteen-year-old Polish soprano Antonia Miklasiewicz. Despite the fact that the couple went on to have no fewer than seventeen children (including four sets of twins and one of triplets), Antonia Campi had a good career, especially as an interpreter of Mozart roles (the Countess, the Queen of the Night, Constanze, Donna Anna, Vitellia). And when, on one of Constanze’s visits to Prague in November 1797, a special concert was arranged, both Campi and his wife took part. There were arias and ensembles, and the Campis sang together with Constanze herself.

  But the most pivotal role in La clemenza di Tito is that of Vitellia. It is she who, like Lady Macbeth, repeatedly urges Sesto (who worships her) to assassinate Tito, partly in revenge for her father Vitellius having been dethroned by Tito’s father Vespasian, and partly because she had designs on herself becoming Tito’s queen, but he has preferred first, Berenice, daughter of the King of Judaea, and, later, Servilia. Towards the end of the opera Vitellia undergoes a change of heart, as Sesto’s loyalty and Tito’s clemency affect her too. She publicly confesses her involvement in the assassination plot, and in turn receives her own Imperial pardon. Vitellia is a complex and great role, requiring wide dramatic and vocal skills, for there are elements in her of Elettra, of Donna Elvira, even perhaps of Mozart’s imminent Queen of the Night. She would be sung by Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi, the other singer engaged by Guardasoni before Mozart even agreed to write the opera. And here, it seems, Mozart was relieved and satisfied. She was a tremendous success in the opera’s premiere (Count Zinzendorf reported that Leopold II himself had found her performance ‘enchanting’), and from there went on to have a great career throughout Italy and Germany.

  Despite the lack of preparation time, the shortcomings of at least one of the cast, and the somewhat retrospective constraints of Mozart’s return to opera seria, there is much glorious music to be enjoyed in La clemenza di Tito. Its first scene, between Vitellia and Sesto, is crucial to the setting up of the two principal characters. Vitellia’s lines are wildly angular, energetic, and slightly disjunct; Sesto’s, by contrast, are more lyrical and resigned. When, in their duet, they share an allegro, each of them confesses to ‘mille affetti’ (a thousand emotions), and only then is their music identical. When they learn that Tito has in fact sent Berenice away, Vitellia realizes she can still hope for his hand, and reverses her instructions to Sesto. He is understandably confused, and she pours scorn on him in her aria ‘Deh, se piacer mi vuoi’ (If you wish to please me). On the surface this seems to be a sweet, flute-enhanced minuet of wheedling persuasion. But, in true Figaro-fashion, it has sinister undertones, which emerge at the allegro section. There are disturbing five-bar phrases, and at the words ‘Chi sempre inganni aspetta / Aletta ad ingannar’ (He who expects to be betrayed will always invite betrayal) a combination of freedom and virtuosity that is at once alluring and cruel.

  After this intriguing introduction, Vitellia’s character is intensified at her next appearance. She has just learned that Tito has now chosen Servilia, not herself, as his Queen, and once more she urges Sesto to join the conspirators plotting to murder him. Potentially this exchange has the power of a similar conversation between the Macbeths; but again Süssmayr’s recitative does little justice to its content. It does however set up Sesto’s big aria, ‘Parto, parto’ (with Stadler’s clarinet), tenderly pleading to Vitellia as he prepares to do her bidding. But when, in the next volte-face, Vitellia learns that Tito will make her his Queen after all, she is in turmoil, and tries desperately to call Sesto back from his murderous path. She leads an agitated trio (‘Vengo . . . aspettate’ – I am coming . . . wait), where her lines of panic are supported by perplexed comment from Annio and Publio. Vitellia’s music is wayward and frenzied, with Elettra-like high tessitura, real harmonic surprise, and (was this a gamble?) a final flourish including a top D. Mozart did then write a superb accompanied recitative for Sesto, a disturbed soliloquy of more Macbeth-like doubt, dramatically interrupted by the spectacle of fire breaking out on the Capitol. (Clearly, stage conflagrations were Prague’s speciality.) And at this point Mozart and Mazzolà restructured what in Metastasio were five separate scenes (for Sesto, Annio, Servilia, Publio and Vitellia), and turned them into a quintet, a riveting ending to Act I. Vitellia’s contribution to this is total horror at what she has instigated, and fear for Sesto’s safety too; but Mozart enfolds her into a mighty ensemble, supported by his hallmark offstage chorus, of political, physical and emotional fear. And, ever the architect of surprise, he ends this finale quietly, as horror subsides into grief.

  In the second act Sesto confesses to Annio that he was part of the (failed) assassination plot, and Annio advises him to throw himself on the mercy of Tito. But Vitellia urges Sesto to flee, believing he will reveal that she too was involved. Publio arrests Sesto, and as he is taken away (in the trio ‘Se al volto mai ti senti’), Sesto is sorrowfully lyrical, while Vitellia is torn between contrition and fear; and again Mozart can control all these emotions in a single musical unit. As the plot straightens itself out, Tito himself has the ‘Countess’ slot of heart-searching, conscience-battling soliloquy; and again the ensuing scenes of recitative between Sesto, Tito and Publio are all telescoped into a brilliant trio, where, contrary to the norm, the plot is carried in slow music, and dramatic asides are uttered in fast music. After Sesto’s remorse aria, ‘Deh, per questo’, Tito’s crucial recitative, in which he first signs and then tears up Sesto’s death warrant, is again cause for major regret that Mozart did not write this music. But mercifully he did set Vitellia’s big moment of transformation, when she decides to tell Tito the truth. Without knowing Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi, Mozart’s accompanied recitative is perhaps a little brief and formulaic; but his formulae are never ordinary, and the music is still fresh and original. And it leads into one of the most celebrated numbers of the opera, Vitellia’s ‘Non più di fiori’, with its other important obbligato part for Stadler, here playing the basset horn (a lower version of his clarinet). Even though Mozart had already composed this concert scena, its inclusion here is wholly appropriate, and brings to a superb conclusion the whole role of Vitellia, before she too is pardoned by the exemplary Tito and the opera reaches its pointedly and respectfully Imperial conclusion.

  When this coronation opera was premiered, on 6 September 1791, it was rather stiffly received by its lofty audience. But after the Imperial and Royal party had left Prague, the opera was shown repeatedly to the city’s public, who were delighted with it. Mozart was no longer there to witness their adulation, as he had immediately to return to Vienna and Schikaneder’s rehearsals. But he heard of La clemenza di Tito’s resounding success, largely from Stadler who of course remained in Prague to play his solos. And despite the circumstances of its whole creation and preparation, La clemenza di Tito did become one of Mozart’s most popular operas over the next thirty years. In subsequent productions the important role of Sesto was generally seized by women, and most prominently (if surprisingly, for its range was so much lower than her own) by Aloysia. Almost certainly the opera really found its place when all the roles were evenly cast, as had been Mozart’s experience in all his Viennese operas, and was about to be again.

  BACK AT LAST
in the Freihaus-Theater complex in Vienna, Mozart felt enormous relief and excitement as he rejoined his cast for Die Zauberflöte. His three great friends were to play the main male roles: Schikaneder himself the ‘Dummer Anton’-based Papageno, Schack the flute-playing prince Tamino, and Gerl the priest Sarastro. Other members of their families would be involved too: Schack’s wife Elisabeth was the third of the Three Ladies (hench-women to the Queen of the Night), Gerl’s twenty-one-year-old wife Barbara was Papagena; Schikaneder’s brother Urban was a priest, and Urban’s daughter Anna one of the Three Boys (the other two being played by real boys). The experienced character-actor and singer Nonseul would take the part of Monostatos, one of the forces of evil. And the casting of the women was equally distinguished. Young Anna Gottlieb, still only seventeen, would play that embodiment of innocence and beauty, Pamina; and the evil Queen of the Night was to be Mozart’s brilliant sister-in-law Josefa. After the somewhat arbitrary collection of imported singers that had been thrown together in Prague for La clemenza di Tito, this close-knit group was especially suitable to give unity to an opera of so many different aspects.

  Much has been made of the Masonic symbolism in Die Zauberflöte, and especially of the mystic significance of the number 3 that has such importance in Freemasonry. Certainly there are three ladies, three boys, three temples; Tamino is advised to practise the three virtues of steadfastness, tolerance and discretion (‘Sei standhaft, duldsam und verschwiegen!’); Sarastro reassures his priests that Tamino is virtuous, discreet and beneficent, the three qualifications for initiation into their order; there is the celebrated threefold chord from the beginning of the overture, which itself appears three times in the opera; and at the heart of it all there are three flats in the key signature of E flat major (or its relative C minor), in which so much of the opera resides, including its beginning and end. It could also be said that there are three plots. The first is a straightforward rescue plot, of Pamina by Tamino, and their passage together through life-changing challenges. The second is Papageno’s quasi-comic plot, of his own series of baffling experiences, including even a suicide attempt, before he reaches his happy outcome of finding the woman of his dreams. And the third is an allegorical Masonic plot, in which Sarastro’s benevolent order is assailed by potent forces of evil (the Queen of the Night, with her Three Ladies and Monostatos), and triumphantly overcomes them. With all these completely disparate elements flung into the creative pot, the result could so easily have been at best a kind of variety show, in which one turn succeeded another with little coordination between them, and at worst a disastrous mish-mash of chaotic confusion and a total absence of clear narrative. But with the combined creative artistry of Mozart and Schikaneder, Die Zauberflöte is an unquestionable masterpiece of clarity and passion, and it is utterly unique. With Da Ponte, Mozart had already broken any number of rules and moulds, and produced works of theatrical genius. Now, with Schikaneder, he was doing it all over again.