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Mozart and the Theater auf der Wieden: New attributions and perspectives1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Extract

Öffers kam Mozart zum Schack, um ihn zu einem Spaziergang abzuholen, und während Schack derselbe ankleidete, setzte sich Kapellmeister Mozart an dessen Schreibtisch und komponirte hier und da ein Stück in desselben Opern; daher in des Schack Opern mehrere Stellen von Mozarts eigener Hand und Genie vorkommen.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

2 Cited in Mozart: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, ed. Deutsch, Otto Erich, Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werke& [NMA], Serie 10, Werkgruppe 34 (Kassel, 1961), 532.Google Scholar Lipowsky was not a part of the Viennese circle, so this account probably comes from Schack himself, who was working in Munich at the time. The account is repeated almost verbatim in Nissen, Georg Nikolaus, Anhang zu W. A. Mozarts Biographie, nach Originalbriefen, Sammlungen alles über ibn Geschriebenen, mit vielen neuen Beylagen, Steindrücken, Musikblättern und einem Facsimile, ed. Nissen, Constanze Mozart (1828; rpt. Hildesheim, 1964), 169.Google Scholar

3 Cited in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Bauer, Wilhelm A., Deutsch, Otto Erich and Eibl, Joseph Heinz, 7 vols. (Kassel, 19621975), IV, 477 (No. 1407).Google Scholar Constanze also mentions Lipowsky's, account in her letter. In his ‘Prefatory Remarks’ to Schack's A Mass for Four Voices and Orchestral Accompaniments (London, 1831),Google Scholar Vincent Novello recounts that in 1829 Constanze told him of the collaboration of Mozart and Schack, which began when the latter would show his compositions to Mozart and ask for his advice. I am indebted to Bruce Alan Brown for providing me with this information.

4 These include political, Masonic, Rosicrucian and Cabalistic interpretations, among others. See Blümml, Emil Karl, ‘Ausdeutungen der “Zauberflöote”’, Mozart-Jahrbuch, 1 (1923), 111–46Google Scholar, for an overview. See also Chailley, Jacques, La Flûte enchantée: Opéra maçonnique. Essai d'explication du livret et de la musique (Paris, 1983),Google ScholarGrattan-Guinness, I., ‘Counting the Notes: Numerology in the Works of Mozart, especially Die Zauberflöte’, Annals of Science, 49 (1992), 201–32,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Till, Nicolas, Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart's Operas (London, 1992), 294313.Google Scholar

5 For standard accounts of the opera's genesis, see Abert, Hermann, W. A. Mozart, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1921), II, 751ff.;Google ScholarKomorzynski, Egon, Emanuel Schikaneder (1901; rev., Vienna, 1951), 146ff.;Google ScholarGruber, Gernot, ‘Schaffensgeschichte und Uraufführung der “Zauberflöte”’, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Zauberflöte: Texte, Materialien, Kommentare, ed. Csampai, Attila and Holland, Dietmar (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1982), 137–48;Google ScholarRommel, Otto, Die Alt-Wiener Volkskomödie: Ihre Geschichte vom barocken Welt-Theater bis zum Tode Nestroys (Vienna, 1952), 541–4, 979–91;Google ScholarBranscombe, Peter, W. A. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (Cambridge, 1991), 6786;Google Scholar and Rushton, Julian, ‘Die Zauberflöte’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Sadie, Stanley, 4 vols. (London and New York, 1992), IV, 1215–18,Google Scholar and Mozart’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, III, 489503.Google Scholar

6 As a fairy tale, I see this genre belonging to the larger tradition of the théâatre du merveilleux, as it was called by Marmontel, Jean-Francois, ‘Opera’, in Eléments de littérature (1787; rpt. Paris, 1846), III, 37.Google ScholarThe use of the term ‘;marvellous’ in the century covers a broad scope, which will be documented in my Magic Flutes and Enchanted Forests: Music and the Supernatural in the Eighteenth-Century Theatre, in preparation.Google Scholar

7 The repertory for April–July 1789, with Die Entführung aus dem Serail and other singpiels, is given in the newspaper, Der Wienerbothe,Google Scholar cited by Edge, Dexter, ‘Mozart's Viennese Orchestras’, Early Music, 20 (1996), 78 n. 51.Google Scholar

8 It is likely that Mozart heard Oberon at the Nationaltheater in Frankfurt (15 October 1790), if not in Vienna.Google Scholar See Schmid, Ernst Fritz, Ein schwäbisches Mozartbuch (Lorch-Stuttgart, 1948), 465 n. 761.Google Scholar For details on Oberon, see Fellinger, Robert, ‘Oberon im achtzehnten Jahrhundert’, Die Musik, 24 (1934), 915–19;Google ScholarKomorzynski, Egon, ‘“Zauberflöte” und “Oberon”’, Mozart-Jahrbuch 1953, 150–61;Google Scholar and Kielbasa, Marilyn, ‘Paul Wranitzky's Oberon, König der Elfen: The Historical Background of the Opera and its Composer, and its Influence on Mozart's Die Zauberflöte’, M.A. Thesis (University of Southern California, 1975). The latter details many remarkable similarities between the musical conventions in Oberon and Die Zauberflöte. Textual similarities provide important evidence for Giesecke's possible contribution to the text of Die Zauberflöte, a matter that has long been controversial.Google Scholar

9 Cited in Deutsch, Otto Erich, Das Freihaustheater auf der Wieden, 1787–1801 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1937), 31, based on information from a playbill.Google Scholar See Bliimml, Emil Karl, Aus Mozarts Freundes- und Familienkreis (Vienna, 1923), 204 n. 48. The text and music to Die schöne Isländerin, by composers unknown, seem to be lost.Google Scholar

10 Sarmäts Feuerbär was first published in Schikaneder, Emanuel, Emmanuel Schikaneder sämmtliche theatralische Werke, 2 vols. (Vienna and Leipzig, 1792), II, 5119,Google Scholarwhere it is said to be based on an ‘altes Volksmarchen’. Komorzynski, 1951 (see n. 5), 356, cites it as written in 1781. Here a powerful wiseman and magican Sarmät, who reads the future with a magic mirror, employs magic fire, a magic wand, a magic hammer and a magic musical instrument (‘Schalmeye’) to help a virtuous prince return to his throne. With its ‘geharnischte Manner’, the play has a tone, an array of characters and dialogue very close to Schikaneder's other fairy-tale operas.Google Scholar

11 These materials were taken by the Soviet Army during the invasion of Germany in 1945.Google Scholar For a discussion of the literary source, see Wieland, Christoph Martin, Dschinnistan, oder auserlesene Feen- und Geistermärchen (Winterthur, 17861789), ed. Seidel, Gerhard (Berlin, 1968) (modern editions include only the Wieland stories). The main plot of Der Stein der Weisen was adapted from the first tale in the collection, ‘Nadir und Nadine’, which also provided elements for Die Zauberflöte.Google Scholar See my Fairy-Tale Literature and Die Zauberflöte’, Acta Musicologica, 64 (1992), 3049.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 According to Bauer, Anton, Opern und Operetten in Wien, Wiener Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge, 2 (Graz/Cologne, 1955), 94,Google ScholarSchikaneder revived the opera on 5 September 1804 at the Theater an der Wien, with a new overture by Ignaz von Seyfried. Dschinnistan would provide Schikaneder with at least one more opera libretto after Die Zauberflöte– a sequel to Mozart's opera entitled Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen, with music by Peter Winter (Wiednertheater, 12 June 1798).Google Scholar

13 There is no scholarly account of Vienna's suburban theatres and their survivingsource materials. The best bibliographic survey remains G[ustav] Gugitz,Bibliographie zur Geschichte und Stadtkunde von Wien: Nebst Quellen- und Lteraturhinweisen (Vienna, 1947).Google Scholar

14 The manuscript, said to be by the Viennese firm of Laurenz Lausch, is currendy unavailable for study, owing to the policy of the Cherubini Conservator) library, which denies access to scholars.Google Scholar

15 A modern edition is in W. A. Mozart Werke, ed. Köchel, Ludwig von et al. (Leipzig, 1881), VI/XLVII, 235–9.Google ScholarIn spite of the autograph, the duet has been accepted as Mozart's work only with reservations. Abert (see n. 5), 11, 706, doubted its authenticity and described it as a thoroughly modest piece in the then current comic style, which one could attribute to Mozart only reluctantly. Alfred Einstein, who discovered the piano-vocal score in Florence, suggested that Mozart supplied only the orchestration because (a) the vocal parts and some of the violin and viola music in the autograph are in another hand, and (b) the score lacks attributions. However, Lausch copies of the Schikaneder operas almost never contain attributions.Google Scholar See Köchel, Ludwig von, Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadé Mo‘arts, 6th edn, ed. Giegling, Franz, Weinmann, Alexander and Sievers, Gerd (Wiesbaden, 1964), 678.Google Scholar

16 Standard guides such as Eitner, Robert, ‘Gerl’, in Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-luexikon der Musiker …, 10 vols. (Leipzig, 18981904), III, 206–7,Google Scholarthe various Köchel thematic catalogues and the New Grove dictionaries do not mention the Hamburg manuscript, recorded in the nineteenth-century handwritten catalogue of the Hamburgisches Stadt-Theater, and housed today in the Musiksammlung of the Hamburg library (the score itself is in the Handschriftenabteilung). Eitner indicates that he did not have access to the Hamburg theatre collection.Google Scholar

17 That Schikaneder composed music for some of his earlier stage works is well known. See Branscombe, Peter, ‘Schikaneder, Emanuel’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, IV, 221. This is the first evidence of his activity as a composer in the 1790s.Google Scholar Schikaneder's composition of melodies that his composers subsequently set is mentioned in Castelli, Ignaz Franz, Memoiren meines Lebens: Gefundenes und Empfundenes, Erlebtes und Erstrebtes (1861), ed. Schondorff, Joachim (Munich, 1969), 70.Google Scholar

18 Vienna: Matthias Ludwig, 1791, copy in the Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek, shelfmark G83479. The opera has the subtitle Die Zauberinsel, and is called a ‘heroisch-komische Oper’. The texts include four arias, one duet and one chorus.Google Scholar

19 A copy is located in the Library of Congress, shelf number ML 48 S[chatz] 9570, issued for a 1796 revival of the opera at Frankfurt's Nationaltheater. Another songbook, Gesaenge zur heroiscb-comischen Oper, Der Stein der Weisen, was published in 1802, without indication of the city or publisher. A copy survives in Regensburg's Proskesche Musikbibliothek, shelfmark Mus. tx. 116/9. A third songbook in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Gesänge aus der Oper Der Stein der Weisen oder Die Zauberinsel (n.p., n.d.), bears the indication ‘Musik gesetzt von Herrn Mozart’, shelfmark L. eleg m.3170v (see Figure 1).Google Scholar

20 The crescents and the letters C S C in the countermark are similar to paper usedby Mozart in 1782–7 and 1785–91,Google Scholar catalogued by Tyson, Alan, Wasserzeichen-Katalog, 2 vols. NMA, Serie 10, Werkgruppe 33, Abteilung 2 (Kassel, 1992), Nos. 61 and 78.Google ScholarThe latter is actually found in Mozart's autograph of the duet from the opera. Only the canopy figure is different in the Berlin source. Another watermark in the Berlin manuscript, with the letters PS, is similar to one in paper used by Mozart in 1775–6 (Tyson No. 36) and 1789–91 (Tyson No. 99). While these similarities in no way connect Mozart to this score, they contribute to the possibility of a Viennese origin.Google Scholar

21 For details see Didion, Robert and Schlichte, Joachim, Thematischer Katalog der Opemsammlung, Katalog der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main, 9 (Frankfurt, 1990), 251. One hand is identical to the main copyist in the Hamburg score. I will defer a discussion of the Frankfurt materials for this and other Wiednertheater operas until a later date.Google Scholar

22 Tyler, Linda, ‘Schack, Benedikt’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, IV, 211, cites it as ‘Frankfurt 1796’, associating it with the production for which the Arien und Gesänge was printed.Google Scholar

23 Vol. LXXX1, 2641. The advertisement was repeated on 13 October in vol. LXXXII, 2673. The other selection is Lubano's aria, ‘Den Mädchen trauet nicht zu viel’.Google Scholar

24 Lubano's Act II aria, ‘Die Lieb ist wohl ein närrisch Ding’, is included in the Frankfurt score.Google Scholar

25 Deutsch (see n. 9), 35, incorrectly dates the première of Derwohltätige Denvisch as 10 September 1793, and this error has been repeated in every major scholarly treatment, e.g., the New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Batley, E. M., A Preface to the Magic Flute (London, 1969), 97, suspected that the 1791 songbook was correctly dated, but did not have sufficient evidence to challenge Deutsch.Google Scholar

26 The Wiener Zeitung of 9 April 1791, p. 932, lists these among the ‘Neue Arien’ for sale. The advertisement was repeated on 20 April, p. 1047, and 23 April, p. 1077. On 18 June 1791, pp. 1623–4, Lausch advertised some additional arias along with the previous three selections. This pattern indicates a popular work in Vienna. Lausch first advertised selections from a new opera some five or six weeks after the premiére (probably those best received by the audience), and the number of selections and frequency of subsequent appearances indicate the degree of public interest he perceived. The same pattern occurs in advertisements for Der Stein der Weisen and Die Zauberflöte (the latter by Artaria).Google Scholar

27 Komorzynski (see n. 5), 140, and Honolka, Kurt, Papageno: Emanuel Schikaneder, der groΒie Theatermann der Mozart-Zeit (Salzburg, 1984), 187, among other authors, refer to the opera in this manner.Google Scholar

28 A copy survives in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Theater-Museum, Bibliothek, shelfmark 698.427 A.Th. 239. Both Stein (1800) and Derwisch (date unknown) were performed in Altona.Google Scholar

29 This was the company of Wenzel Mihule, a travelling troupe active in Dresden, Prague and other locales.Google Scholar

30 A copy survives in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, shelfmark Ts 282, a nd another in the Library of Congress, Schatz 9571, which includes a handwritten cast list. Schikaneder relied primarily on Friedrich Hildebrand von Einsiedel's Dscbinnistan story, ‘Die Prinzeβin mit der langen Nase’, but borrows details from Einsiedel's ‘Die klugen Knaben’ and Wieland's ‘Der eiserne Armleuchter: Ein türkisches Mäarchen’.Google Scholar

31 Incorrectly cited as the now defunct Wissenschaftliche Staatsbibliothek undUniversitäts– bibliothek in Branscombe, Peter, ‘Gerl, Franz Xaver’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, II, 384,Google Scholar and Tyler, , ‘Schack, Benedikt’, The New GroveDictionary of Opera, IV, 211. A score and orchestral parts of the Mannheim arrangement existed before the destruction of this library in World War II.Google Scholar See Walter, Friedrich, Die Bibliothek des GroΒh. Hof- und Nationaltheaters, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1899), II, 179.Google Scholar

32 Arrangements of pre-existing operas like this one were not uncommon in the early decades of the nineteenth century. For example, Ignaz von Seyfried arranged Grétry's Zémin et Azor (already translated into German by Johann Heinrich Faber) for the Theater an der Wien (8 January 1818). The score is preserved inthe Musiksammlung of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, shelfmark K.T. 476, and the corresponding revisions are written into a copy of the printed libretto (Vienna: Wallishauser, 1790), in the Schikaneder Theaterbibliothek in the Österreichische Theater–Museum, Bibliothek, shelfmark 845.000 A.Th. 248.Google Scholar

33 For details on the Frankfort manuscript and related performing materials, shelfmark Mus Hs Opern 509 (1–7), see Didion and Schlichte (n. 21), 251–2. The Hamburg parts bear the shelfmark ND VII 277: the music is attributed wrongly to Wenzel Müller. Two copyists match hands found in the Frankfurt copy of Der Stein der Weisen.Google Scholar

34 Bauer (see n. 12), 110, gives the date 12 February 1803 for the Theater an der Wien, and 18 March 1807 for the Theater in der Josefstadt.Google Scholar

35 The playbill from 12 May 1791(Wiener Stadts- und Landesbibliothek, shelfmark 77250 C) indicates no composers, The cast list includes Schikaneder as Lubano, Barbara Gerl as Lubanara, Schack as Astromante, Anna Gottlieb as Nadine, Gerl as Eutifronte, Anna Schikaneder as the Genie and Johann Michael Kisder as Nadir.Google Scholar

36 The hunters' chorus recalls that in Das wütende Heer, set by Ruprecht for Vienna in 1787. The genie's music also recalls the voce in Ruprecht's Das wütende Heer, where a disembodied soprano voice announces a magical white dove.Google Scholar

37 The comic ensemble with a character who can no longer speak goes back to another fairy-tale opera, Le Bûcheron (Théâtre Italien, 28 February 1763), text by Jean-François Guichard, music by François-André Danican Philidor, in which a peasant who has been granted three wishes thoughtlessly asks that his annoying wife lose her power of speech, leading to a comic ensemble in whch she can only sing nonsense syllables. The original opéra-comique was performed in Vienna in 1773, and at least two German translations were set to music as Der Holzhauer (1774, 1775 and 1778).Google Scholar

38 The comic duet, ‘Tra la ra! Tra la ra! Ha! Wie wohl, wie wohl istmir’, by Franz Gerl (Act 1, No. 5), is also a simple piece in the popular style. It is a longer composite form, with two sections and a coda. The second part is in 2/4, with pizzicato accompaniment. Passages for solo bassoon are doubled by strings.Google Scholar

39 Bauer, Deutsch and Eibl (see n. 3), IV, 532, VI, 676–7, 728, and Branscombe, Peter, ‘Die Zauberflöte: Some Textual and Interpretative Problems’, Proceedings of the Royal Music Association, 92 (1966), 4751, dispute the authenticity on the basis of the handwriting and an apparent correction in writing of the year. The letter is also more stylistically consistent with nineteenth-century usage.Google Scholar

40 In a letter to Lorenz Hagenauer, 30 January-4 February 1768, Leopold provides a buffa-like catalogue tirade, deriding the fact that ‘närrisches zeug, tanzen, teufel, gespenster, Zaubereyen, Hannswurst, Lipped, Bernardon, Hexen, und Erscheinungen sehen wollen, ist eine bekannte Sache und ihre Theater beweisen es täglich’. See Bauer, Deutsch and Eibl (n. 3), IV, 254.Google Scholar

41 Including Constanze's sister, Josepha Hofer. The variations to ‘Ein Weib ist das herrlichste Ding auf der Welt’ (K. 613), entered into Mozart's VerzeichnüΒ on 8 April 1791, are further evidence of Mozart's increasing involvement with this theatre. Mozart's variations were first announced on 4 June 1791 in the Wiener Zeitung (XLV, 1508).Google Scholar

42 See Bauer, Deutsch and Eibl (n. 3), IV, 168–73. The cast includes a witch, a dwarf, and a giant, and there are magical transformations of the latter two characters.Google Scholar

43 Weinmann, Alexander, ‘Zur Mozart-Bibliographie’, Mitteilungsblatt der Mozartgemeinde Wien, 47 (06 1980), 37,Google Scholar recently identified a recitativo accompagnato introduction to an inserted aria by Cimarosa in Act II of Guglielmi, Pietro, La quacquera spirituosa (Hofburgtheater, 13 August 1790).Google Scholar See also Flothuis, Martius, Mozarts Bearbeitungen eigener undfremder Werke (Salzburg and Kassel, 1969).Google Scholar

44 In the preface to Das wütende Heer, oder Das Mädgen im Thurme, in Operetten, I (Leipzig, 1779), Christoph Friedrich Bretzner refers to the genre as a ‘Marchen’, acknowledging Gozzi as his model.Google Scholar The term is also used for Romberg's, Andreas Jacob Der Rabe, a ‘tragi-komisches Märchen’ in three acts (based on Gozzi), and Spaur's, H. Graf vonDer Schiffbruch/ein Mährchen (Königsberg, 1778).Google ScholarComposers such as Nikolaus Mühle (Königsberg, 1778), Franz Hugo, Freiherr von Kerpen (Frankfurt or Mainz, 1778), F. A. Hoffmeister (Vienna, 1783 or 1792) and Bernhard Romberg (Bonn, 1791) seem to have set Spaur's text, but no music survives for this fairy-tale setting with many similarities to Die Zauberflöte, such as the Egyptian locale, a good magician, an abducted princess, quasi-religious songs, a dagger-suicide scene, a cowardly slave who is in love with the princess, and trials in which characters must prove themselves.Google Scholar

45 Musiksammlung, , Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, shelfmark K.T. 385. The libretto (Vienna: Logenmeister, 1786) states that the music is based onan Italian (‘walsch’) singspiel.Google Scholar

46 Viennese audiences had heard performances of Grétry's opéra-comique since 1776 at the Theater in der Leopoldstadt, as well as performances with new musical settings by Baumgarten (1776) and Neefe (c. 1778). The German translation, Zemire und Azor, was extremely popular in Vienna (K.T. 475, Musiksammlung, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna). Printed German translations of the libretto were published for the K. K. Nationaltheater (Logenmeister, 1779, and B. Wallischauser, 1790).Google Scholar

47 Bauer, (see n. 12), 110, cites it as a three-act, ‘heroisch-komisches Singspiel’, first performed at the Kärntnertortheater, then at the Nationaltheater. The score is in the Musiksammlung, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, shelfmark K.T. 205. The libretto was published (Vienna: Logenmeister, n.d.), and is in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Theater–Museum, Bibliothek, shelfmark 641.433 TB ix/5.Google Scholar

48 Musiksammlung, , österreichische Nationalbibliothek, shelfmark S.M. 25253. There is also a vocal score, Musiksammlung, Wiener Stadts- und Landesbibliothek, shelfmark M.H. 227. The success of Schikaneder's fairy-tale pieces documented here suggests that this work was probably created in response to the popularity of the Wiednertheater's adaptions from Dschinnistan.Google Scholar

49 Two examples are Das Irrlicht, oder Endlich fand er sie, a ‘heroisch-komisches Singspiel’ in two acts (based on Der Inwisch by Christoph Friedrich Breztner), with music by Ignaz Umlauf, 17 January 1782 (shelfmarks Hs. 16521, Hs. 17901, K.T. 227, Musiksammlung, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek), and Was erhält die Manner treu? oder Das Räthsel, ‘eine romantische Oper’ in two acts, by Ludwig Zehnmark, with music by Ruprecht, 30 March 1780 (shelfmark Hs. 16519, Musiksammlung, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).Google Scholar

50 There are in fact some twenty other occasional pieces, arias, canons, variations, dances and fragments written after February 1784 that were not included in the VerzeichnüΒ.Google Scholar Mozart seems intentionally to have omitted certain kinds of works, including German songs, Italian arias and one ensemble, listed in Rosenthal, Albi and Tyson, Alan, Eigenbändiges Werkverzeicbnis Faksimile, NMA, Serie 10, Werkgruppe 33, Abteilung 1 (Kassel, 1991), 1718.Google Scholar

51 The Hamburg and Frankfurt libraries both possess orchestral scores for Schack's operas, along with other Wiednertheater singspiels.Google Scholar