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Music and masks in Lorenzo Da Ponte's Mozartian librettos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Paolo Gallarati
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Extract

In his trilogy of masterpieces composed to texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart radically changed the musical and theatrical nature of Italian opera. The dramma giocoso became a true ‘comedy in music’ through the use of psychological realism: a vivid representation of life in continuous transformation and in all its naked immediacy is now the real protagonist of the story, an all-embracing totality within which each character represents a separate feature. This influx of a non-rationalist sense of life into the classical proportions of sonata form (whose tonal relationships and free approach to thematic development controlled the vocal set pieces) made for an explosive mixture. Even before his collaboration with Da Ponte, Mozart himself seemed well aware of his uniqueness: ‘I guarantee that in all the operas which are to be performed until mine [L'oca del Cairo] is finished, not a single idea will resemble one of mine.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , November 1989 , pp. 225 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Letter to his father of 10 February 1784, in Anderson, Emily, ed., The Letters of Mozart and his Family (New York, 1966), II, 867.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Abert, Hermann, W. A. Mozart, 8th edn (Leipzig, 1973), II, 242.Google Scholar

3 Anderson, (see n. 1), II, 773.Google Scholar

4 Da Ponte's preface to Le nozze di Figaro, in Ponte, Lorenzo Da, Tre libretti per Mozart, ed. Lecaldano, Paolo (Milan, 1956), 53.Google Scholar

6 See the description in Mila, , Lettura, 76ff.Google Scholar

7 Though with the stipulation ‘that each of these sections consists of two phrases in an antecedent-consequent relationship, and that in the tatter appearances of B and C, not the entire section, but only the second phrase of it, is used’ (see Mila, , Lettura, 63Google Scholar).

8 In the first two strophes the rhymes follow the order ABBC–DEEC. The first four lines of the sextain of ottonari are consecutively rhymed in pairs; this is followed by a quatrain of alternating rhymes, two quatrains of consecutively paired rhymes, and a final quatrain with an ABBC rhyme scheme.

9 Goldin, D., ‘Mozart, Da Ponte e ii linguaggio dell'opera buffa’, in La verafenice: Librettisti e libretti tra sette e ottocento (Turin, 1985), 77–148.Google Scholar

10 See Mozart, W. A., Così fan tutte, ed. Bertocchi, Diego (Turin, 1975), 156.Google Scholar Bertocchi attempts to justify the ‘Recitativo’ title in the autograph with the claim that ‘the opening orchestral figures have an ambiguous quality typical of simple accompanied dramatic recitative’.

11 Abert, H., ‘Wort and Ton in der Musik des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in Gesammelte Schriften and Vorträge, 2nd edn (Tutzing, 1968), 207–8.Google Scholar

12 ‘Essai sur les révolutions de la musique en France’, in Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la révolution opérée dans la musique par M. le Chevalier Gluck (Paris, 1781; rpt. Amsterdam, 1967), 153–90.Google Scholar The passage quoted is found on pp. 166–7 and 169.

13 Portions of this article are a revised and somewhat condensed version of the ninth chapter of my Musica e maschera. Il libretto italiano del settecento (Turin, 1984).Google Scholar My thanks to the publishers for permission to reprint the extract.