A Very Smart Bluffer’s Guide to Opera, Part Two: The Operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

My last post offered a quick overview of what opera is. Today, in Part II, I’m going to describe the operas by Mozart that any bluffer needs to know about. Please come back here in future weeks, because I’ll be covering Baroque operas, German operas, Italian operas . . . you name it.

Mozart, probably the greatest musical genius who ever lived, wrote some operas in German (with spoken dialogue between the musical selections) and in Italian too (with the text sung as recitatives [sung, but non-melodic sections] between the musical selections).  Here are the most important ones you need to know about:

The most important were these three that he wrote to librettos (texts) by his friend Lorenzo da Ponte . . .

·         Le Nozze di Figaro (“The Marriage of Figaro”)is a comic masterpiece. Its plot was revolutionary at the time, and based on a play of the same title by Pierre Beaumarchais that debuted just in time for the French revolution. The plot tells the story of a servant named Figaro who outsmarts his boss the Count, who was intending to sleep with Figaro’s fiancée Susanna on the night before their marriage. Susanna was a servant too, and sleeping with her was apparently something that a count was entitled to do back in feudal times. But don’t worry, Figaro and Susanna outwit the Count and that doesn’t happen and Figaro and Susanna get happily married. (That’s why the opera is called The Marriage of Figaro,get it?) This masterpiece is full of comic situations, romance, and intrigue. Let’s watch Figaro and Susanna measure the bedroom they will share after they get married the following day . . . 

          Don Giovanni, another masterpiece, tells the story of the serial seducer Don Giovanni, who is not a nice guy. As the opera begins, he has seduced a woman and then kills her father, a commander named the Commendatore. Later on, Don G. happens to pass the grave of the Commendatore, where he invites a statue of him dine with him. Guess what? At the end of the opera, the statue shows up for dinner and drags Don Giovanni down to hell. Afterwards everybody celebrates. Why shouldn’t they? Let’s watch Don Giovanni get dragged down to hell . . . 

·         Così fan Tutte (“All Women Do That”) has beautiful music, but a horribly sexist plot. An old philosopher named Don Alfonso convinces two young guys named Ferrando and Guglielmo to disguise themselves as strangers and then to switch places and try to seduce each other’s girlfriends. It works because, you guessed it, women are just like that (gag), but the boys call off the bet before anybody gets it on with anybody else.  Let’s watch as one of the young guys puts the moves on his best friend’s lover . . . 

·         Die Enrfȕhring aus dem Serail (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”). In this comedy that was written when Mozart was young, a young man named Belmonte rescues is girlfriend Constanze from a harem where she is being held by a Turkish pasha. (Yup, this opera is sexist too, and it uses a harem as a comic setting, which would never fly today.) It was written at a time when most Europeans were tickled by exotic stories that were set in Turkey and the near east. Let’s hear Constanze sing how she will endure any trials while shes is a captive . . . 

·         Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”) an opera that was long misclassified as an opera for kids, actually tells a rather strange story that is packed with Masonic symbolism. (Mozart was a member of the Masonic order and so was Emanuel Schikaneder, the man who wrote the libretto for the opera.) It tells the story of a prince named Tamino and his sidekick, a bird catcher named Papageno, as they embark on adventures that eventually lead them to Pamina and Papagena, their true loves. What makes the opera more than a little weird is that at the beginning of the opera, Tamino is trying to help the Queen of the Night rescue her daughter Pamina from an evil tyrant named Sarastro. But by the end of the opera, the Queen of the Night has become the villain and Sarastro is the good guy. How did that happen? Apparently because the Queen of the Night is a woman, and women are all about leading men astray. (I don’t know, call up the Masons and ask them why that is.)  Let’s see how Papageno the bird catcher first meets Papagena, his true love . . . 

   Check back here for future posts on building your chops as an opera bluffer. Thanks for reading!