Performing Operas for Mozart

Impresarios, Singers and Troupes

Ian Woodfield

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781107014299
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139211581
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Opera Music

The Italian opera company in Prague managed by Pasquale Bondini and Domenico Guardasoni played a central role in promoting Mozart's operas during the final years of his life. Using a wide range of primary sources which include the superb collections of eighteenth-century opera posters and concert programmes in Leipzig and the Indice de' teatrali spettacoli, an almanac of Italian singers and dancers, this study examines the annual schedules, recruitment networks, casting policies and repertoire selections of this important company. Ian Woodfield shows how Italian-language performances of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito flourished along the well-known cultural axis linking Prague in Bohemia to Dresden and Leipzig in Saxony. The important part played by concert performances of operatic arias in the early reception of Mozart's works is also discussed and new information is presented about the reception of Josepha Duschek and Mozart in Leipzig.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Performing Operas for Mozart
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Figures
• Tables
• Musical examples
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: Pasquale Bondini
• 2: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
• 3: The Italian troupe in Prague
• 4: The Prague Figaro
• 5: The genesis of Don Giovanni
• 6: The première of Don Giovanni
• 7: The casting of Don Giovanni
• 8: The Leipzig Don Giovanni
• 9: The 1788 Prague Don Giovanni
• 10: Mozart's music in Leipzig
• 11: Josepha Duschek's academy (22 April 1788)
• 12: Mozart's academy (12 May 1789)
• 13: Guardasoni in Warsaw
• 14: The première of La clemenza di Tito
• 15: The Leipzig reception of the Da Ponte operas (1792–1794)
• 16: Guardasoni diversifies
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Leipzig posters for performances given by the Bondini–Guardasoni Company
• Appendix 2: Announcements placed in the Leipziger Zeitungen by the Bondini–Guardasoni Company 1782–1784
• Appendix 3: Concert performances of music from Haydn’s operas in Leipzig (1785–1791)
• Appendix 4: Selected details of benefit concerts given by instrumentalists in Leipzig 1780–1789
• Appendix 5: Performances of Mozart’s music at the Gewandhaus Subscription Concerts (1791–1794) [G] and the Dilettanten Concert (1793–1794) [R]
• Appendix 6: Music from La clemenza di Tito in Leipzig concerts (1795–1797)
• Appendix 7: Music from Idomeneo in Leipzig Concerts (1795–1797)
• Bibliography
• Index