Music, Poetry, and Drama in Mozart's Arias before Die Entführung aus dem Serail

M usic, Poetry, and D ram a in M ozart'szyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba A rias before Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serail A . P E T E R B R O W N .Among the letters of Mozart to his father Leopold, the most memorable musical revelations are to be found in the correspondence from the fall of 1780 through the fall of 1781 when Wolfgang was in Munich composing Idom eneo and then in Vienna writing D ie E ntfiihrung aus dem Serail.1 These epistles deal not only with the explication of the ideas behind specific operatic numbers, but also with general aesthetic con­ cerns about music and text. The correspondence makes clear that Mozart demanded revisions from the librettist so that the text is both musically and dramatically viable. Certainly, the most quoted of these statements is to be found in the letter from mid-October 1781 concerning D ie Entfiihrung*. I should say that in an opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient daughter of the music. Why do Italian comic operas please everywhere — in spite of their miserable libretti — even in Paris, where I myself witnessed their success? Just because there the music reigns supreme and when one listens to it all else is forgotten. Why an opera is sure of success when the plot is well worked out, the words written solely for the music and not shoved in here and there to suit some miserable rhyme (which, God knows, never enhances the value of any theatrical performance, be it what it may, but rather detracts from it) — I mean, words or even entire verses which ruin the composer’s whole idea. Verses are indeed the most indispensable element for 263 264 / BROWN music —but rhymes — solely for the sake of rhyming—the most detrimental.2 The above letter is open to several interpretations. First, it can be seen as a commentary on the state of operatic practice in which the music comes first, the text second. This contradicts Christoph Willibald Gluck’s preface to ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA A lceste (1768), which seems to have been on Mozart’s mind, since he takes an about-face with a gloss on the older master’s statement: for Gluck the music serves the poetry, for Mozart and his contemporaries writing Italian opera, the poetry serves the music. Sec­ ondly, it can be viewed as a commentary on Mozart’s own practices. Some have taken it as an expression of a new concept that was first applied to D ie E ntfuhrung and the Viennese operas which followed. But this, in light of the music itself, seems too limiting. In this essay it will be argued that this letter is an indicator of a shift in perspective that gradually took place in Mozart’s arias up to the time of D ie E ntfuhrung. From his first opera to Idom eneo Mozart evolves from a composer restrained by a conservative model of the existing aria forms to one who departs from it incrementally as he absorbs the more flexible approach of contemporary practice.3 Before we turn to Mozart’s arias themselves, let us review the charac­ teristics of the mainstay of mid-century Italian opera, the da capo aria. In this model a poetic structure of two verses is superimposed upon a three-part (A-B-A) musical form (Figure 1). A contains the first verse of text, and B the second. It should be emphasized that the first verse is normally confined to A , the second to B . As Gluck tells us in the 1768 A lceste preface, within A the verse will be sung twice, so with the repetition of A , verse one will be heard a total of four times. Within A , individual lines may also be repeated: the most repetitions are normally reserved for the last line for both poetic and musical closure. Furthermore, the repetition of lines usually maintains the structure of the strophe by preserving the beginning, internal order, and ending. Between each complete statement of the text in A occur instrumental ritornellos. In B , changes in key or mode, tempo, meter, melody, and sound often provide contrast to A ; the text will normally...