The Mozart Da Ponte Operas

This book charts the musical, cultural, and social contexts of Mozart's collaborations with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, illuminating these great masterpieces along with Mozart's creative process and the functions of 18th-century opera.

The partnership of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, composer and librettist respectively for The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte, was one of the most extraordinary collaborations in the history of opera. The book features biographic profiles of composer and librettist - Mozart: Master of Musical Characterization, and Da Ponte: Ambassador of Italian Culture plus a complete portrait of each opera, featuring, Principal Characters, Brief Story Synopsis, Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples and complete Libretto, with Italian and English translations side-by-side."

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This reference guide provides access to almost 1,000 books, book chapters, articles, and dissertations about the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. Mozart and Da Ponte collaborated on these operas between 1786 and 1791. The literature detailed in this volume includes material published from Mozart's death to the present. Following an introduction to the operas, the bibliography section lists the literature by works in general and by each of the three operas. A discography groups entries by opera and original recording date. This guide will appeal to music and opera scholars. As an essential research tool, sections are cross-referenced throughout. Separate author, title, and subject indexes complete the volume.

A comprehensive guide to the 3 operas Mozart composed to librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte, featuring complete translated Librettos, Story Narrative with Music examples, and Burton D. Fisher's in depth Commentary and Analysis.

The three Mozart/Da Ponte operas offer a inexhaustible wellspring for critical reflection, possessing a complexity and equivocation common to all great humane works. They have the potential to reflect and refract whatever locus of contemporaneity may be the starting point for enquiry. Thus, even postmodern and postmillennial concerns, far from seeming irrelevant to these operas, are instead given new perspectives by them, while the music and the dramatic situations have the multivalency to accept each refreshed palette of interpretation without loss of their essential character. These operas seem perennially new. In exploring the evergreen qualities of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, the authors of this book do not shun approaches that have foundations in established theory, but refract them through such problems as the tension between operatic tradition and psychological realism, the coexistence of multiple yet equal plots, and the antagonism between the tenets of tradition and the need for self-actualization. In exploring such themes, the authors not only illuminate new aspects of Mozart's operatic compositions but also probe the nature of musical analysis itself.

John Wells introduces the opera with a high-spirited account of the action-packed career of the author, in many respects the prototype of Figaro himself. Basil Deane explores the score: he shows that Mozart's characters are illuminated here not so much in soliloquies but in their reactions to each other. Composer Stephen Oliver discusses how the comedy exists not just in the words but, essentially, in the music. The full Italian text is given, with a note on the order of scenes in Act Three and the alternative passages Mozart wrote for the 1789 revival. The classic translation of E.J. Dent is an excellent way to get to know the twists and turns of the plot and the stylish wit of da Ponte's innuendos.Contents: A Society Marriage, John Wells; A Musical Commentary, Basil Deane; Music and Comedy in 'The Marriage of Figaro, Stephen Oliver; Beaumarchais's Characters; Le nozze di Figaro: Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte; The Marriage of Figaro: English version by Edward J. Dent