Description

The Abduction from the Seraglio, the earliest of Mozart’s operas to continue to hold the stage today (although Idomeneo enjoys occasional revivals), was composed during the summer of 1781, when Mozart was twenty-five and contemplating marriage to Constanze Weber, who later became his wife. Fittingly enough, the opera’s heroine is also named Constanze. Mozart poured the joy of youthful love into the old mold of the Singspiel (literally, a play with songs), augmenting its traditional form to accord with the newly fashionable preoccupation with all things Turk ish-for the Turks were an ever-present threat to the Vein nese. The finished product-first performed in July 1782 -is remarkable for grace, elegance, and zest, and for char actors who experience the passions of love and hate simply. directly, and without sophisticated self-examination.Mozart’s impeccable taste was instinctive, not learned; from the beginning he possessed a unique melodic facility and a remarkable power to shape the right phrase for a given character or situation. He was able to join the old form and the new fashions into an expression of his own personal style—the music of The Abduction from the Seraglio is as unmistakably Mozart’s as that of Don Gio vanni. Never at variance with the patterns chosen by his predecessors, Mozart, rather, used them to attain his own ends. Thus he was free to achieve the serenity and cohence that were the constant characteristics of his style. The Abduction from the Seraglio includes the convent national hero and heroine-puppets who are called upon to stand and sing incredibly difficult music incredibly well and the sublimely noble Pasha Selim, who does not sing a note. But what will especially endear this opera to the confirmed Mozartian are the three clearly defined character parts, which anticipate many of the roles in the later operas.