Echoes of Ancient Physiognomics in Mozart’s Singspiel Libretto “Zaide”
Abstract
The article is devoted to «Mozart’s Singspiel “Zaide”» (1778/79), an incomplete “German light opera” which was discovered after the composer’s death. This work remained in the shadow of another composition with a similar Turkish plot, namely “Die Entführung aus dem Serail”. It is not surprising that its evaluation has little changed since Otto Jahn and Hermann Abert’s time when Mozart’s Singspiel was regarded as not quite successful, and they thought of its libretto as its weak side, which had been made by Andreas Schachtner, a Salzburg musician and poet. The first part of the article sheds light on the libretto and discusses some reasons of why it sought a negative opinion, moreover it reveals what subjective and objective reasons led to the work remaining incomplete and not being staged during Mozart’s lifetime and why during the Romanticism Schachtner’s text was perceived as “not poetic and inept”, though the composer and his contemporaries praised the verses quite high. In the second part of the article the texts of two Italian arias (No 9 and 13) are considered in a context of physiognomic views of the-then time, which were deeply rooted in the antiquity, namely in Aristotle’s physiognomics doctrine. They are obviously characterised by reminiscences of an Italian opera opposition of common animal images of a lion and tigress as the brightest representation of fauna masculine and feminine types, respectively, rooted the in ancient zoophysiognomics. In Schachtner-Mozart’s Singspiel this opposition is not treated with the classicism unambiguity as in libretti by P. Metastasio which was imitated by the poet, but it rather stands out as a masterly played contamination of these animal metaphors, a peculiar game of masks, which is more inherent in baroque poetics. Such a treatment seems to be reasonable in connection with the gender problematic, that was peculiar to creative works by Mozart as a whole, mostly, certainly to his scenic works, which is shown by the analysis of male and female musical language in “Le nozze di Figaro” performed by the Austrian musician J. Wallnig.
Keywords:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Andreas Schachtner, Gottlieb Stephanie the Younger, Pietro Metastasio, Otto Jahn, Hermann Abert, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, «Zaide», Singspiel, libretto, Italian opera, Italian aria, Aristotle, metaphor, ancient physiognomics, zoophysiognomics, gender, masculine type, feminine type, lion, tigress
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.