Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 3 Idomeneo

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O 28 | October 13 - November 2, 2018 Idomeneo is Mozart’s first mature opera, and it remains one of his most profound and musically satisfying. Although its premiere took place on January 27, 1781, just after the composer’s 25th birthday, the opera provides one of Mozart’s most searching explorations of some cherished Mozartean themes: the triumph of love over hatred, and of reconciliation and mercy over revenge and rigidity. Unlike most of his best-loved works, it is an opera seria , with no admixture of comedy; and although it contains haunting stories of romantic and familial love, it is also a political opera, whose three acts all end with choral singing and with a statement about how the choices of the characters affect the political community. In both of these respects, it has strong links to La clemenza di Tito , one of Mozart’s last two operas; but Idomeneo ’s libretto is far better written, and Mozart got a chance to write all of its music, including the recitatives, which time pressure prevented him from writing himself in the later work. In 1780 Mozart and librettist Giambattista Varesco were commissioned by Karl eodor, Elector of Bavaria, to write an opera for a court performance. Mozart seems to have had a key role in the choice of the subject. Varesco’s libretto was based on a French drama by Antoine Danchet, which had already been turned into an opera by another composer in 1712. Many letters between Mozart and his father Leopold inform us about the opera’s development. We learn that key roles were fitted to singers whom Mozart preferred, and that the libretto and music required, ultimately, many cuts in order to be suitable for the court performance. e work premiered at the Cuvilliés eater in Munich. Mozart was not happy with many of the cuts, and today the opera is typically performed virtually uncut. A second performance in Vienna in 1786 occasioned a major rewrite of some scenes, the restoration of many cuts, and a total recasting of the role of Idamante: sung by a castrato soprano at the premier, the role was adapted for a tenor in the Vienna version. Today most productions return to the original scoring, giving the role Idomeneo: e Realm of Love By Martha C. Nussbaum to a female mezzo-soprano. is permits the close harmonies in the Ilia-Idamante duet that are among the opera’s most moving effects, and the exploration of Idamante’s gender-atypical gentleness. Like Sesto in Clemenza and Cherubino in e Marriage of Figaro , he is a tender, loving type of male who eschews the common male competition for honor and domination (while still slaying the sea-serpent!), so it seems fitting, both dramatically and musically, that we honor through this casting Mozart’s critique of traditional gender norms. e founding theorists of opera, during the 17th century, were obsessed by the Greeks and the Romans and by the genre of tragedy, since they were attempting to wrest vocal music away from ecclesiastical control and to create a secular genre of music drama that allowed the fortunes of individual characters to take center stage (as they could not in religious choral music). ey also appropriated the Greek tragic idea of a universe in which morality and justice do not reign and individuals must wrestle with blind amoral forces, creating love and justice (if at all) from within themselves. It is no surprise that Mozart followed this lead. Committed throughout his adult life to the Enlightenment ethos of the Freemasons, which replaced religious authority with secular ideas of brotherhood, equality, and freedom, Mozart clearly found in Greek and Roman sources the opportunity to create a political universe in which the gods are not moral, and in which human beings must take upon themselves the task of creating a decent political community. Choosing a story in which the gods demand a ridiculous and immoral sacrifice, he seems to present a critique of traditional religion (perhaps even alluding critically to the Abraham-Isaac story?). But in keeping with his Masonic optimism about the power of human freedom and reason, the world of Idomeneo is not the Greek tragic universe of blind fate. e opera’s universe is an ultimately untragic place in which people really can MARTY SOHL/METROPOLITAN OPERA (Above) Anton Raaff was Mozart’s first Idomeneo. Matthew Polenzani sang the role at the Metropolitan Opera in 2017.