Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian-language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany.
Composition
The libretto clearly draws inspiration from Metastasio in its overall layout, the type of character development, and the highly poetic language used in the various numbers and the secco and stromentato recitatives. The style of the choruses, marches, and ballets is very French, and the shipwreck scene towards the end of act 1 is almost identical to the structure and dramatic working-out of a similar scene in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. The sacrifice and oracle scenes are similar to Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide and Alceste.Kurt Kramer has suggested that Varesco was familiar with Calzabigi and therefore the work of Gluck, especially the latter's Alceste; much of what we see in Varesco's most dramatic passages is the latest French style, mediated by Calzabigi. It is thanks to Mozart, though, that this mixture of French styles moves away from Gluck and France and returns to its more Italian roots; the singers were all trained in the classical Italian style, after all, and the recitatives are all classically Italian.
Ballet music, K. 367
As per French tradition, the opera uses ballet to its advantage. Mozart wrote one to be performed in the opera which he considered more of a Lullian divertissement. It is in several parts and lasts around fifteen minutes.The structure is as follows. The first four dances transition into each other, while the last three are separate.
- Chaconne in D major,
- Annonce in B-flat major,
- Chaconne qui reprenda,
- Pas seul in D major — Allegretto, — Piu Allegro, — Piu allegro,
- Passepied in B-flat,
- Gavotte in G,
- Passacaille in E-flat major,
It is unclear exactly where Mozart had intended the divertissement to occur in the opera. In the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Harald Heckmann suggests that it was performed after the first act, but Daniel Heartz states that it must have been performed after the final chorus of the third and last act, citing the majesty and pomposity of the D major Pas seul, perfect for concluding an opera.
Along with the Chaconne up to the Pas seul, which form a consistent whole via attacca transitions, the manuscript is bound with three other dances; a passepied in B-flat, a gavotte in G, and an unfinished passacaille in E-flat. Due to the separation from the first half of the ballet, as well as the incomplete status of them, Daniel Heartz speculates that they were simply never performed.
Gluck's influence on Mozart is demonstrated as the Chaconne begins with a musical quotation from Gluck's ballet from Iphigénie en Aulide.
Performance history
It was first performed at the Cuvilliés Theatre of the Munich Residenz on 29 January 1781, under the musical direction of Christian Cannabich. The opera apparently owed much of its success at its first performance to the set designs: a notice in the Munich press did not mention Mozart by name but said : "The author, composer and translator are all natives of Salzburg; the decors, among which the view of the port and Neptune's temple were outstanding, were masterpieces by our renowned theatre designer, court Councillor Lorenzo Quaglio, and everyone admired them tremendously." Idomeneo was Mozart's first mature opera, in which he – unique among composers – for the first time and continuing this for all his subsequent operas, ended the work in the key of the overture. With Idomeneo, he demonstrated a mastery of orchestral color, accompanied recitatives, and melodic line. Mozart fought with the librettist, the court chaplain Varesco, making large cuts and changes, even down to specific words and vowels disliked by the singers.Idomeneo was performed three times in Munich. Later in 1781 Mozart considered revisions that would have brought the work closer into line with Gluck's style; this would have meant a bass Idomeneo and a tenor Idamante.
A concert performance was given in 1786 at the Palais Auersperg in Vienna. For this, Mozart wrote some new music, made some cuts, and changed Idamante from a castrato to a tenor.
The British premiere was given by the amateur Glasgow Grand Opera Society under Erik Chisholm on 12 March 1934. The first performance in the United States was produced by Boris Goldovsky at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood during the summer of 1947.
Today Idomeneo is part of the standard operatic repertoire. There are several recordings of it, and it is regularly performed.
In 2006 there was a controversy over the cancelling of a 2003 production directed by Hans Neuenfels at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Richard Strauss version
The approach of the 150th anniversary of Idomeneo's premiere placed some major European opera houses in a quandary: commemorative performances of so magnificent and historically important a score seemed obligatory, but, at the same time, how dared they mount an opera that 1930/31 audiences were bound to reject as hopelessly unstageworthy? The solution hit on in Munich and Vienna was to have Idomeneo adapted for modern tastes, but to show due reverence to Mozart's genius by entrusting the adaptations to famous twentieth-century opera composers with impeccable credentials as Mozarteans. Thus Munich commissioned an Idomeneo revision from Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, performed in 1931, and the same year the Vienna State Opera presented a distinctively interventionist version of the score by Richard Strauss.For his adaptation of Idomeneo, Strauss employed a German libretto by Lothar Wallerstein that was partially a translation of the original Italian libretto, but with some changes to reflect the rearranging of the music. Strauss replaced about 1/3 of Mozart's score with some of his own music, and rearranged much of the music left behind. For example, Ilia's opening aria "Padre, germani, addio!" is mostly intact with a few changes to the long introductory recitative, but when Idamante enters, he sings Mozart's Non piu, tutto ascoltai, K490 instead of "Non ho colpa". A few major changes to the plot were made as well, such as changing princess Elettra to priestess Ismene. Critics have noted that Strauss's additions contain an interesting blend of the classical style of composition and Strauss's own characteristic sound. In 1984, New York's Mostly Mozart Festival presented Strauss's version with Jerry Hadley in the title role, Delores Ziegler as Idamante, and Alessandra Marc as Ismene.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 29 January 1781 Conductor: Christian Cannabich |
| Ilia, daughter of King Priam of Troy | soprano | Dorothea Wendling |
| Idomeneo, King of Crete | tenor | Anton Raaff |
| Idamante, son of Idomeneo | soprano castrato, later rewritten as tenor | Vincenzo dal Prato |
| Elettra, Princess of Argos | soprano | Elisabeth Wendling |
| Arbace, Idomeneo's confidant | tenor | Domenico de' Panzacchi |
| High priest of Neptune | tenor | Giovanni Valesi |
| The voice of the Oracle of Neptune | bass | |
| Two Cretan women | soprano and mezzo-soprano | |
| Two Trojans | tenor and bass |
Instrumentation
The instrumentation is:- Woodwinds: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons. B clarinets are used in No. 15 and No. 19.
- Brass: 4 horns /in B, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones
- Percussion: timpani in D and in A
- Basso continuo
- Strings
Synopsis
Overture
The overture, in D major and common time, is in a modified sonata form in which the development is but a very short transition section connecting the exposition with the recapitulation. Other conventional hallmarks of the sonata form are apparent: the exposition modulates from the tonic to the dominant, while the recapitulation is centred on the tonic. The overture concludes with a coda ending in D major chords. These chords, soft and tentative, turn out not to be a resolution of the overture in the tonic but chords in the dominant of G minor, which is the home key of the scene that immediately follows.Act 1
Island of Crete, shortly after the Trojan War. Ilia, daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, has been taken to Crete after the war. She loves Prince Idamante, son of the Cretan King Idomeneo, but hesitates to acknowledge her love. Idamante frees the Trojan prisoners in a gesture of good will. He tells Ilia, who is rejecting his love, that it is not his fault that their fathers were enemies. Trojans and Cretans together welcome the return of peace, but Electra, daughter of the Greek King Agamemnon, is jealous of Ilia and does not approve of Idamante's clemency toward the enemy prisoners. Arbace, the king's confidant, brings news that Idomeneo has been lost at sea while returning to Crete from Troy. Electra, fearing that Ilia, a Trojan, will soon become Queen of Crete, feels the furies of the underworld rise up in her heart.Idomeneo is saved by Neptune and is washed up on a Cretan beach. There he recalls the vow he made to Neptune: to sacrifice, if he should arrive safely on land, the first living creature he should meet. Idamante approaches him, but because the two have not seen each other for a long time, recognition is difficult. When Idomeneo finally realizes the youth that he must sacrifice for the sake of his vow is his own child, he orders Idamante never to seek him out again. Grief-stricken by his father's rejection, Idamante runs off. In an Intermezzo between Acts 1 and 2, Cretan troops disembarking from Idomeneo's ship are met by their wives, and all praise Neptune.