Frederick the Great, discussion post 6
Dec. 2nd, 2019 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.
(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)
Frederick the Great masterpost
(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)
Frederick the Great masterpost
Tarare: Salieri and Mozart (and of course Shaffer)
Date: 2019-12-05 08:48 pm (UTC)Eeee, thank you for the links to Salieri/Beaumarchais' opera! I'm listening to the recording of Tarare cited in the article right now on Spotify. (The Italian version does not appear to have been recorded by anyone.) I am only about half through, but so far I actually quite like the music, even without understanding what's going on! (It helps that the recording is excellent, of course, but that's not the only thing -- I've definitely heard excellent recordings of music I wasn't particularly taken by.) I think Shaffer!Mozart was a little tough on it :P (Though I think it was also specifically acted (by Abraham) and possibly directed in a way that didn't show it in its best light to child!me.) It's not the groundbreaking stuff Mozart was -- in fact, the music reminds me a lot of Gluck -- but well done for what it is. (I was interested that the article talked about Beaumarchais' feelings about the words having primacy over the music, and Salieri going along with that, because Gluck was about music not being more important than words, yes? and I think, as we've discussed, that is a big part of why I like Gluck better than the people earlier than him. And perhaps part of what I like about this as well.)
It's giving me a lot of ~feelings~ with respect to Salieri and Mozart (and Shaffer's conception of same, of course) -- I'd never listened to any Salieri opera before this, and certainly not since I actually got into opera last year (although I enjoyed Gluck opera earlier than that). But now that I have rather more musical context (than when child!me watched Amadeus, lol) while listening to this, I can totally see how Salieri was famous and loved when he was writing this music; he really seems to hit all the beats quite well and it's what people were used to at the time. And I think even now that if this were somehow unearthed as "very late Gluck" instead of Salieri that people would be falling over themselves reviving it. ...But it's not late Gluck, it is looking backwards even if it's doing it quite well, and Mozart was looking forward, and after a while Salieri must have seemed hopelessly old-fashioned.
...Which of course is everything that Shaffer said. And I said Shaffer!Mozart was tough on Salieri, but this is making me remember that Shaffer!Mozart's flash point for anger was feeling that no one was really getting him or his music, and I can see that feeding into his (hilarious) passive-aggressive taunts of Shaffer!Salieri, and why he apologizes for it at the end.
Gah, though, I'm gonna have to learn my French again so I can read this libretto :P (Or order the CD.)
(Also, partially inspired by our discussion of Joseph, I started listening to Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (well, OK, the Sung in English version) which I've never actually listened to before, and it is great, lol. Although apparently the one tiny bit that shows up in Amadeus has imprinted itself in some deep circuit in my brain, because when I heard it I sat straight up and was all, "It's THAT bit!" I don't think I have had that experience with any of the other music in the movie, although I've also seen/heard the others quite a lot more.)
Re: Tarare: Salieri and Mozart (and of course Shaffer)
Date: 2019-12-06 07:06 am (UTC)Gluck was who Salieri learned his trade from, so it makes much sense you're reminded of him!
Entführung aus dem Serail was the second opera I ever heard, after The Magic Flute, because of course German school kids are introduced to opera via the later - it's a fairy tale, it's in a language they can understand, and it's Mozart! Then Entführung, because again, understandable for Kids. Will you do a post on it?
Re: Tarare: Salieri and Mozart (and of course Shaffer)
Date: 2019-12-10 04:46 am (UTC)Do you have Spotify, though? (I know it exists in Germany!) It has changed my musical listening life, in the sense that now I can listen to eeeeeeeverything, like four different versions of Don Carlo(s) (it's got a lot more, I just got tired listening after that) or everything Simon Keenlyside has ever recorded :P Or Tarare! I highly recommend Spotify! :)
I'll do a post on Entführung but probably not until actually watching it, which... umm. Not sure when that's going to happen. (It will happen! But eventually.) I usually listen at work, which means that I've only got half my mind on it and miss a LOT, which usually comes out when I watch it :) (Although one of the barriers to listening to Entführung has been that Mozart operas are so sparkly that I have trouble listening to them at work because I want to pay attention! The other reason I was able to listen was that I had a really dull task (literally copying stuff which because of various reasons I couldn't just cut and paste) where I only had to give it minimal attention.)
Re: Tarare: Salieri and Mozart (and of course Shaffer)
Date: 2019-12-07 08:07 am (UTC)Nancy (da Ponte's young bride): OMG you didn't tell me you know Casanova?!?
LdP: WHY WOULD THAT BE OF INTEREST? He's not that hot. I am totally the hotter Venetian with the more interesting life! And, and, and just for the record to you, readers: in his memoirs, he left out the time he swindled a French old aristocratic lady by selling her a drought of eternal youth and using a young prostitute for his con! That's the kind of man he is, readers and Nancy! And then there was the time when I totally saw him palming someone's ring. So okay, that someone had stolen from him first, but what kind of gentleman knows how to palm someone's ring by shaking their hand? Not a real gentleman, that's what I'm saying. Chevalier de Seingalt indeed. Okay, he gave me one useful tip which I ignored to my detriment, i.e. never to sign anything in England, because the Brits totally put you in prison for debts you didn't even make. But other than that. Just look where we ended up! He's stuck in Bohemia being a librarian, while I'm currently everyone's favourite librettist in Vienna, and Emperor Joseph himself thinks I rock!
Nancy: So can you introduce us?
LdP: NO. *writes Don Giovanni*
Seriously though, it's one of those teasing fragmentary collection of facts which never make a complete whole that DaPonte and Casanova knew each other, and that Casanova attended the world premiere of Don Giovanni in Prague. So did he and Mozart ever meet either before or after the premiere? We just don't know. More than one novel, though, went for a meeting on that occasion. (Hanns Ortheil wrote one where Casanova pisses da Ponte additionally off by critisizing Don Giovanni as a character, pointing out he's less a seducer and more of a rapist, and if you can't convince a woman to have sex with you by making her want you so much she seduces you, you're not much of a Don Juan anyway.) The problem is that Casanova's own memoirs don't reach that far. (We know he saw Don Giovanni through his letters, where he praises the opera but does not say whether or not he met the composer.)
In general, da Ponte's memoirs are frustrating, because on the one hand, you empathize. He was Jewish - his father converted in order to get a job when Lorenzo was a kid - and you can imagine what that meant in just about every place he ever lived, Italian, German, Austrian, British, didn't matter. Well, okay, he settled down in New York in the end, and that was okay. So no wonder he has a massive chip on the shoulder. But otoh, all the empasis on how he was the true genius of geniuses means that there is practically nothing about Mozart in his memoirs. Three collaboriations, three immortal masterpieces, and does he tell a single anecdote about what Mozart was like as a person, what it was like collaborating with him? Nope. It's all:
"So, Mozart. Wonderful music as we all know, which I totally knew he was writing back in the day. Now he only had a measly opera in GERMAN in his life record when we met - " in correct, btw - "and Emperor Joseph himself asked me to take pity on the poor fellow and write an opera with him. Trying to find a subject, I had the genius idea of that Beaumarchais play which Joseph had forbidden the performance of, but being buddies with the Emperor - did I mention yet Joseph was totally into me in the last three pages yet? - meant there was no problem, and so I told Mozart to write Figaro. Which he did." *memoirs detail other operas with other composers* "And then we did Don Giovanni. Totally my idea, of course. Sadly flopped in Vienna at first, but the Bohemians in Prague had loved it and kept it going. These days, everyone loves it, mostly due to my masterful libretto, I guess. And no, not going to tell you about Cosi, our third opera together, because we're in the 19th century now and everyone tells me it's shameless to present women that way. And yeah, that's it about Mozart."
There's more about Salieri, though, since they collaborated on several operas, but it's again mostly about himself - i.e. Salieri appreciating what a total genius Da Ponte is. They eventually have a fall out which Da Ponte sincerely regrets, as he concludes "haven't heard from him in the last thirty years, but if you're reading this, Salieri, I'd love to get back in contact! I still love you! Let's get together, come here to New York! Let's be friends again!"
Re: this particular opera, Da Ponte of course thinks his version is an improvement over Beaumarchais' original script, and also that Salieri "seemed to have left his gift for melodies at the Seine for a while" since Salieri's next opera (minus Da Ponte's genius input) wasn't such a great success, but then they got back together again.
...see what I mean?
Da Ponte
Date: 2019-12-10 05:37 am (UTC)...as you know I think Figaro is rather a transcendent work of genius, and I also love Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte and think they're wonderful and very witty, but I confess I have always wondered a bit about the mind that would create those librettos (I have always thought there's a bit of an edge to DG and Cosi, though I don't feel it in Figaro). And now... I guess I know.
And then there was the time when I totally saw him palming someone's ring. So okay, that someone had stolen from him first, but what kind of gentleman knows how to palm someone's ring by shaking their hand? Not a real gentleman, that's what I'm saying.
HAHAHAHA I love this, da Ponte you are not really succeeding in making him sound less fascinating
LdP: NO. *writes Don Giovanni*
Wooooooow. That... adds a whole new gloss to DG.
Re: Da Ponte
Date: 2019-12-10 12:32 pm (UTC)But his thing with Casanova is really noteworthy, and makes for a very vivid passage in his memoirs, because for once he's describing someone without every second sentence being a compliment to himself.
One night I dreamed in Vienna that I saw a man in a ditch who narrowed his eyes at me, and when he recognized me, sank into my arms. It seemed to me, by the way, as if Salieri was with us as a third party. I told my brother about this dream.
Salieri used to visit me every morning back then; on the day of the dream, he came at the usual hour, and we strolled through the public gardens. When I came close to the ditch I noticed an old man sitting on a bench who narrowed his eyes at me. And while I still was searching my memory for who it could be, he rose and approached me with vivid gesticulation. It was him! It was Casanova, who called: "Dear Da Ponte, what a pleasure to see you again!" These were the words I had heard in my dream.
He was in Vienna then for a while, and neither I nor anyone else could tell you what he was doing there. I often saw him; my house and my purse were open to him, and even if I disapproved of his (lack of ) principles and his behavior, which made me avoid introducing him to my beloved, I could have avoided many miseries and troubles if I had listened to some of his advice.
(Casanova while strolling with Da Ponte comes across the servant who ran off with all the money they'd made while conning the old French aristocrat. The servant says he was just practicing what Casanova taught him, and:)
Casanova smiled and whispered in my ear: "The scoundrel is right!" Thereafter he approached the coffee house again, signalled to Costa - the former servant - to come to him; this occured, and now the two of them strolled arm in arm and chatted as harmlessly as if nothing had happened between them. A while later, they separated and repeatedly shook hands, as if they were two old, good friends. When Casanova returned to me, I noticed a ring on his finger, a ring with a cut stone which I had not noticed him wearing before; and through a strange coincidence, the cut stone showed Hermes. (I.e. the god of thieves.) This scene adequately renders the character of the man; I surely need not comment any further.
Re: Da Ponte
Date: 2019-12-16 10:49 pm (UTC)And oh, that's a really neat story! Lol, you can comment way further if you want, da Ponte!
Da Ponte: *facepalm*