17 min listen
Music History Monday: Idomeneo
ratings:
Length:
22 minutes
Released:
Jan 29, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
We mark the premiere on January 29, 1781 – 243 years ago today – of Wolfgang Mozart’s opera Idomeneo, Re di Creta (“Idomeneo, King of Crete”). With a libretto by Giambattista Varesco (1735-1805), which was adapted from a French story by Antoine Danchet (1671-1748), itself based on a play written in 1705 by the French tragedian Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674 -1762; that’s a lot of writing credits!), Idomeneo received its premiere at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany. Idomeneo was a hit, and it constitutes not just Mozart’s first operatic masterwork but, by consensus, the single greatest Italian-language opera seria ever composed! Setting the Biographical Scene On January 15th, 1779, the 23-year-old Wolfgang Mozart returned home to Salzburg after having been away for 15 months. His trip, which had taken him primarily to Mannheim and Paris, had been both a professional and personal disaster. He had left Salzburg with his mother, filled with high hopes, high spirits, and dreams of finding a permanent job and romance. He returned without his mother (who had died in Paris), without a job, without any money, and without the young woman he had met and fallen in love with during the trip (one Aloysia […]
The post Music History Monday: Idomeneo first appeared on Robert Greenberg.
The post Music History Monday: Idomeneo first appeared on Robert Greenberg.
Released:
Jan 29, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Music History Monday: As American as tarte aux pommes! Celebrating the Fourth with some Real American Music! or Tampering with National Property: We mark the completion on July 4, 1941 – 81 years ago today – of Igor Stravinsky’s reharmonization and orchestration of The Star-Spangled Banner. by Music History Monday