Theatre music from Mozart's Vienna

Abstract

As with Giuseppe Gazzaniga's Venetian Don Giovanni, modern interest in Der Stein der Weisen (The Philosopher's Stone) is largely due to the existence of a related opera by Mozart. The cases are, however, entirely different. Da Ponte used the one-act libretto of Gazzaniga's opera, by Giovanni Bertati, as his chief source for Mozart's Don Giovanni, expanding it into a full-length opera. Die Zauberflöte (1791) was written for Emanuel Schikaneder's company at the Theater auf der Wieden, which had presented Der Stein der Weisen a year earlier, with considerable success. Der Stein der Weisen was a product of musical collaboration, typical for that theatre. A score now in Hamburg, emanating from 1790s Vienna, is in a number of copyists’ hands (identified by Dexter Edge); this source was brought to public attention by David Buch, because in it most of the opera is attributed to one of five composers, including...