Mozart "Abduction" and Forgiveness idea

On the ocassion of Mozart's 250th Birthday Anniversery I decided to work on The Abduction from the Seraglio with the Dover score and two recordings I had, one complete one used in the movie "Mozart in Turkey" and the other a selections CD from Laserlight. This latter is notable for the beautiful voice of Sylvia Greenverg as Blonde. Secondarily, I celebrated the event by seeing this same opera and then Cose fan Tutte on DVD, the latter has Cicillia Bartoli as Flordiligi from the Zurich Opera under Nicolas Honnicourt. From studying the subtitles it became clear to me that although the class roles of the characters, including the "Masque" aspect, where a character of one rank assumes the disguise of another to provide a parody of class distinctions, the element of forgiveness and loosening and abayance of expected rights is paramont.

In Seraglio the Pasha Selime, a corrupted form of my last name in Arabic, "The Peaceful One", lives up to that and frees salves from a shipwreck even as he hears that one of them is the son of a Spainish Noble who inflicted loss on him. The same is true in La Clemenza di Tito, a wonderful work that dates from the same time as Magic Flute in which the Roman emperor Titus forgives a plot against him from his own wife. Cosi also has the same feature. The women do give in to the attentions of the other lover, each betrothed disguised as an Albanian stranger, after great resistance, are found out and confess, but are granted forgiveness.

A couple of points. The Dover Score, which is widely available, has voice parts in C-clef, so it is hard to use if you are unfamiliar with reading those. A little practice is needed.

Seraglio and Magic Flute are in German with lots of spoken dialogue. This is the "Singspiel", an emerging type of opera which Beethoven's Fidelio is another example. Most of the other Mozart Operas are Italian Opera with no spoken dialogue. In Mozart's day most of the nerration was cast as secco recitative or dry dialogue set to nusic accompanyed by continuo. It usually freely modulates from the key of the preceeding to the key of the next piece. If the Recitative is especially dranatic, it is fully orchestrated. The ensamble and arias are "set", they elaborate an emotional state in the action. This is also true of the cantata literature, i.e. Bach.