Opera History

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😂The famous tenor Leo Slezak was about to enter the swan boat for his entrance in the opera Lohengrin but because of some stagehand mistake , the boat took off without him. He turned to someone and said 'Wann geht der nächste Schwann?' 'What time is the next swan?'

You can hear him singing the swan aria here : https://youtu.be/wawGyfFiFR0?feature=shared

Illustration by Franziska Bilek

And the Oscar for sassiness goes to...

What Opera History is reading at the moment and recommends 🥰 :

Salaries of the Stars during the Golden Era of Opera 🤑💵💰

Toscanini with Gatti in 1908
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From Opera Anecdotes

He felt he was making progress too, I guess

Badass castrato , the king of kings 🥰 ,

🧐HISTORICAL PHOTO OF THE LAST CASTRATI !
The choir of Ca****la Sistina in Vatican in 4/3/1898.
The last 7 castrati singers depicted are :
1 Giovanni Cesari. 2 Domenico Salvatori. 3 Domenico Mustafà. 4 Alessandro Moreschi. 5 Vincenzo Sebastianelli. 6 Gustavo Pesci. 7 Giuseppe Ritarossi.

A few data I gathered from different sources. Stay tuned!🙃

𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗖𝗶𝗧𝗮𝗧𝗶𝘃𝗘𝘀 !😄

😳9 𝘙𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘋𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘦!? 𝘐𝘯 𝘛𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘙𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘰 (𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘢)!? 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢!? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬? 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘔𝘰𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘧 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘙𝘦𝘊𝘪𝘛𝘢𝘵𝘐𝘷𝘌𝘚 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴!?

TODAY no established theater would give such a rehearsal time for a newly composed opera. At least 4-6 weeks of rehearsals is almost a standard for new productions. Less rehearsal time is given when a production repeats though. So, how to make sense of this 1770 rehearsal schedule?

BACK THEN
1️⃣The work on was already done at that point. Mozart has met with his singers and written the arias to accommodate and showcase their voices. In same cases, like for Mitridate (Guglielmo D'Ettore) he had to rewrite an aria 4 times until it pleased them.

2️⃣The of Mitridate had already been used just 3 years ago by Gasparini. D'Ettore was again Mitridate in that opera as well. So he knew the part and in fact at the premiere he interpolated one of Gasparini's arias because he didn't like Mozart's. Ah, tenors...

3️⃣Most of that era were badasses in sightreading. Almost all of them were taught composition and had really no problem to learn new scores. In fact that's what they were doing all the time, learning new music constantly.

4️⃣The was also easily most of the times sightreading and Mozart's musical language was surely familiar to them. Their first rehearsal was between the 12 and 17 December.

So what's left to rehearse? The RECITATIVES 😁

😎This badass guy with the fluffy wig is Jean Racine(1639-1699). He was one of the most important dramatists of the 17th century. He mainly wrote tragedies alla grecque...(Sofocleus, Euripides etc)

Moliere and Racine were initially good friends but Racine was too ambitious and secretly negotiated one of his plays to be staged by a rival company of Moliere's despite the success it had with him. On top of that, he fell in love with Moliere's leading actress and they both abandoned his troup. Moliere never forgave him...Well, I wouldn't either...😅

However he climbed the ladder of success and ended up writing plays for King Louis XIV.

7 Operas ( And Oratorios) that are still in repertoire today are based on his plays :

(1) Ermione (Rossini) = Andromaque
(2) Athalia (Händel) = Athalie
(3) Esther (Händel)
(4) Ezio (Händel) = Britannicus
(5) Hippolyte et Aricie (Rameau) = Phedre
(6) Iphigenie en Aulide (Gluck) =Iphigenie
(7) Mitridate, Re di Ponto (Mozart) = Mithridate

The play Mithridate was King Louis XIV favourite one. Probably he was afraid he would be poisoned, who knows?

A Mitridate by Porpora was recently revived in 2017!

And no, Vivaldi's Bajazet has no relation to Racine's Bajazet !