For you, that lord over life,
Death, was not dreadful,
And in vain did he wield
His spear against you:
For through the realm of sorrow
Hope went by your side,
And her adamantine shield
Above your head did hang.
To Joy (excerpt, trans. Sophie Kidd), poem by Johann Peter Uz (1720—96)
which Mozart set to music at the age of twelve
The preparation of Zaide in 1780 was a decisive turning point in Mozart’s career. This Singspiel, spontaneously composed for the Viennese court of the ‘enlightened despot’ Joseph II and left incomplete, shines for the humanist themes it explores. For the first time, Mozart built a musical and dramaturgical echo chamber for what he believed to be right and good: the fight against tyranny, the power of true love and, above all, the inalienable quest for freedom. Even if Zaide draws on clichés of the ‘rescue’ plot and on the rococo turqueries of the period as its starting points, it surpasses them in terms of the psychological depth with which Mozart portrays his characters, and the rare musical intensity of the drama.
Following Mozart’s first departure from Salzburg in 1777, great changes had taken place in his life: his decisive meeting with his new friend Haydn, his discoveries of Munich and of the Mannheim orchestra, his disappointed love for Aloysia Weber, his disillusionment in Paris and the tragic death of his mother. Mozart returned to Salzburg and to the service of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo with a heavy heart. However, he also returned to his native city profoundly changed. The large-scale vocal works he composed from then on carried the spirit of the Enlightenment and the philosophical and aesthetic movements that were stirring Europe. Zaide was the starting point for this new aesthetic, which refused to make concessions to gallant taste and instead explored the truth of the human soul. How can we fail to see a direct link between Mozart’s gradual emancipation from his tutelage (leaving Colloredo, leaving Salzburg, leaving his father) and his blossoming in the dramatic and sacred masterpieces to come: Idomeneo (1780—1), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1781—2), the Great Mass in C minor (1782—3), and more.
What transforms us? What makes us better? These were the questions discussed in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. Mozart, who was soon to be admitted to the Viennese Masonic lodge ‘Zur Wohltätigkeit’, made them his own by proposing a vision of humanity that, while never ceasing to be troubled by doubt, allows love and forgiveness to triumph.
In Libertà! Mozart & l’Opéra (2019), Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon explored the musical and dramaturgical laboratory that preceded the three great masterpieces of the Mozart / Da Ponte trilogy. With this new creation for the Salzburg Festival, which delves into the rarely performed Zaide and Davide penitente (based on the Great Mass in C minor), along with other Mozart gems, they compose a humanist fresco where the individual and the collective respond to each other; where the battle between light and shadow is reenacted at every moment.
Eddy Garaudel