United States or Saudi Arabia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I am ex commissione to write a formal answer in his name to the Abbate Varesco, but I have no time, and was not born to be a secretary. Then the king might address a few words to his trusty companions, and desire them to leave him alone, which in his melancholy situation would be quite natural.
Here he remained for a little while, and wrote his first serious opera, "Idomeneo," to the text of an Abbe Varesco, a Salzburger. This opera Beethoven thought the finest of all that Mozart wrote. It was brought out at Munich in January, 1781, and was brilliantly successful.
The Abbate Varesco in Salzburg was the author of the libretto, in which many an alteration had yet to be made, and these were all to be effected through the intervention of the father. Munich, Nov. 8, 1780.
In the meantime say to Varesco in my name, that he will not get a farthing from Count Seeau beyond the contract, for all the alterations were made FOR ME and not for the Count, and he ought to be obliged to me into the bargain, as they were indispensable for his own reputation.
The prediction of the oracle is still far too long, so I have shortened it; but Varesco need know nothing of this, because it will all be printed just as he wrote it. Madame von Robinig will bring with her the payment both for him and Schachtner. Herr Geschwender declined taking any money with him.
The libretto, by the Abbé Giambattista Varesco, was modelled upon an earlier French work which had already been set to music by Campra. Idomeneo, King of Crete, on his way home from the siege of Troy, is overtaken by a terrific storm. In despair of his life, he vows that, should he reach the shore alive, he will sacrifice the first human being he meets to Neptune.
Ask the Abbate Varesco if we could not break off at the chorus in the second act, "Placido e il mare" after Elettra's first verse, when the chorus is repeated, at all events after the second, for it is really far too long. I have been confined to the house two days from my cold, and, luckily for me, I have very little appetite, for in the long run it would be inconvenient to pay for my board.
The Abbato Varesco is not obliged to rewrite the act on account of these things, for they can easily be interpolated. I have also written that both I and others think the oracle's subterranean speech too long to make a good effect. Reflect on this. I must now conclude, having such a mass of writing to do.
Word Of The Day