Mozart: The Operas

The Mystery of Mozart

Amadeus Mozart died at 35. In the previous fifteen years he had written the six operas that define every genre they inhabit: opera buffa (Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte), opera seria (Idomeneo, La Clemenza di Tito), and the genre-defying singupiels Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Die Zauberflöte.

No composer has ever moved so easily between comedy and tragedy, between depth and surface.

Le Nozze di Figaro (1786)

Beaumarchais's revolutionary comedy about class and desire, transformed by Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto and Mozart's music into something that exceeds both sources. The Act III Canzonetta and Act IV finale are the most perfect ensembles ever written.

Don Giovanni (1787)

The problem opera: comedy, tragedy, supernatural horror, philosophical meditation on desire and consequence. Da Ponte called it a dramma giocoso — a playful drama. Nothing in the title is adequate to what happens.

The Late Operas

Così fan tutte (1790) is the most morally complex of the three da Ponte operas: a thought experiment about fidelity that refuses to resolve. The Magic Flute (1791), written in the last months of Mozart's life, synthesizes Enlightenment Masonry, popular theatrical tradition, and something approaching the metaphysical.