Overview

When Joseph II placed his opera buffa troupe in competition with the re-formed Singspiel, he provoked an intense struggle between supporters of the rival national genres, who organized claques to cheer or hiss at performances, and encouraged press correspondents to write slanted notices. It was in this fraught atmosphere that Mozart collaborated with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte on his three mature Italian comedies--Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cos� fan tutte. In Cabals and Satires: Mozart's Comic Operas in Vienna, Ian Woodfield brings the fascinating dynamics of this inter-troupe contest into focus. He reveals how Mozart, while not immune from the infighting, was able to weather satirical attacks, successfully negotiate the unpredictable twists and turns of theatre politics during the lean years of the Austro-Turkish War, and seal his reputation with a revival of Figaro in 1789 as a Habsburg festive work. Mozart's deft navigation of the turbulent political waters of this period left him well placed to benefit from the revival of the commercial stage in Vienna--the most enduring musical consequence of the war years.

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9780190692667

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If you love Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and his other late operas, you'll want to read Ian Woodfield's new book, Cabals and Satires. Professor Woodfield has discovered a treasure trove of new documents related to the early reception of Mozart's operas for Vienna, and synthesizes the new, and at times contradictory, evidence in a thoroughly engaging way. Now we know where Mozart stood in relation to his contemporaries and rivals during his lifetime. --Paul Corneilson, managing editor of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works Cabals and Satires is a remarkable achievement both for its new discoveries and for its profoundly original conception of a neglected topic: operatic rivalry in Vienna at the time of Figaro. Focusing on the head-to-head competition between the German and Italian troupes created by the reinstatement of the Singspiel troupe in 1786, Woodfield explores the larger culture of rivalry it fostered among composers, librettists, singers, individual operas, and theaters (court vs. suburban). This book will forever change our understanding of operatic culture in Mozart's Vienna. --Jessica Waldoff, author of Recognition in Mozart's Operas (OUP, 2006)

""If you love Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and his other late operas, you'll want to read Ian Woodfield's new book, Cabals and Satires. Professor Woodfield has discovered a treasure trove of new documents related to the early reception of Mozart's operas for Vienna, and synthesizes the new, and at times contradictory, evidence in a thoroughly engaging way. Now we know where Mozart stood in relation to his contemporaries and rivals during his lifetime."" --Paul Corneilson, managing editor of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works ""Cabals and Satires is a remarkable achievement both for its new discoveries and for its profoundly original conception of a neglected topic: operatic rivalry in Vienna at the time of Figaro. Focusing on the head-to-head competition between the German and Italian troupes created by the reinstatement of the Singspiel troupe in 1786, Woodfield explores the larger culture of rivalry it fostered among composers, librettists, singers, individual operas, and theaters (court vs. suburban). This book will forever change our understanding of operatic culture in Mozart's Vienna."" --Jessica Waldoff, author of Recognition in Mozart's Operas (OUP, 2006)

"""If you love Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and his other late operas, you'll want to read Ian Woodfield's new book, Cabals and Satires. Professor Woodfield has discovered a treasure trove of new documents related to the early reception of Mozart's operas for Vienna, and synthesizes the new, and at times contradictory, evidence in a thoroughly engaging way. Now we know where Mozart stood in relation to his contemporaries and rivals during his lifetime."" --Paul Corneilson, managing editor of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works ""Cabals and Satires is a remarkable achievement both for its new discoveries and for its profoundly original conception of a neglected topic: operatic rivalry in Vienna at the time of Figaro. Focusing on the head-to-head competition between the German and Italian troupes created by the reinstatement of the Singspiel troupe in 1786, Woodfield explores the larger culture of rivalry it fostered among composers, librettists, singers, individual operas, and theaters (court vs. suburban). This book will forever change our understanding of operatic culture in Mozart's Vienna."" --Jessica Waldoff, author of Recognition in Mozart's Operas (OUP, 2006)"

Author Information

Ian Woodfield is Professor of Historical Musicology at Queen's University Belfast, and has specialized in Mozart's operas for the last sixteen years. He published a monograph with OUP in 2000 entitled Music of the Raj: A Social and Economic History of Music in Late 18th-Century Anglo-Indian Society.

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