Nevertheless, the Seraglio had caused the success of one of the emperor's favourite enterprises. It was the first work produced at the German Opera, established by Joseph II., at Vienna. Until that time, Italian opera predominated everywhere; indeed, German opera, that is to say, lyric dramas in the German language, set to music by German composers, and sung by German singers, could not be said to exist. There were a number of Italian musicians living at Vienna who were quite aware of Mozart's superiority, and hated him for it; the more so, as by taking such an important part in the establishment of the German Opera, he threatened to diminish the reputation of the Italian school. The Entführung aus dem Serail was the first blow to the supremacy of Italian opera. Der Schauspieldirector was the second, and when, after the production of this latter work at the new German theatre of Vienna, Mozart proceeded to write the Nozze di Figaro for the Italians, he simply placed himself in the hands of his enemies. At the first representation, the two first acts of the Nozze were so shamefully executed, that the composer went in despair to the emperor to denounce the treachery of which he was being made the victim. Joseph had detected the conspiracy and was nearly as indignant as Mozart himself. He sent a severe message round to the stage, but the harm was now done, and the remainder of the opera was listened to very coldly. Le Nozze di Figaro failed at Vienna, and was not appreciated, did not even get a fair hearing, until it was produced some months afterwards at Prague. The Slavonians of Bohemia showed infinitely more good taste and intelligence than the Germans (led away and demoralized, however, by an Italian clique) at Vienna. At Prague, le Nozze di Figaro caused the greatest enthusiasm, and Mozart replied nobly to the sympathy and admiration of the Bohemians. "These good people," he said, "have avenged me. They know how to do me justice, I must write something to please them." He kept his word, and the year afterwards gave them the immortal Don Giovanni.
MOZART AND SALIERI.
At the head of the clique which had sworn eternal enmity to Mozart, was Salieri, a musician with a sort of Pontius Pilate reputation, owing his infamous celebrity to the fact that his name is now inseparably coupled with that of the sublime composer whom he would have destroyed. Salieri (whom we have met with before in Paris as the would-be successor of Gluck) was the most learned of the Italian composers at that time residing in Vienna; and, therefore, must have felt the greatness of Mozart's genius more profoundly than any of the others. When Don Giovanni, after its success at Prague, was produced at Vienna, it was badly put on the stage, imperfectly rehearsed, and represented altogether in a very unsatisfactory manner. Nor, with improved execution did the audience show any disposition to appreciate its manifold beauties. Mozart's Don Giovanni was quite eclipsed by the Assur of his envious and malignant rival.
"I will leave it to psychologists to determine," says M. Oulibicheff,[75] "whether the day on which Salieri triumphed publicly over Mozart, was the happiest or the most painful of his life. He triumphed, indeed, thanks to the ignorance of the Viennese, to his own skill as a director, (which enabled him to render the work of his rival scarcely recognisable), and to the entire devotion of his subordinates. He must have been pleased; but Salieri was not only envious, he was also a great musician. He had read the score of Don Giovanni, and you know that the works one reads with the greatest attention are those of one's enemies. With what admiration and despair it must have filled the heart of an artist who was even more ambitious of true glory than of mere renown! What must he have felt in his inmost soul! And what serpents must again have crawled and hissed in the wreath of laurel which was placed on his head! In spite of the fiasco of his opera, which he seems to have foreseen, and to which, at all events, he resigned himself with great calmness, Mozart, doubtless, more happy than his conqueror, added a few 'numbers,' each a masterpiece to his score. Four new pieces were written for it, at the request of the Viennese singers."
M. Oulibicheff's compatriot Poushkin has written an admirable study on the subject presented above in a few suggestive phrases by Mozart's biographer. Unfortunately, it is impossible in these volumes to find a place for the Russian poet's "Mozart and Salieri."
After the failure of Don Giovanni at Vienna, a number of persons were speaking of it in a room where Haydn and the principal connoisseurs of the place were assembled. Every one agreed in pronouncing it a most estimable work, but, also, every one had something to say against it. At last, Haydn, who, hitherto, had not spoken a word, was asked to give his opinion.
"I do not feel myself in a position to decide this dispute," he answered. "All I know and can assure you of is that Mozart is the greatest composer of our time."
DON GIOVANNI.
As Salieri's Assur completely eclipsed Don Giovanni, so, previously, did Martini's Cosa Rara, the Nozze di Figaro. Both these phenomena manifested themselves at Vienna, and the reader has already been reminded that the fate of the Nozze di Figaro is alluded to in Don Giovanni. All the airs played by the hero's musicians in the supper scene are taken from the operas which were most in vogue when Mozart produced his great work; such as La Cosa Rara, Frà due Litiganti terzo gode, and I Pretendenti Burlati. Leporello calls attention to the melodies as the orchestra on the stage plays them, and when, to terminate the series, the clarionets strike up Non piu andrai, he exclaims Questo lo conosco pur troppo! "I know this one only too well!" With the exception of Non piu andrai, which the Viennese could not tolerate the first time they heard it, none of the airs introduced in the Don Giovanni supper scene would be known in the present day, but for Don Giovanni.
Don Giovanni, composed by Mozart to Da Ponte's libretto (which is founded on Molière's Festin de Pierre, which is imitated from Tirso di Molina's El Burlador di Siviglia, which seems to have had its origin in a very ancient legend[76]), was produced at Prague, on the 4th of November, 1787. The subject had already been treated in a ballet, in four acts, for which Gluck wrote the music (produced at Parma in 1758; and long before the production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, it had been dramatised in some shape or other in almost every country in Europe, and especially in Spain, Italy, and France, where several versions of the Italian Il Convitato di Pietra were being played, when Molière first brought out his so-called Festin de Pierre. The original cast of Don Giovanni at Prague was as follows:—