Gomaz has been betrayed into the power of the Sultan Soliman and set to servile tasks. He has won the love of Zaide, who is in the seraglio of the Sultan, but the passion of the latter for her affords little hope to the lovers. Finding Gomaz, overcome with toil, asleep in the garden, she leaves him her likeness. This leads to a declaration of their mutual love. To them attaches himself Alazim, the Sultan's favourite, and apparently the overseer of the slaves, who represents the humane and enlightened Mussulman. He procures for them Turkish dresses, and accompanies them in their flight. At the beginning of the second act we find the Sultan in violent wrath at the treachery he has just discovered. He rages against the fugitives, whom Zaram undertakes to pursue and capture. They are, in fact, soon brought back, and Soliman is not moved to clemency either by the prayers and constancy of Zaide, or by the exhortations of Alazim. In what way a happy denouement is at last brought about cannot be conjectured.[ 30 ]
This serious operetta is written in the manner and after the scale of the vaudeville of the time; it does not depend upon the executive powers of the performers nor upon large expedients, and the standard throughout is a modest one. The orchestral combinations prove that it was intended for performance in Salzburg, and the treatment of the separate parts may have had reference to the available personnel.
Zaide lays no claim to anything but a certain amount of fluency. The part of the Sultan requires a strong penetrating voice, but for the rest the requirements of the music are well within the compass of ordinary theatrical singers; musical feeling, and a natural, correct judgment Mozart always displays, because they were in fact a part of himself which could not be laid aside.
In the construction of the songs the traditional arrangement of the Italian aria is not closely adhered to. An effort is evident to make use of the fundamental law requiring contrasting motifs to be compacted into a whole, in developing the individuality of the characters and of the dramatic situations. Nevertheless, the influence of the old tradition is visible in many phenomena, such as the change of tempo, the long ritomelli, the division of the different motifs by regular rests, and their amplification. Yet it is no longer servile obedience to an external type, but an evident determination to evolve the form out of the given situation.
Every artist, no matter how many-sided his genius, feels his nature impelled in a certain direction in which his creative strength works freely and independently, while other paths remain strange to him or are altogether closed. Experience and cultivation go far to equalise his powers, but they are powerless to alter the original impulse. Now dramatic representation makes demands upon the artist for the satisfaction of which he must not indeed overstep the bounds of his individuality—that no man can do with impunity—but he must stretch them to their extremest limits. Here it is that he seeks aid from the poet. The latter can elevate the musician by the strength and vividness of his situation and characters, by the style and vigour of his language, while it needs but little to stimulate his musical production to activity. This aid was denied to Mozart when as a young man he first sought to write dramatic music in its true sense. The first act of the opera before us has no events except the love passages between Gomaz and Zaide, which take their peculiar tone from the mixture of pity for suffering innocence and from the danger threatening in the background. Here Mozart is quite in his element. The COURT SERVICE IN SALZBURG. tendency and fervour of his own sentiments are involuntarily expressed; but, graceful and interesting as is this first act, the poetical expression of the words discovers nothing of the more delicate features of the music. Again, in the second act, the Sultan raging in jealousy, Zaide at first beseeching, then also furious, Alazim moralising—these are elements in the treatment of which Mozart might well look for aid from the poet. And here it was that the poet left him in the lurch altogether. We fancy ourselves in a marionette-show when the Sultan sings:—
Ich bin so bos als gut,
Ich lohne die Verdienste
Mit reichlichem Gewinnste;
Doch reizt man meine Wuth,
So hah' ich auch wohl
Waffen Das Laster zu bestrafen,
Und diese fordern Blut.
And Zaide:—
Tiger! wetze deine Klauen,
Freu' dich der erschlichnen Beut'!
Straf ein thörichtes Vertrauen
Auf verstellte Zartlichkeit!
Komm nur schneli und tödt' uns beide,
Saug' der Unschuld warmes Blut,
Reiss' das Herz vom Eingeweide
Und ersättge deine Wuth
The music totters under the weight of such words as these. The songs, which follow one after the other, are indeed well conceived and carefully executed, and even for the most part characteristic; but their characterisation is all external, and when suggested by different touches in the text it is rarely happy. There is a want of harmony and balance, as well as of impulse and warmth, so that the really beautiful separate ideas have no proportionate effect. It is remarkable that these songs are all too long, and their cadenzas are especially tedious, as if quantity was to make up for quality. Further adherence to the antiquated aria form is particularly noticeable; as if, when the musical construction no longer proceeded directly from the impulse ZAIDE—QUARTET. of the dramatic situation, the old forms involuntarily asserted their sway. The quartet (16) in which the musical and dramatic interest is, as it were, concentrated, contrasts very favourably with the solo songs. The dramatis personæ are all happily characterised; the Sultan, implacable in his anger, Gomaz seeking to console Zaide, who, in her turn, strives to purchase his life by the sacrifice of her own, and Aiazim, overcome with grief at being unable to see a way out of the complications that he himself has brought about. Here too we have a conflict of opposing emotions faithfully and accurately delineated, and all directed to one central point; it is, in fact, a situation which fulfils all the essential conditions of musical representation. Here then Mozart is in his element. The different characters are drawn with a steady hand, every emotion is definitely and accurately expressed, and the elements thus gained are employed as materials for a construction which is as faithful to the laws of musical organisation as to the requirements of the dramatic situation. The quartet thus fulfils the two essential conditions of dramatic music, and reveals itself as a consistent and harmonious piece of work, the separate motifs of which are beautiful and expressive, while the interest is kept alive by alternation and climax, and a vivid dramatic picture is produced by the artistic treatment of musical forms. The grouping of the voices in manifold variety of combination displays, as if on a ground plan, a symmetrical, well-disposed musical edifice. As they proceed they develop out of the simplest situations the most varied shades of sentiment, so that the music carries into the innermost recesses of the mind and heart what the words have merely hinted at. Even the actual musical formulas, such as the entry of the voices in imitation, produce, in the right place, such a direct and vivid effect that they appear to have been invented for the special case. As to the main conception on which the construction of the quartet rests, it might, if the violent rage of the Sultan were considered as the chief point, have been made more passionate and agitated without overstepping truth of expression; but Mozart has in preference emphasised the more fervid and reserved COURT SERVICE IN SALZBURG. emotions of the other characters, to which the expression of anger must be subordinated. This conception has perhaps been suggested by the greater ease which it afforded for the introduction of the necessary reconciliation of the characters; partly, also, a more quiet and contained piece might appear to be of better effect after so many lively and agitated songs; it is certain, however, that it was the conception most in accordance with Mozart's nature as an artist.
