The interest which was taken by great poets in the elevation of the vaudeville is exemplified by Goethe; after "Erwin und Elmire" and "Claudina von Villabella" were written, his intercourse with his early friend Christoph Kayser[ 26 ] (b. 1736) caused him to attempt the construction of vaudeville after the received type of the Italian operetta. His first experiment was "Scherz, List und Rache," which he began in 1784, and sent at once to Kayser for composition;[ 27 ] the two first acts were ready the following year, and were well thought of in Weimar;[ 28 ] in Rome, whither Goethe was followed by Kayser at the end of 1787, they finished the operetta together.[ 29 ] But Goethe thought that the operetta DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL. was extravagantly mounted,[ 30 ] and complains himself that a defective conception of the intermezzo had led him to spin out the trivial subject into innumerable musical pieces, which had been treated by Kayser quite after the old-fashioned models. "Unhappily," says Goethe, "adherence to the old principles caused it to suffer from poverty of parts; it never went beyond a terzet, and one felt inclined to wish that the doctor's medical books might be endowed with life to form a chorus. All the pains we took, therefore, to confine ourselves within narrow and simple limits went for nothing when Mozart appeared. The 'Entführung aus dem Serail' threw all else into the shade, and our carefully worked-out piece was never heard of again at any theatre."[ 31 ]
A closer examination of Mozart's opera will make it clear to us why it threw all others into the shade. The plot of Bretzner's[ 32 ] "Entführung aus dem Serail," written for André in 1781, is simple and in no way original:—
Constanze, the beloved of Belmont, is in the power of the Pasha Selim, who has confined her in his seraglio, and sues in vain for her love. Belmont has been made aware of her place of confinement by Pedrillo, his former servant, who has also fallen into the hands of the Pasha, and become the overseer of his gardens; Belmont hastens to liberate his beloved. In seeking Pedrillo he stumbles upon Osmin, overseer of the country-house in which the action takes place; and both he and Pedrillo (who is even more obnoxious to Osmin from his known love to Blondchen, Constanze's waiting-maid, whom Osmin seeks to win) are rudely repulsed by Osmin. In the meantime Pedrillo succeeds in recommending Belmont to his master as an accomplished architect; Selim takes him into his service, and Osmin is reluctantly obliged to admit him to the country-house. In the second act Blondchen makes short work of Osmin's arrogant jealousy in respect of her, and Constanze remains constant against the renewed attempts of the Pasha. Hereupon Pedrillo inveigles Osmin into drinking with him, and renders him harmless by means of a sleeping potion; the freedom thus obtained is employed by the lovers in an interview at which their flight the following night is determined on. In the third act this is put into effect. Pedrillo ALTERATIONS IN THE LIBRETTO. gives the sign, Belmont escapes with Constanze; as Pedrillois carrying off Blondchen, Osmin enters still half asleep; they contrive to escape but he causes them to be pursued, and both couples are brought before the Pasha. They are condemned to death, but the Pasha, moved at last by their self-sacrificing love and fidelity, pardons and unites them.
The original libretto is arranged for a genuine vaudeville. All the dramatic interest lies in the spoken dialogue; the songs are, with a few exceptions, superfluous additions, and imply a very moderate amount of execution. Mozart undertook to indicate to Stephanie where and how, in the interests of the composer, alterations should be made, and only left to him the framing of the text, with which it was not necessary to be so particular, if only the situations were well arranged in their main features. The principal point, next to giving to the musical element of the piece its due prominence as the most fitting expression of lyric sentiment, was the proper consideration of the individualities of the performers themselves. Fortunately this task was not complicated in the way which had so often been the case. Madame Cavalieri was certainly more of a bravura singer than anything else, and neither her appearance nor her acting was effective; but Adamberger and Fischer were just as Mozart would have had them, both as singers and actors, and Fischer especially was an extraordinarily gifted artist. The part of Osmin, which was created for him, shows the influence of a congenial spirit on the conceptions of the creating artist. When Mozart was fairly embarked in the work, he wrote to his father about the libretto and the alterations already made in it (September 26, 1781):—
The opera began with a soliloquy which I have begged Herr Stephanie to turn into a little ariette, and also, instead of the two chattering together after Osmin's song, to make a duet out of the dialogue. As we have given the part to Fischer, who has an excellent bass voice (although the Archbishop once told me he sang too low for a bass, and I assured his grace that he would sing higher next time), we must give him something to do, especially as he is such a favourite with the public. In the original book Osmin has only one little song, and nothing else but the terzet and finale. I have given him an aria in the first act, and he is to have another in the second. I have trusted the aria altogether to Stephanie, the music was ready before he knew a word about it.
DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL.
These alterations were of specially good dramatic effect in the first scene, and Osmin's song called to life the first German comic aria which deserves to be called great. In the second act the dialogue between Blondchen and Osmin becomes a duet; on the other hand, a superfluous duet between Constanze and Blondchen is very rightly omitted. Instead of it Constanze has the great bravura song "Mar-tem aller Arten," chiefly as a concession to the singer; for the repetition of the scene in which she scornfully rejects the Sultan's proposals is in every way superfluous. Blondchen's second song—newly inserted—is, however, quite appropriate; in it she expresses her joy at her approaching deliverance; so that the original duet is really embodied to a certain extent in these two songs.
But the chief alteration which Mozart contemplated was in the conclusion of the second act. In Bretzner's text the abduction scene is treated as a grand ensemble movement, with which the third act commences. A long and elaborate duet between Belmont and Pedrillo, who are lying in ambush, makes the beginning, and then Constanze appears and is carried off by Belmont. After Pedrillo has climbed up to Blondchen in the window, Osmin comes out of the house still heavy with sleep; but he sees the fugitives and has them pursued and brought back by his guard; they beg for mercy, seek to regain their liberty by bribery—in vain; Osmin rages, and all the characters are in a state of excitement.
Mozart's quick eye saw that this scene, bringing together all the characters in a succession of rapidly varying and contrasting situations, forms the culminating point of the opera; he wished, therefore, that this "charming quintet, or rather finale, should be placed at the close of the second act." He also saw that this transposition would necessitate other important alterations. The second act could be kept together very well by the mutual understanding of the two lovers; but the third act, for which nothing was reserved but the unravelling of the knot by the clemency of the Sultan, if it was to have any substance or interest, "must be provided with an entirely new intrigue." The difficulty ALTERATIONS IN THE LIBRETTO. of finding this seems to have put a stop to the alteration, and the original arrangement remained. But for Bretzner's insignificant finale to the second act there was substituted an elaborate quartet, which expresses in music the reunion of the lovers in its various aspects of joy and jealousy, of disputes and reconciliation. An air for Belmont precedes this; it is well-fitted for the situation, and is intended also as a concession to the singer, for in this act, where all the other characters come to the front, Belmont had originally nothing to sing but the ensemble music.
Mozart began the composition of the ensemble movement at the commencement of the third act. The greater part of the duet between Belmont and Pedrillo before the romanze was sketched out by him in his usual way, the voices and bass written in full, the accompaniment indicated here and there. It breaks off, however, in the middle; and Mozart appears to have purposely laid it aside, convinced that the scene must be differently treated.[ 33 ] The ensemble was given up; Mozart saw that it would throw the whole opera out of gear, and would concentrate the interest and the action at the wrong place. The abduction scene was confined to dialogue, only Pedrillo's romanze being left; in addition, songs for Belmont and Osmin were inserted, both highly characteristic. The duet for Belmont and Constanze, which follows, is altered only in the words, not in the situation; the closing catastrophe it was thought well to modify. In Bretzner's version the Pasha Selim, who is a renegade, recognises in Belmont his son, which leads to the dénouement;