(Vienna, July 27, 1782, to his father.)
42. "My opera was performed again yesterday, this time at the request of Gluck. Gluck paid me many compliments on it. I am to dine with him tomorrow."
(Vienna, August 7, 1782, to his father. [How Mozart and Gluck differed in principle on the relation between text and music the reader has already had an opportunity to learn. H.E.K.])
43. "The most necessary thing is that the whole be really comical; then, if possible, there should be two equally good female parts, one seria, the other mezzo carattere; but one must be as good as the other. The third woman may be all buffa, also all the men if necessary."
(Vienna, May 7, 1783, to his father, in Salzburg, where the Abbe
Varesco was to write an opera libretto.)
44. "It would be a pity if I should have composed this music for nothing, that is to say if no regard is to be shown for things that are absolutely essential. Neither you, nor Abbe Varesco, nor I, reflected that it will be a bad thing, that the opera will be a failure, in fact, if neither of the principal women appears on the scene until the last minute, but both are kept promenading on the bastion of the fortress. I credit the audience with patience enough for one act, but it would never endure the second. It must not be."
(Vienna, December 6, 1783, to his father. The opera in question, entitled "L'Oca del Cairo," was never finished.)
45. "Abbe Varesco has written over the cavatina for Lavina: a cui servira la musica della cavatina antecedente,—that is the cavatina of Celidora. But that will never do. In Celidora's cavatina the words are comfortless and hopeless, while in Lavina's cavatina they are full of comfort and hope. Moreover it is hackneyed and no longer customary habit to let one singer echo the song of another. At best it might only be done by a soubrette and her sweetheart at ultime parti."
(Vienna, December 24, 1783, to his father. The Italian phrase is a direction that the music of a preceding cavatina might be used for a second cavatina.)
46. "It is much more natural, since they have all come to an agreement in the quartetto to carry out their plan of attack that the men leave the stage to gather their helpers together, and the women quietly retire to their retreat. All that can be allowed them is a few lines of recitative."