Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus – Apollo et Hyacinthus (with German libretto)

(b. Salzburg, 27 January 1756 – Vienna, 5 December 1791)

seu Hyacinthis Metamorphosis (1767)

Intermedium in three acts (K. 38) on a libretto by Rufinus Widl

Preface

Admirers of Mozart’s operas – and who of us is not? – are usually surprised to discover that his earliest essay in the genre is not in Italian (La finta semplice, 1768) or German (Bastien und Bastienne, 1768), but in Latin. Indeed, it is surprising enough to think that operas in Latin were composed at all, at least before the twentieth century (Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, 1927, and the many works of Carl Orff). The reasons for this unusual beginning to Mozart’s operatic career had to do with traditions specific to Salzburg, and more particularly to its Benedictine university

Read full preface / Ganzes Vorwort lesen > HERE