Mozart and Salieri: The School of Jealousy

François Boucher, Lovers in a Park, 1758 (detail). Image source: Timken Museum of Art

In my previous post Mozart and Salieri: The Magician's Cave I mentioned that during Mozart's lifetime Antonio Salieri was by far the more popular composer. That began to change shortly after Mozart's death in 1791. Throughout the rest of the decade Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) continued to be performed regularly at Emmanuel Schikaneder's Theater auf der Wieden, leading to the revival of Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Rescue from the Harem) and then the Mozart-Da Ponte operas in German translation. Salieri stopped composing operas after 1804, and even his most popular operas gradually fell from the repertory. In the meantime Mozart was increasingly recognized and embraced by writers such as E.T.A. Hoffmann ("Don Juan") and Alexander Pushkin ("The Stone Guest" and "Mozart and Salieri"). By the end of the 19th century Mozart was considered (rightfully) as one of the greatest composers ever to have lived, and Salieri was all but forgotten, except (unjustly) as his rival and nemesis.

Today a highly unscientific search of the global library catalog WorldCat turns up more than 30,000 books on Mozart and his works in all languages, including more than 3,000 that are categorized as biographies (the first, by Franz Xaver Niemetschek, was 78 pages long and published in 1798, seven years after Mozart's death). By contrast, there are only about 600 books on Salieri and his works in all languages, including four dozen biographies (the first, by Albert von Hermann, was 24 pages long and published in 1897, seven decades after Salieri's death). For every book published about Salieri, 50 have been published about Mozart.

Antonio Salieri, by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, 1815 (detail). Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Four of Mozart's operas, including the three with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte, are among the ten most performed operas in the world, according to Operabase.com; Salieri's operas have been all but absent from the stage for more than two hundred years. But without Salieri there would have been no Mozart-Da Ponte partnership. When Da Ponte came to Vienna in early 1782, he carried a letter of introduction to Salieri from Caterino Mazzolà, poet of the court theater in Dresden and librettist of Salieri's Venetian opera La scuola de' gelosi (The School of Jealousy). A year later the letter bore fruit. Da Ponte wrote in his Memoirs,

. . .I chanced to hear a rumor that Joseph II was considering reopening an Italian Opera in his capital; and remembering Mazzola's suggestion, the thought flashed upon me that I might become a poet [librettist] of Caesar. . .I called on Salieri, to whom I had delivered Mazzola's letter on my arrival; and he not only encouraged me to apply for the post, but volunteered to speak himself to the Director of Spectacles [Count Rosenberg] and to the Sovereign personally, of whom he was particularly beloved.

Salieri managed the matter so deftly that I went to Caesar for my first audience, not to ask a grace, but to give thanks for one. [1]

Despite never having written a play, much less an opera libretto, Da Ponte was appointed to the position of poet to the court theater and held this position for eight years. During that time he wrote libretti for both Mozart and Salieri, as well as several other composers. One of his first tasks after receiving his appointment was the revision of Salieri and Mazzolà's La scuola de' gelosi when it was chosen as the inaugural production of Joseph's new opera buffa troupe.

Lorenzo Da Ponte, engraved by Michele Pekenino after a portrait by Nathaniel Rogers, ca. 1822 (detail). Image source: Wikimedia Commons

While it's incontestably true that Mozart is a greater composer than Salieri, it's also true that Mozart and Da Ponte borrowed (and generally improved) musical and textual ideas from Salieri's operas. This borrowing has become even clearer from the new productions and recordings that have begun to appear over the past decade or so, and La scuola de' gelosi is a case in point. 

In La scuola a Count, whose affections are estranged from his loving wife, plans to seduce a woman from a lower class: Ernestina, the wife of the merchant Blasio. There are disguises, false assignations, and a denouement in a garden where all the couples surprise one another and the jealous Blasio and the straying (and also fiercely jealous) Count are chastened by their faithful spouses.

If this sounds reminiscent of the plot of Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), it's actually the other way around: La scuola was written in 1778, six years before Beaumarchais' play La folle journée, ou Le mariage de Figaro was first produced and eight years before Mozart and Da Ponte's Figaro had its première.

La scuola prefigures Figaro not only in its plot and text, but also in its music. In Act II La scuola's Countess sings an aria in which she yearns for the return of her husband's love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcNyXHJDi7Y

The singer is Francesca Mazzuli Lombardi with L'Arte del Mondo conducted by Werner Ehrhardt. The words of the aria:

Ah, sia già de' miei sospiri sazio il fato e sazio il Ciel! Abbastanza a' suoi martiri mi serbò destin crudel. Fra gli orrori d'avversa sorte dovrei sempre i di passar? Il tormento della morte men terrible mi par. Torna, torna, amato sposo al desio del primo amor, e bei giorni di riposo sien compenso al mio dolor.

Ah, may both fate and Heaven be sated with my sighs! I have been tortured enough by my cruel destiny. Am I doomed to dwell always among the horrors of suffering? The torments of death seem less terrible to me. Come back, come back, beloved husband to the desire of our first love, and beautiful days of peace will reward me for my sorrow.

"Ah, sia già de' miei sospiri" may remind you of the arias sung by the Countess in Figaro. In "Porgi amor" she sings, "O love, offer me some relief / For my sorrow, for my sighs! / Give me back my beloved / Or let me die" with the same descending melody on the word "morir" with which La scuola's Countess sings "crudel." And the structure of "Dove sono" from Figaro is audibly similar, at least to my ear:

https://youtu.be/syG9qMEE8K4?t=125

The singer is Nadine Sierra in live performance with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Patrick Summers. (For my post about Nadine Sierra and this production, see The Marriage of Figaro.) The words of the aria:

Dove sono i bei momenti Di dolcezza e di piacer? Dove andaro i giuramenti Di quel labbro menzogner? Perchè mai, se in pianti e in pene Per me tutto si cangiò, La memoria di quel bene Dal mio sen non trapassò? Ah! se almen la mia costanza, Nel languire amando ognor, Mi portasse una speranza Di cangiar l'ingrato cor!

Where are those lovely moments Of sweetness and pleasure? Where have the promises gone That came from those lying lips? Why, if all is changed for me Into tears and pain, Has the memory of that sweetness Not vanished from my breast? Ah! if only, at least, my faithfulness, Which still loves amidst its suffering, Could bring me the hope Of changing that ungrateful heart!

The musical and textual echoes among these arias suggest that the Countess in Figaro was modelled at least in part on the Countess in La scuola.

Wolfgang Mozart ca. 1782, unfinished portrait by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange (detail). Image source: Wikimedia Commons

La scuola also seems to have inspired Mozart and Da Ponte's Così fan tutte (All women are the same). When Blasio and the Countess learn of the Count's scheme to seduce Blasio's wife, a mutual acquaintance (who himself yearns after the Countess) advises them to turn the tables on the Count by pretending to be lovers and making him jealous. Shades of Don Alfonso advising (and manipulating) the couples in Così. And in La scuola's finale Blasio and the Count offer as a reason for men to remain faithful that "tutte son la stessa cosa" (all women are the same). Da Ponte's original title for Così fan tutte was La scuola degli amanti (The School for Lovers), and he originally offered it to Salieri as a sequel to La scuola de' gelosi. But after composing the opening numbers Salieri did not continue, and Da Ponte took the libretto to Mozart. (For ways in which both Così and Don Giovanni echo the Salieri-Giovanni Casti opera La grotta di Trofonio, please see Mozart and Salieri: The Magician's Cave.)

The 2015 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi recording of La scuola de' gelosi by L'Arte del Mondo conducted by Werner Ehrhardt is charming. All of the vocalists acquit themselves more than honorably, and the women (Francesca Lombardi as the Countess, Roberta Mameli as Ernestina, and Milena Storti as Carlotta, the Countess's maidservant) are especially good. While Massimiliano Toni's continuo fortepiano occasionally may be a bit overactive for some tastes, Ehrhardt's tempos are well-judged and the playing of the ensemble L'Arte Del Mondo sparkles. The full recording is available on YouTube and elsewhere, and is recommended; it received an honorable mention in my Favorites of 2019: Recordings. Salieri may not have been Mozart, but being Salieri was more than sufficient.

Image source: Presto Classical

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1. Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, translated by Elisabeth Abbott. J.W. Lippincott, 1929, p. 129. Da Ponte's gratitude to Salieri had waned by the end of his tenure as court theater poet. In 1791, after Joseph's death and the accession of his brother Leopold II, Da Ponte was dismissed. He wrote out a list of enemies, among whom he listed his "Principal enemy: Sig. Salieri." One of Salieri's crimes, in Da Ponte's view, was that "he assigns prima-donna roles to [Caterina] Cavalieri," Salieri's mistress, instead of to Adriana Ferrarese, Da Ponte's mistress. Da Ponte's intriguing came to nothing, and his accusations were mis-aimed: Salieri is unlikely to have prevailed on Leopold to dismiss Da Ponte, if for no other reason than that his influence was sharply diminished under the new ruler. Under the new regime Salieri himself lost his position as musical director of the court theater, although he remained as Hofkappellmeister.