The opera "Abduction from seralya": content, video, interesting facts, history

V.A. Mozart opera "Abduction from seralya"

Cheerful, bright opera of Mozart in love - it would seem, what could be better for a pleasant evening in the theater? Easy comic work "Kidnapping from seralya"History knows as the first opera in German, the embodiment of Austrian musical culture.

Summary of the opera Mozart "Abduction from the seralya" and a lot of interesting facts about this work, read on our page.

Summary of the abduction of seral

Turkey, 16th century, the country residence of Pasha Selim.

The bride Belmonte Constanta, together with her maid Blonde and his servant Pedrillo, was taken prisoner by the pirate and was sold to Pasha Selim. Belmonte gets to the villa in the hope of finding his beloved. But Osmin, whom he meets, refuses to help. Fortunately, here he sees Pedrillo - young people agree to save their brides. Pasha, meanwhile, is trying to win the favor of Constanza. Pedrillo leads Belmonte to the palace under the guise of an architect.

Pasha gives Blond a service to Osmina, whose rejection the girl rejects and drives out of the room. Pasha again pursues Constanza with the same intentions, her loyalty to the bridegroom only inflames his passion. Pedrillo tells Blonde that Belmonte is here and plans to save them. The young man solves Osman and after he falls asleep, both couples reunite.

Belmonte and Pedrillo bring stairs to the garden to help their lovers escape, but Osmin finds them. He raises the guard, anticipating to see the traitors on the gallows. Belmonte pleads with Selim to take pity, promising that his father, the governor of Oran Lostados, will pay a generous ransom. But it turns out that Lostados is a longtime enemy of Pasha, and he is only too glad to betray the torment of his son.

Selim allows Belmonte and Constance to say goodbye to each other. When the lovers have already come to terms with the approaching death, the wise Pasha decides that his mercy will be the best revenge and will let all lovers go to Osmin's apparent displeasure.

A photo

Interesting Facts

• The Abduction from the Serale is one of the thirty most popular operas in the world. This is the fifth most performed opera. Mozart.
• Three weeks after the premiere of the opera, Mozart married his beloved, Constance Weber, after ... kidnapping her. The reason for this was not the romantic Turkish sultan, but the prose stance of the girl’s parents against marriage to the composer.
• Constance is the most technically complex of all parts for soprano in Mozart’s operas.
• For the role of Pasha Selim, producers often invite famous dramatic actors.
• Two years earlier, in 1779, Mozart had the opportunity to demonstrate his abilities in the singspiel on the Turkish theme. And by order of the emperor. The opera was called “Zaide” and told about a Christian girl who, with the help of her lover, tried to escape from the palace of the Turkish Sultan. Of course, the couple was captured, death was hanging over them ... But Mozart got carried away with "Idomeneo" and did not complete this work, so there was not even a hint of exactly how the story could have ended. One thing is for sure - Stephanie got acquainted with excerpts of the score of “Zaide”, therefore he invited the composer to continue the Turkish research in “Abduction from the seral”.
• In addition to the opera “Abduction from Séral”, Mozart voiced the oriental theme in Violin Concerto No. 5, also referred to as “Turkish Concert” and "Rondo alla turca" from A Major Sonata.

• Initially, the opera should have been timed to coincide with the visit to Vienna of the Russian heir, Pavel Petrovich.
• Despite the fact that there were not so many successful works in the singspiel genre, we owe him a lot of the appearance of the operetta and the musical.
• The plot of the European beauty in captivity of the eastern ruler found its development in the opera D. Rossini "Italian in Algeria".

The best numbers from the opera "Abduction from seralya"

"Martern aller Arten" - aria of Constanta (listen)

"O Wie Ängstlich ..." - Belmonte's aria (listen)

"Vivat, Bacchus" - duet of Osmin and Pedrillo (listen)

The history of the creation and productions of "the abduction of seral"

The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Joseph II, was seriously concerned about the development of the German national musical genre - the Singspiel. He assigned the corresponding task to the head of the Viennese court of Burgtheater, Gottlieb Stephanie. The latter drew attention to the young composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who recently arrived in Vienna, and offered him a plot on a fashionable Turkish theme at the time. Stephanie wrote the libretto, however, this fact has a scandalous color: as a basis he took Christophe Friedrich Bretzner's work "Belmont and Constanza" without asking the author, and also making significant changes, which made the latter very angry.

On July 29, 1781, Mozart received from Stephanie a finished text, which, however, in the course of composing music, underwent considerable changes by the composer. Ambitious young Mozart eagerly set about conquering Vienna. The dates of the opera are constantly changing. At first, the composer was given only two months, then they were postponed until November, and after - and not until next summer. A year later, on July 16, 1782, the premiere of Abduction from the Seral took place in Burgtheater. The main parts were sung by Katharina Cavalieri (Constanza), Valentin Adamberger (Belmonte) - the favorite singers of Emperor Joseph. The success of the audience and box office exceeded all expectations. The composer himself in a letter described the reaction of the public as "going crazy" (according to the opera). The work was highly appreciated by his eminent contemporaries - I. Goethe, K.V. Glitch and K.M. von Weber. A year later, the opera was staged in Prague, where it also became truly folk - Mozart's melodies were even sung on the street.

In Russia, the opera was brought by a German troupe in 1802, 16 years later, it sounded already performed by Russian singers. A new reading of the opera brought the era of art nouveau, which were close to the oriental and fabulous motifs. At the beginning of the 20th century, The Abduction from the Serral experienced a lot of productions throughout Europe.

Opera hero who does not sing

The sinspiel genre suggests an abundance of conversational dialogues; nevertheless, it is rather unusual that one of the main characters of the Abduction from the Seral, Pasha Selim, does not sing at all. There was a legend that Mozart simply did not find a suitable melodic basis for expressing such a controversial, wise, cunning, domineering, but noble character. Of course, there is little confidence in such a version - the author of Idomeneo seemed to have no more limits for expressing feelings through music.

Then why doesn't Pasha Selim sing? The explanation is most likely prosaic. In the original libretto of Bretzner, this character was spoken. In addition, Mozart did not have a worthy candidate for this role: the winning tenor part in the opera already belonged to Belmonte, and in the bass part of Osman, public favorite Ludwig Fisher. Who should be the third male leader to at least not play against them? But the main reason was probably that in the enlightened era of Joseph II, the word played the most important role. And the image of Pasha was the emperor himself, who was the ruler of the new formation in the representation of Mozart and Stephanie.

The soul of Pasha Selim is very difficult to uncover - because he does not sing, he cannot musically express his emotions. He is a didactic example of a noble ruler, but at the same time - an unhappy person: a mature man, burning from an unrequited passion for a young girl. A rival is young, love, and yes even is the son of a sworn enemy. His courage, wealth and virtues are not enough for personal happiness.

"Abduction from seralya" on video

You can get acquainted with the opera through video recordings of European performances:

• Performance of the Salzburg Festival, 2013, production by A. Martaler. In the main parties: D. Rankatore (Konstanz), T. Moretti (Pasha Selim), H. Camarena (Belmonte).
• The performance of the Zurich Opera, 2003, directed by H. Perlemuter. In the main parties: M. Hartelius, KM Brandauer, P. Bechala.
• Performance of the Bavarian State Opera, 1980, directed by K. Handorf. In the main parties: E. Gruberova, T. Holtzman, F. Araiz.

"Kidnapping from seralya"became the only box-based singspiel in history. Alas, Joseph II’s hopes for this genre did not justify themselves, soon the stage of the Vienna theaters was captured by Italian opera, and the main co-author Mozart became Lorenzo da Ponte. However, four years later, the composer will still write “The Director of the Theater” with Stephanie Singspiel, and the last work of Mozart for the music scene will be “The Magic Flute”, also created in the Singspiel genre.