The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384: Overture

Composer: MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus
  • Mozart began work on Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1781. It premiered in Vienna in 1782.1
  • The work is a 3-act Singspiel (“sing-play:” German-language opera with spoken dialogue. The Magic Flute is also a Singspiel.)2
  • The work’s librettist was Gottlieb Stephanie, director of Austria’s National Singspiel. He adapted the libretto from Christoph Friedrich Bretzner’s opera libretto Belmont und Constanze.3
  • Story: Constanze and her maid Blonde have been kidnapped and forced into a harem by the Pasha Selim and his guard Osmin. Belmonte and his servant Pedrillo come to the rescue.4
    • Part of the inspiration for this opera’s “Turkish” setting was the Turks’ (unsuccessful) siege of Vienna in 1683.
    • Despite some flagrant (but historically typical) anti-Muslim racism in the story, it can also be noted that in the end Selim, a Muslim convert, turns out to be a more honorable ruler than Belmote’s Christian father.
  • The instrumentation was inspired by the sound of Turkish Janissary bands, one of the world’s oldest types of military bands.5
    • The Janissary bands were known to use drums, bells, triangles, and cymbals.6 This overture’s percussion includes timpani, triangle, cymbals, and a military snare drum.7
  • This opera was considered one of Mozart’s crowning achievements during his lifetime.

“All our endeavours … to confine ourselves to what is simple and limited were lost when Mozart appeared. Die Entführung aus dem Serail conquered all.“

Goethe, from his Italienische Reise (1787)8

Abduction from the Seraglio was “the pedestal upon which his fame was erected.”

From one of Mozart’s obituaries, from the Musikalische Korrespondenz der Teutschen Filarmonischen Gesellschaft (4 January 1792)9

Sources

  1. Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233. 
  2.  Julian Rushton, “Entführung aus dem Serail, Die,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed November 26, 2019, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000006411. 
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5.  “Mozart – Turkish March (Rondo alla Turca from Sonata No. 11), ClassicFM (November 4, 2014), accessed November 27, 2019, https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/music/turkish-march-rondo-alla-turca/. 
  6.  “Janissary music,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (September 26, 2018), accessed November 27, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/Janissary-music. 
  7. “Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K.384 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus),” IMSLP, accessed November 27, 2019, https://imslp.org/wiki/Die_Entf%C3%BChrung_aus_dem_Serail,_K.384_(Mozart,_Wolfgang_Amadeus).
  8. Eisen and Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online.
  9. Ibid.

Cut IDs

42421