Bevan/Clayton/Imbrailo/Orchestra of Classical Opera/Page
(Signum)
Mozart’s work list is littered with incomplete projects, from pieces that are regularly performed in their unfinished state, such as the C minor Mass and the Requiem, to works for which the surviving material is too sketchy or skeletal to be really meaningful, including projected stage works such as Lo Sposo Deluso and L’Oca del Cairo. What there is of Zaide is more substantial. In 1779, Mozart started work on a Singspiel that, like Die Entführung aus dem Serail (which he began the following year), was to be set in a seraglio. By the time he had completed two of the projected three acts, though, not only had the prospects of performance evaporated, but he had received a commission from Munich for what would become his first unqualified operatic masterpiece, Idomeneo. The Singspiel was abandoned, without even a title; it became known as Zaide – after the leading character – when the music was first performed in the middle of the 19th century.
Continue reading...